Habit changing gizmo
2008
I received the Xmas present which has the potential to turn me into a couch potato. Yet I’m already in love with it. For months, I’ve observed from afar, shall I or shall I not?
Finally, I plonked the money down for the 160GB version. It was only a pre-paid order as the Epi Apple store didn’t have stock. Less than 24 hours later, I had taken possession of the Apple TV.
But it would be another 24 hours before I was buying my favourite TV episodes from iTunes and watching it in full HD glory. The salesman forgot to tell me that I needed a HDMI cable ‘cos Apple TV didn’t come with it. Neither did my TV.
Anyway, setting up was easy, plug one cable to the power and hook up the two gadgets via the HDMI cable and Apple TV automatically comes on. However, navigation is easy but the configuration took a bit of time. First time I had to read an Apple manual, so not very easy for the average TV viewer.
What I found difficult was how to tune to iTunes and getting connected. The manual misses that one step. Instead it gives instructions on how to sync iTunes on your computer with the the TV.
As the first step, I just wanted to watch movies and I want to buy/rent the content. It took about 30 minutes of fiddling and finally, I was able to buy it.
If you’re used to browsing iTunes on your computer, the experience on a TV takes your breath away. iTunes simplicity of presenting content makes it so easy to browse what tickles your fancy – sci-fi, animation, classics, drama, non-fiction – in movies or TV episodes. Once you’ve keyed in your user ID, buying stuff is 3-steps away. Browse listings, select, hit buy, enter password and you’re done. Depending on whether it’s a movie or TV episode, you can start watching within 5 minutes,
That’s the best part. On the computer, the downloads can take a bit longer. You’ve to wait for the entire episode or movie to download before you can start to view it. With Apple TV, you can view the movie as the download continues. It’s a bit jarring as you near the end ‘cos you’ve to wait a few seconds now and then for the content to download completely.
For under $600, it’s certainly worth the money. But because it’s so easy to buy content, I’m afraid that my pocket will empty much faster than when I could buy/rent iTunes content on my computer.
But then, watching movies on widescreen TV is so different from watching it on a laptop.
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You are now officially an Apple TV junkie. To feed your addiction and cravings, you might want to check out
http://www.appletvjunkie.com/
What’s the site about?
“Due to the lack of a complete Hi-Def movie list, ATVJ was created to fill a void left by Apple Inc. when Apple TV 2.0 was released. Our goal is to provide Apple TV users the most comprehensive list of HD movies available”