AppleTV: Pros and Cons
21/03/07 15:06
First views of the AppleTV...
We have spent our first few days with AppleTV and so far we like its simplicity and ease of use. We also see its potential, and how Apple may add more features in the future.
Here are some of the pros and cons of the product, based on our initial experiences:
Pros:
1/ It's so easy to use: the AppleTV works like an iPod. Navigating involves scroll up or down a list, and clicking to move in and out of sub-folders.
2/ Apple Remote: this is the standard remote control which has been shipping with all Apple laptops, Mac minis and iMacs for some time. You quickly see how simple and easy this remote is, particularly noticeable when it sits next to a Sony or other remote controls.
3/ Streaming: streaming movies from your Mac to the Apple TV is flawless in our experience. We have all of our movies on a PowerMac G5 on the third floor, and we play them on the first floor, with the AppleTV streaming the movie over our Airport Express network. It takes a few seconds for the movie to prepare, but this isn't too long to be irritating.
4/ Internet connection: previewing TV Shows and Movie Trailers is an excellent feature. We just await the ability to actually purchase and download these shows in Ireland...
5/ To add to the above, the wireless networking works great. The AppleTV finds your wireless network and connects with such ease. Then, connecting wirelessly to your iTunes collections on your various Macs in the house is so simple.
Cons:
1/ iPhoto: you can't stream your photos from your Mac and have to sync them onto the AppleTV before you can view them. This is annoying as streaming keeps our AppleTV clear of content and having to put the pictures on to the AppleTV uses up a large portion of the internal 40GB hard drive.
2/ No download: you can't connect to the iTunes store and download content. This is a shame as we think this would be a great feature. At present you can browse and view movie trailers, so the technology is there.
3a/ Turn it off!: to put the Apple TV to sleep, you have to press and hold the play button for 6 seconds. There is no "off" button anywhere. This is a bit irritating as we hate leaving our TV and audio equipment on stand-by all day.
3b/ Ok its really small: the startup screen/movie for the Apple TV is great, but only appears once when you set up the box for the first time. We would like it if Apple had put an on/off feature in, and this movie played each time you started up the AppleTV.
4/ Although we like the way the AppleTV is modelled on the iPod, we find that titles of tracks or movies are truncated on the screen. About half of the screen space is taken up with the album or movie art, and we can't but think that we would rather see the full title of our movie. If you scroll down to the track/movie name, it slowly moves from right to left, revealing the hidden part of the title. But we still feel that this is awkward, especially when you are trying to identify a movie with a long name, which has sequels and so may have a I, II or II etc. at the end of a long title.
5/ Lastly, after a few days we found that we have used all of the features on the AppleTV and want more. There are many features which could be expanded. For instance the screen saver which starts after a few minutes when music is playing, doesn't allow much customising. You can choose "Photos" as the saver, but you can't select a particular album. So the AppleTV works great for what it is suppoed to do, but we can't help but feel some features have been held back, and we hope Apple offer free software updates over the next few months.
One other observation: when we were browsing the TV trailers section, which updates over the internet to the iTunes store, we noticed that they matched the latest episode shown in Ireland, and not the latest episode shown in the US. We expected the US shows to be present as there is currently no facility to download shows on the Irish or UK iTunes stores. Does this point to the system being in place and downloads of shows are coming soon to Ireland and the UK? We certainly hope so.
Simon Spence/2007
We have spent our first few days with AppleTV and so far we like its simplicity and ease of use. We also see its potential, and how Apple may add more features in the future.
Here are some of the pros and cons of the product, based on our initial experiences:
Pros:
1/ It's so easy to use: the AppleTV works like an iPod. Navigating involves scroll up or down a list, and clicking to move in and out of sub-folders.
2/ Apple Remote: this is the standard remote control which has been shipping with all Apple laptops, Mac minis and iMacs for some time. You quickly see how simple and easy this remote is, particularly noticeable when it sits next to a Sony or other remote controls.
3/ Streaming: streaming movies from your Mac to the Apple TV is flawless in our experience. We have all of our movies on a PowerMac G5 on the third floor, and we play them on the first floor, with the AppleTV streaming the movie over our Airport Express network. It takes a few seconds for the movie to prepare, but this isn't too long to be irritating.
4/ Internet connection: previewing TV Shows and Movie Trailers is an excellent feature. We just await the ability to actually purchase and download these shows in Ireland...
5/ To add to the above, the wireless networking works great. The AppleTV finds your wireless network and connects with such ease. Then, connecting wirelessly to your iTunes collections on your various Macs in the house is so simple.
Cons:
1/ iPhoto: you can't stream your photos from your Mac and have to sync them onto the AppleTV before you can view them. This is annoying as streaming keeps our AppleTV clear of content and having to put the pictures on to the AppleTV uses up a large portion of the internal 40GB hard drive.
2/ No download: you can't connect to the iTunes store and download content. This is a shame as we think this would be a great feature. At present you can browse and view movie trailers, so the technology is there.
3a/ Turn it off!: to put the Apple TV to sleep, you have to press and hold the play button for 6 seconds. There is no "off" button anywhere. This is a bit irritating as we hate leaving our TV and audio equipment on stand-by all day.
3b/ Ok its really small: the startup screen/movie for the Apple TV is great, but only appears once when you set up the box for the first time. We would like it if Apple had put an on/off feature in, and this movie played each time you started up the AppleTV.
4/ Although we like the way the AppleTV is modelled on the iPod, we find that titles of tracks or movies are truncated on the screen. About half of the screen space is taken up with the album or movie art, and we can't but think that we would rather see the full title of our movie. If you scroll down to the track/movie name, it slowly moves from right to left, revealing the hidden part of the title. But we still feel that this is awkward, especially when you are trying to identify a movie with a long name, which has sequels and so may have a I, II or II etc. at the end of a long title.
5/ Lastly, after a few days we found that we have used all of the features on the AppleTV and want more. There are many features which could be expanded. For instance the screen saver which starts after a few minutes when music is playing, doesn't allow much customising. You can choose "Photos" as the saver, but you can't select a particular album. So the AppleTV works great for what it is suppoed to do, but we can't help but feel some features have been held back, and we hope Apple offer free software updates over the next few months.
One other observation: when we were browsing the TV trailers section, which updates over the internet to the iTunes store, we noticed that they matched the latest episode shown in Ireland, and not the latest episode shown in the US. We expected the US shows to be present as there is currently no facility to download shows on the Irish or UK iTunes stores. Does this point to the system being in place and downloads of shows are coming soon to Ireland and the UK? We certainly hope so.
Simon Spence/2007
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