Apple TV - Part 2: Apple Enters the Digital Home
by Anand Lal Shimpi on March 26, 2007 1:22 AM EST- Posted in
- Mac
Photos
Photo support is, once again, straightforward with Apple TV.
Click on photos and then you can immediately click on slideshow to go through every picture in your album, of course played to music synced to your Apple TV. Unlike all other content, photos cannot be streamed to Apple TV. Mac users can sync their iPhoto albums to Apple TV, while PC users have the option of using Adobe Photoshop Album 2.0 or Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0, or later.
The slide show mode is easily configured: you can adjust options like time between transitions, the type of transitions, what music to play while the slideshow is going on, etc. Also note that the photos you sync to Apple TV will be displayed as a screen saver should you stop interacting with the device.
There is no easy way to browse all of your photos unfortunately; it looks like things were meant for you to set up your slideshows and photo albums beforehand on your Mac/PC and simply stream the mostly prepared setup to your Apple TV, further cementing its role as a very passive device in the digital home.
Final Words
As expected, Apple TV is absolutely brilliant if all of your content (music, movies, TV shows) is purchased from the iTunes Store. Apple TV is the perfect extension of iTunes to your television set, and as the most popular online digital music store it's not far fetched to assume that there is a market for such a device. While the iPod expanded Apple's customer base, the Apple TV seems to be a device that Apple built for its current users - and some of its most dedicated ones at that.
For those of us who aren't heavily invested in the iTunes Store, Apple TV still has quite a bit of merit. The interface is very fast, clean, and to the point. The device itself is small, quiet, and setup couldn't be easier. From a usage standpoint, it does serve as a good way of getting MP3s to your TV, albeit an expensive one at that. Our real concerns come into play once we start dealing with other, non-iTunes content.
Although Apple's first goal with Apple TV appears to be simplicity, we would've liked more from the device. We mentioned integration with online movie listings and ratings when it comes to accessing movie trailers; it's a simple addition that would significantly increase the usefulness of the box. Building a good passive media extender was fine a few years ago, but now our demands for information are much greater than before.
Then there's the obvious issue of not being able to play video content encoded in formats other than Apple TV-friendly H.264. While transcoding is always an option, it takes a great deal of time, thus hampering the instant gratification we often seek when trying to watch anything on a TV. So while it's possible to get just about all of your video content onto Apple TV, it's not easy to do and for $299 we want something that is.
Not all content can be synced either; what we want isn't just a media extender that will play DivX/Xvid content, but what about videos from YouTube? Showing a bunch of people over at your home a hilarious clip on YouTube is the perfect example of what a device like Apple TV should be able to do. To be able to stream all of this content from your computer to your TV, only to have to get up and head back to the computer the moment you want to watch something on YouTube just doesn't seem the way things should work.
These aren't simple requests, we understand, but they are necessary, in our opinion, to build the perfect media extender. Apple TV was a good attempt, but in its current form it doesn't have the broad appeal that other Apple products have been able to attain. Apple TV does a great job of serving its niche: the loyal iTunes Store customer. Above and beyond that, however, it loses its value.
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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.