David Pogue Reviews the Apple TV 270
necro81 writes "David Pogue of the NY Times has devoted his weekly column to the newly released Apple TV. He also has a video blurb to go with it. He compares it to the XBox360 and Netgear's EVA8000, which also deliver content traditionally trapped in a PC onto a TV set. Apple TV Pros: setup is as easy as can be, it's small and silent form factor will be good for home theaters, and the interface and remote control are intuitive. Cons: HDTV only, playback is limited to formats playable within iTunes, and no internet functionality other than movie trailers."
Re:Shouldn't this be the "iTV"? (Score:4, Interesting)
Eh (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Give me a call when it plays my MYTHTV recordin (Score:5, Interesting)
What's the point? (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is what is going to make it worth it.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Video Podcasting.
There are already a plethera of great video podcasts available, and with AppleTV you can sit and watch them in your livingroom, not on a computer or 2" ipod video screen.
Sure, a bit of effort every day, you can download the same content and burn it to DVD, or get it to play some other way on your TV, but with AppleTV and a smart iTunes playlist, you can have a couple hours of content that's new and interesting and commercial-free every single night.
This isn't a strike at Tivo, this is a stike at Prime Time programming of all kinds.
Re:What's the point? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'll admit I'm mystified why they didn't make it a general DVR at the same time. My best guess is that it's coming but that the software wasn't ready yet; Apple's got very high standards for such things. But I haven't heard any complaints from TiVo customers, and my limited experience with them has been pleasant.
On the other hand I've heard much bitching about Unbox. Maybe Apple felt that they could get ahead of that and make people prefer to download rather than record; they'd rather sell you Lost for $2 than record it for free. They're certainly being way forward-looking by aiming at HDTVs, but they're not selling HDTV content yet, so they seem to be premature or out of touch.
it's all about the 'pods? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now in theory you can take the signal from your computer, and send it to the TV. Of course, you might have to buy some of your own cables/get hardware. Thus Apple's solution. Provide a simple box that takes care of all of that for you. It's a small box that just magically streams all your content (across your various computers) to a single point, which can be hooked up to a TV.
BUT, as a consumer this doesn't make sense. I like the idea of picking what shows I want to watch, but I actually don't want to own most of them. If the Apple TV allowed me 'rent' a show, I would buy one in a second. Or if I could pay a monthly fee (say: 10 shows subscription), again, I'd totally bite. But paying premium to own something I plan on only watching once has absolutely no appeal to me. It's too expensive. It's still cheaper in the long run to just get cable if you go above 4-5 shows (daily show, colbert report, myth busters, robot chicken
I don't see Apple doing this anytime soon, as it seems to go against their current business model. So instead they seem to get some strange compromise. Something almost useful
Maybe Apple has something up their sleeves. I keep waiting, but it isn't looking too likely...
Re:HDTV (component 480i counts) only? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The Apple deal (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Apple missed the ball on this (Score:3, Interesting)
By leaving out the tuner, they left out two of the four killer apps for a set top box: pausing live TV and season passes for time shifting TV shows. Of the other two killer apps (streaming content from the internet and from one's private network) one is a bit of a pain because you have to go to a dedicated workstation to buy movies off of the internet. As of right now, I'd rather buy a Mac mini with an EyeTV dongle and add DVD playback and a tv tuner for just over double the cost of the AppleTV.
Too bad I can't afford to do that.
Not that I'm arguing that this product won't be successful. It just won't be as successful as it could have been. I'll wager, though, that Apple will add the missing feature by the end of this calendar year.
Re:Give me a call when it plays my MYTHTV recordin (Score:0, Interesting)
Honestly the Mediagate 350 is the absolute best choice of ANY stand alone HD video playback device, it can play from the internal hard drive (up to a 500gb) as well as network shares and play every single video format file I can find to throw at it. (I bet it runs mplayer in it's linux os)
I am tired of these medicore devices that come out that require a PC to make them play the content I want. No PC people. the perfect device is a unit that will have some hard drive in it and can play any feed from democracy or RSS feed. Anything else is crap.
Yes I am calling the apple tv product crap. Its great for the locked inot Itunes world, but for real iptv it is utter crap.