Apple TV - Part 2: Apple Enters the Digital Home
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 26, 2007 1:22 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Gather 'round, let's watch movie trailers
The Apple TV is a purely passive machine; you can view all the content you want on it, but you cannot under any circumstances acquire new content. Sure you can sync to other computers, but you cannot purchase new content from the iTunes Store from the comfort of your couch. While this is great for preventing impulse buys, it also weakens the experience.
In the early days, the point of a digital media extender was to simply get content off of your PC and access it in some other room. These days, the requirements are far greater. We don't just want a device that can stream (or in this case, copy) data from your computer, we want a device that can extend some of the functionality of your PC as well.
The Apple TV does a great job giving you access to all of the movie trailers available on its website, but where's the integration with Rotten Tomatoes or Google Movie Listings? Apple TV lets you gather all of your friends around and get excited about an upcoming movie, but then you still have to go back to your Mac or PC to do the obvious next step in your quest for entertainment. We're not asking for a full fledged web browser as that's counterproductive, but what we are asking is for something a little more capable than what we've been given.
The analogy extends far beyond just watching movie trailers; if the Apple TV is designed for the user who has a lot of content purchased from the iTunes Store, it sure does a terrible job of encouraging its users to purchase from the store. The Apple TV interface allows you to get previews of the top 10 movies, music, and TV shows currently available on the iTunes Store but if you decide you want any of them you have to head back to your computer to actually buy them.
We understand that it's far easier from a security standpoint to only allow a transaction at one point on the network, but we can't help but list the inability to purchase content on the Apple TV as a flaw.
For what it's worth, the actual inclusion of the top 10 most popular content on the iTunes Store is a nice addition. It does give you a great way to preview things you may like, even if it requires a trip back to the desk to purchase/pirate it.
Easy access to movie trailers is something Apple has always done well and the Apple TV handles it no differently. It's far easier getting access to the latest movie trailers on the Apple TV than on the Xbox 360 for example; the very fast and simple interface is mostly to thank for that. Content streams incredibly fast from Apple's servers to the Apple TV, so quickly in fact that we believe the actual trailers are 480p and simply upscaled if you have a higher resolution display.
Despite having a quicker interface than the Xbox 360, Microsoft did do one thing better than Apple with regards to getting access to previews of content. On the Apple TV, you have no way of knowing what's new. You can get a list of all of the movie trailers you can download, but there's currently no support for showing you what's been added since the last time you checked. It's probably a trivial thing to add later on through an update, but it's the type of functionality that you'd honestly expect out of the box.
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ninjit - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
I'm a little surprised at your comment about the apple remote and the Macbook pro - it doesn't sound like you've used them together much.There's an option under the Security section of System preferences, that lets you select whether to disable the remote access or not.
The other (and much more reasonable) option, is to pair the remote that came with your Macbook to the computer - this is really what everyone should do.
Once paired, only that remote will work with your macbook, and you won't run into the issue you are having with the Apple TV
tuteja1986 - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
This device is good if you buy alot of itune stuff. It lacks in feature from being a true Home MCE box. Dual TV tunner , Xvid , DVIX , Ogg , MKV and other stuff that can have in a MCE box.Awax - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
How much is a MCE ?A MacMini can also play all this.
I think you missed the point : this is basically a iPod with no screen, no battery, HD ouput and Wifi+Ethernet.
feraltoad - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
I might have two video files on my PC I could extend with this. How can this be considered anything but crippled in regards to video? I think extenders would catch on but for the fact that all of them don't "Just Work" with your "digital home". Maybe Apple sees a "digital niche" for iTunes junkies? I certainly don't think they should use the word "TV" in it. TV=Mindless/EasyThis looks like a trial run to me. Apple must be throwing this out there to get some ideas for their AppleTV 2 that will have decent file support and support HD.
I don't think it could be put better than another poster in the AppleTV preview "Wow, Apple created a 2 yr old ultra mobile laptop."
shady28 - Tuesday, May 29, 2007 - link
I have both an XBox 360 and the iTV, and I'm a heavy iTunes user. The reality here is that the XBox 360 is nowhere near the ease of use and handiness of the iTV.In fact, I've put most of my DVD collection into iTunes at this point. Lots of programs are out there that can do this - I use Jodix Free Ipod video converter among others.
This makes the iTV able to select any movie or show from my collection and play it in my living room. That's an incredibly convenient feature. Other 'generic' DVR type devices are limited by their drive capacities, whereas my collection can grow on my PC with no effect on my iTV.
I'm not talking about pirated content here - I know a lot of people with large DVD collections that are messy and hard to manage. This makes it all a snap for the videos, plus I can listen to my iTunes music without having to hook up my ipod to my stereo - yes not a major problem, but one less thing to clutter up the living room.
For me at least, this was one of my better purchases as far as home entertainment goes.
yyrkoon - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
How about: 'Yay, Apple created another heaping pile, of overpriced s**t' ? If it wasnt the same person, then it was another poster who also said something along the lines of: 'This is nothing you could not do for yourself using MiniITX hardware', etc. With which I whole -heartedly agree.
Now that, that has been said, wake me when something truely innovative comes along ;)
rjmasotta - Saturday, August 11, 2012 - link
Question. I am looking to buy the Apple TV G3. I'm trying to solve an issue. I have a 1080p CEILING mounted projector (providing video only, no audio) which is currently wired with component video cables coming from a high-end receiver. The sound is produced from optical out of the reeiver to speakers. Current video inputs are from cable box and DVD. I have an iPad 2 and want to stream video from it( Hulu, Crackel, HBO) to the projector. I don't want to remove the 35' of component cables and replace with HDMI) What I'm thinking is to use the HDMI output from the Apple TV into a HDMI to Component converter device, then take the component output produced and push it through the component video cables which run up, into, and over the ceiling to the projector. I would also use the optical output from the Apple TV to the second optical port on the receiver for sound.Does this sound like it will work?
elestein - Saturday, March 23, 2019 - link
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