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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shermanikk - Monday, July 30, 2007 - link
You were having trouble with the Front Row remote controlling the MBP in this review, this will actually happen to all Front Row devices visible unless you pair them. It's pretty simple, take a Front Row device (such as the macbook pro) and hold the remote right in front of the IR sensor and holding the "Menu" and "Next" buttons for about five seconds. After that a little chain link icon should show up on the Macbook Pro and now only that remote will control that Macbook Pro. Very handy.vision21 - Wednesday, April 4, 2007 - link
I have read about Galaxy IPTV DMG 3500 - Digital Media Gateway that is available now for $180. Here is a link:http://www.supermediastore.com/galaxy-3500-iptv-dm...">http://www.supermediastore.com/galaxy-3...id=bizra...
Anand should review this product as well as next version of XBox 360 with HDMI to give us some options compared to Apple TV.
heulenwolf - Sunday, April 1, 2007 - link
Wow, its amazing how much whining was generated in response to this article. I'm glad Apple made this device because I think it solves problems I have:My computer is up in my loft, my HDTV is down in my living room, using my PC as a media center sucks, and I want to see and hear my content on the way-too-damned-expensive 720p display I bought.
So it doesn't play DVDs. DVD players are throw-away devices costing ~$30 now. What real value would be added by including that function in a $300 device?
So it doesn't output 1080x. Apple doesn't provide 1080x content. They provide 640x480 which scales fairly nicely up to 720p. If you bought a 1080x display, chances are it has its own, high-quality scaler so why should Apple bother?
Sure it would be nice if it had a few more features but its got the important basics and costs no more than an iPod. Given than it runs some version of OSX, I wouldn't be surprised to see development continue and more features added in the near future. Its a consumer electronics device so its not supposed to support the diy, modding, or pirated content communities. Its supposed to play Apple's content and "just work." According to the review, it does.
I agree with the article's assessment that the iPod's popularity stemmed from its support for the standard mp3 format. The lack of a comparable, unifying video standard hurts the AppleTV's chances. The video codec alphabet soup is maddening to average users. I hope that the market organizes itself better and that Apple supports whatever standard comes about in future updates.
JAS - Friday, March 30, 2007 - link
I've seen the Apple TV in person and liked several things about it -- but the modest video bitrates and lack of wider codec support are enough to turn me away. Perhaps some of the negatives will be addressed by Apple firmware updates. I expect version 2.0 of this product to be a whole lot better.Sunrise089 - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
Nice taste on including the Top Gear shots towards the end of the article. I am curious however, since you aren't in the UK, did you catch the rare (at least in my market) TV rerun of the episode, or do you know of a place to view them online? Youtube doesn't really seem to be able to keep them up for very long at all, which makes it difficult getting friends into the show.ninjit - Wednesday, March 28, 2007 - link
I noticed the top gear clip too - I'm originally from the UK, and it's one of my favourite shows.It was shown on BBC world and then discovery channel for a while, but in a highly edited form, each episode was about 25mins as opposed to the actual 55mins in the UK.
Bittorent is the best place to find episodes of Top Gear (if it is not broadcast where ever you may live)
PokerGuy - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
Anand did a nice job providing an in-depth review of Apple TV and it's functionality, but I think I can provide a one-word review that captures it equally well: "Garbage".This is quite simply an overpriced useless piece of junk that will not appeal to anyone but the hard core apple fanatic and the ill-informed who ask the Best Buy salesperson what they should get. Bottom line, it doesn't do much of anything, offers very little value, has all sorts of restrictions and limitations.
My one question: why the sugarcoating Anand? It's clear from the review that you know this thing is a pile of dog crap. Why sugarcoat it?
Imazalil - Tuesday, March 27, 2007 - link
that's because it isn't, to some people. In my opinion the apple tv is meant to be a nieche (sp?) product. There are people out there that do actually buy tv shows on itunes and don't pirate / rip them. These people need an easy way to view their bought shows on their tv's which usually aren't near their computer. Despite of all the hype that the media put on this thing it is not the next ipod or imac, this just lets you view your tv shows on your tv. It's not a tivo, it's not a xbox (360) or anything else.If you have an xbox, tivo, your own homebuilt media center, hell even an mini mac connected to your tv, this is obviously not for you. Does it cost too much, in my opinion yeah, but then i'm a cheap bastard who downloads his tv shows from, ahem, other sources.
Ignore the media hipe, all apple promised was to get your iProgram files (tunes, photos, tv shows etc) easily onto your tv, they have done this in spades. Yes it costs more the a lot of people are willing to spend, but then if you are paying for tv shows in itunes you have a bit of cash to spare right?
ninjit - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
It just occured to me that for $200 more you get a mac mini, with a faster processor, more hard drive space, more memory, gigabit ethernet portAnd it still has all the features of the Apple TV - apple remote to use with Front row, built-in wifi (and bluetooth, which the Apple TV doesn't have).
And you can get quicktime plugins to let you play ALL media (divx, xvid, avi, etc.)
Hook up the mini to your HDTV through the DVI port, and voila your set (it'll operate just like the Apple TV because of front row)
The apple TV really isn't a good deal at all. It should be priced under $100 to be worth it
ninjit - Monday, March 26, 2007 - link
I forgot to mention that it has a DVD drive for playing movies directly as wellSeriously anyone who buys this over the mini is very very misinformed.