An Apple TV update (v2.0.2) was made available last week. Though, I wouldn’t have known about it without reading Sean Alexander’s blog. Since moving about a month ago, I haven’t bothered unpacking Ben‘s unit. Other than the video podcasts, I don’t have a whole lot of love for this device. Speaking of which, we’re going to get going on the Battle Royale shortly – as a series of topical posts, rather than some massive essay.
Back to the ATV loaner… Periodically, in trying to use it, my HDTV has displayed an Apple logo without responding to remote control input – requiring a reboot to restore functionality. I had assumed the hard drive might be on the fritz after a jarring FedEx journey. But Sean has also been experiencing this issue and forum chatter indicates it may be related to a faulty HDMI handshake. Perhaps v2.0.2 resolves this. And if I ever hook the ATV up again, I’ll let you know.
Should I make you an offer for the thing, so it doesn’t sit in the closet for the rest of its life? :-)
Once I’m done with it, Ben may be open to offers. I don’t think he particularly cares for it either. Hope for Take Two.5 or Third Time’s A Charm updates?
My wife was browsing the Sunday ads and saw the Apple TV listed. She had never seen or heard of it before and said “my, what doesn’t Apple do?”. I told her the Apple TV didn’t do TV unless you buy the TV shows from iTunes. She said “that can’t be right!” And we both agreed that you can’t have a device called “Apple TV” where you have to purchase TV shows that air for free as your only source of Television content. Add DVR capability and they may have something, but without it I just don’t see how it can really be successful.
I’m really hoping HDMI finds a way to die as a standard. I can’t hook my TiVo and Slingbox up the way I want to because of the HDMI “security” features. It does nothing for me as a consumer. Apparently it is also difficult for manufacturers to get right.
This is a bigger plug for Airport Express than AppleTV, but again I urge you to check out “Signal” at alloysoft.com, which allows you to control your itunes through your iphone.
(I swear I’m not affiliated with the company.)
Apple TV seems like it was created in an alternate universe where cable and satellite don’t exist and all content is delivered via the iTunes store and RSS. The Apple TV would be pretty cool if all media was distributed that way, but until that day it is fairly limited.
All that said, I love mine. After a bit of hacking it makes a great device for streaming content to a television. Once I hacked it for Xvid, Divx, etc playback and the ability to play video off network shares it became very useful. It is a beautiful form factor with a nice clean interface and is completely silent.
I quite like mine actually. Small, silent. Now I primarily use it to listen to music off my digital store on the PC, and to browse photos. I also share youtube clips sometimes, and watch occasional video podcasts. I haven’t watched any TV shows or movies on it so far, that’s what my Tivo is for. Whether I ever will, we’ll see…
I love this box. I think geeks trash on it because they want it to flip pancakes or take out the trash or do a million other things as well. Yes, DVR functionality (with CableCard support) and a Blu-ray drive would make it perfect. But right now, I love it just because it keeps me from having to drive to the video store. Could there be more content? Sure, but that’s only a matter of time. And the streaming podcast capability is simply unmatched. And I have had no technical problems with mine at all, other than my 11n connection has dropped a couple of times.
I can see the Apple TV usable if you want a box for renting movies and such – just seems expensive for what it does.
I don’t expect it to take out the trash :) , but tuning or time-shifting TV content sure would make it more usable. I’m coming from the standpoint of a SageTV user though – who does expect a lot so there are certainly those who would like the box – just doesn’t do enough for me to justify the price.
Given all the different things it does, I think the new price ($229) is actually pretty reasonable. And I appreciate the form factor. But something(s) about it just doesn’t work for me.
Dave, I thought you got ATV from Ben to do the shootout between AT, Vudu and 360. Is that still going to happen or are you going to wait until Sony gets off their lazy behinds and releases their own TV & movie rental/download service?
Yah, that’s the “Battle Royale” I referred to above in the post. I’m going to tackle it by topic, starting shortly. Speaking of Sony, their service may not be so far away… If I get around to it, I’ll post tomorrow on them.
This is a pipedream, but what Apple should do is take their hardware and UI wizardry and partner up with a cable provider to do their cable boxes and DVRs. Make the iTunes store part of the experience and you have a very compelling story for cable customers. After all, if Apple can redefine what a wireless phone should look like and do, why not crappy cable boxes too?
The Apple TV itself is interesting, but I want less boxes and billing accounts, not more. There’s not enough there to make it worth the effort on its own. Integrate that into a cable box and I’m all over it.
Chris–Apple TV is a competitor to the Cable Company, and in particular to their VOD service. Your cable co would rather you bought your movies from them. Witness the Unbox service vanishing from Tivo when they partnered with Comcast.
It would certainly be interesting what Apple could do with a DVR, say one that took cable cards. I’d love to see it myself. But I wouldn’t hold out for Apple’s UI on a box from the cable company–we’ve already seen what that did to Tivo. No thanks.