Initial Impressions by [Apple TV] Owners Thread

[FleurDuMal]

Hmm...reading some of the opinions on here has got me to change my mind about AppleTV. After being skeptical, it looks like the biggest thing ATV has going for it is user-friendliness. I managed to play with one for a bit at the Regent Street Apple Store, and I was really impressed by the UI. It makes FrontRow look amateurish.

Although I still think Apple has cocked up releasing it in the UK. Listening to the a sales guy trying to sell it to someone was frankly cringe-worthy. If the selling point is ease of use, and the Apple vision is iTMS->iTunes on Mac/PC->AppleTV->TV, then how are you supposed to sell ATV's movie streaming capabilities when there are no movies on iTMS?!?! The only people who will be interested in the UK in this will be techie people who know how to rip movies from their DVDs, the absolute antithesis of Apple's vision for this kit. Bizarre.

 

[Philberttheduck]

Egh. For the fanboys pretty much. But I still like it.

On the first day, I was thrilled. The second I was still happy. The third, I'm kinda over it, considering I have to convert all my files into mp4 (before you start yellin at me for pirating movies/tv shows, i actually enjoy ripping DVDs with handbrake into my mac).

Music wise, it's pretty good. It's like people have been saying: an iPod on your big screen. I'm actually pretty bored with the "Playing" screen, considering it's just album art and flips every 10 seconds. If they had the option of a visualizer, or something more visually pleasing in the background, I'd listen to music more. Add this to the fact that music stops playing when I leave from the "Music" menu, and I find it pretty annoying. Probably my biggest complaint there.

Movies and TV shows are pretty good. No real complaint. Only issues with iTunes: I want to edit all my TV series-on-DVD to the tv, but I have to edit the show's name ONE by ONE. There's no "edit multiple video files" that'll flow with the tv (to clarify, you can edit multiple video files, but it doesn't show up on your tv unless you go to "get info" and then "video" and manually plug in the name of the series, etc.). Hopefully that can be fixed in the next iTunes update.

Photos is pretty disappointing to me. You can't skip pictures (when randomly played, I get bored of certain pictures for the individual picture duration. so sue me). You really have to use iPhoto and edit your preferences, such as music choice, or else it plays randomly from your playlists in the music selection (or whatever playlist you have on). I feel bad for Windows users, because they're screwed unless they make a specific playlist.

Of course, typing is irritating with just the left and right (especially since you are forced to move from A to Z left to right, and can't move to the right of A to get Z/etc for your convenience).

I think it's stupid that you can't add certain media files into the tv HDD from another user's iTunes when you're synced to one already. My brother has some good music on his computer but I have to go to "Sources" and stream from his computer. I'd like to be able to add music from his into the HDD along mine and my dad's PC. I didn't expect Apple to treat the tv like a "pirate hub" to sync music into the HDD from every computer it attaches to. All I'd want is to get a playlist from others in the HDD. I'll be OK, but i find it inconvenient.

Overall, I wouldn't recommend this thing to non-fanatics. $300 bucks was stretching it for what it offers, but it's still pretty good. That said, I wouldn't call this a bang-for-your-buck purchase just yet (maybe 199 or 249 woulda been more reasonable, considering there is just a 40GB HDD). Get this thing to have a Mac on your HDTV, but I don't think the features justify the price.

btw, The XtremeMac cables are SOOOOOOOO worth it. 20 bucks for gold plated cables is a pretty damn good deal. And it's pretty damn sturdy, looking at the cord's build.