Apple TV: brilliant, but not for everyone - yet

Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Thursday, 22 March 2007 21:26

Opinion and Analysis

Look, let’s get one thing straight: the Apple TV is an iPod for your TV, and after having seen it last week at a local Apple specially set up for the press, it’s easy to see that it is a wonderful piece of technology that ‘just works’ as advertised, as Apple’s technology is famous for today.

It is not meant to be an interface for navigating the actual iTunes store right on your TV through the simple 6-button remote, although that would be no bad thing, despite Apple’s protests that it would complicate the box.

Apple says that the Apple TV is part of a system, and that system requires iTunes, and an iMac or a PC. Want more content? Go to iTunes, then let Apple TV either stream it from your PC’s hard drive, or let it transfer it to the Apple TV direct.

Especially when coupled with the fully featured US store, there’s a whole big swag of fantastic content to purchase and watch. Those out of the US still get the music, audio and video podcasts and audiobooks, and will just have to go through an extra step to watch their video content through the Apple TV interface, and it is this extra step that most people will be unhappy about. One other caveat: the Apple TV only works on widescreen TVs, so your old 4:3 CRT TV screen won’t cut it and you'll need to buy a new widescreen and preferably flatscreen TV.

Other countries will eventually get TV show and movie downloads, too, but TV licensing deals and a range of other factors will slow the process down in some countries, while others will likely get traditional video content sooner rather than later.

Whatis the Apple TV’s biggest competitor, that can be plugged directly into virtually any flat-screen’s TVs VGA or DVI port (instead of HDMI, as the Apple TV supports, in addition to composite) is the Mac Mini. It has the famous six button remote control, too. You can navigate through the Mac version of iTunes right on your TV screen.

You can play those DiVX and XviD download videos in full screen without needing special conversion software. You can do everything the Apple TV can do, and more – it’s a full computer with a wealth of software, can surf the web, play DVDs as well, can interface with a wireless keyboard and mouse so you can use it as a computer, and even has FrontRow, the Apple TV equivalent for regular Macs that has existed for some time now and works well enough to give you access to your iTunes content.

The only real difference between the two is that Apple TV is much cheaper than the Mac Mini, which is a full Mac OS X computer. If you don’t already have a Mac, and are interested in the Apple TV to experience iTunes content on your TV, the Mac Mini might cost more, but it’ll give you a real Mac computer experience, with all the Apple iTunes goodness you could want anyway.

But if you already have a Mac, or have a PC with tons of content in iTunes, you might be better off going for the cheaper Apple TV solution, which for the delivery of digital media content, is even simpler and more elegant than the Mac Mini.

And given the Apple TV was meant to do just that, and will undoubtedly be updated with new features and software updates through the network over time, as well as iTunes stores worldwide eventually getting the same access to the rich video content only available on the US iTunes store, the Apple TV is mission accomplished for Apple as they lay down a firm claim to the digital entertainment system of the future, in what is currently the biggest digital media battle of all time, being fought hard on all fronts by all the major players - Microsoft with Vista and the Xbox 360, Sony with the PS3, Cisco, cable and satellite TV operators and other online services including Joost, Babelfish, YouTube, TiVo and Amazon and plenty of others.

The whole digital media episode really is turning into the Greatest Show on Earth!