Apple TV Review
Summary
The Apple TV knows how to come up with a good thing in a compact package. This small media player can easily and quickly stream hundreds of photos, music, movies, and web shows from your computer to your widescreen TV. It is a total entertainment box, from popular Netflix HD movies to YouTube videos to Internet radio—all in one energy-efficient package. You don’t have to worry about crisscrossing cables because the compact box can be set up with a solitary HDMI cable for audio and video connections. You can also stream the media content of your choice over the built in Wi-Fi, such as your vacation photos presented like a slideshow on your big screen TV or your favorite music from your Mac or PC to the speakers in the living room. Two drawbacks of the Apple TV are that you are unable to pay any non–iTunes media files on the device (such as .avi or .mkv files) and that the maximum screen resolution is 720p.
Price $97.99
Sample Customer Quotes from Amazon
“Apple TV – Good Now, Potential to be Great”
“A great box for getting media from point A, B and C to your TV”
” Takes TV viewing to a new level”
Features
Apple TV is a good compact media content console which can easily stream web content to your big screen HD TV. It streams Netflix movies, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, and a lot more media content straight from a wired Ethernet connection or through your Mac or PC via a fast Wireless-N Wi-Fi network to your home theater system. All it takes is a single HDMI cable to set it up and connect to everything else. It also has an internal power supply, with low power consumption. It comes with an aluminum multi-button Apple Remote for easy access and control. On the other hand, you can also pair it with an iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch for greater access flexibility.
The Apple TV overall design is compact, simple, and quiet. It has its own internal fan so it is less likely to overheat from continuous use. It comes with a built-in 6-watt power supply and weighs less than one pound. Its dimensions are 3.9 x 3.9 x 0.9 inches.
A really neat feature of the Apple TV is “Airplay”. Airplay is a technology built into iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches. With a simple press of a button, you can send whatever you are watching or listening to on your mobile device directly to the Apple TV connected to your big screen TV. Airplay is a pretty amazing feature, that will eventually work to send anything on your iDevice to your Apple TV.
Apple TV can access a wide range of content, as outlined below.
Play Your Video Files on Your TV
| Play your own video files (in popular formats such as .avi or .mkv) | No |
| Maximum screen resolution | 720p |
| Hard drive storage | None |
| Wirelessly stream content from anywhere on your home network | Yes |
| Attach a USB drive | No |
Online Services
| Access Netflix (subscription required) | Yes |
| Access content from iTunes (account required) | Yes |
| Access content from Amazon on Demand (subscription required) | No |
| Access HD movies from Vudu (subscription required) | No |
| Access Vimeo (subscription required) | Yes |
| MLB, NBA, NHL (subscriptions required) | Yes |
| Access Hulu+ (subscription required) | No |
| Access Pandora (subscription required) | No |
| Browse the Internet | No |
| Use dedicated Apps (such as Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, …) | Yes |
Conclusion
Apple TV is great TV media player for anyone who turns to iTunes for their media content. It is easy to set up: from plugging the HDMI cable, connecting the optical cable, plugging the power outlet, and adding it to a wireless network. If you are a heavy user of .avi or .mkv files, then this box is not quite ready for you.
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