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Apple TV Review (40GB)

by Jake — last modified 03/26/2007 @ 14:51

A review of the first generation Apple TV which is the 40GB model.

Apple TV

Apple TV, iPod 80GB, iPod Shuffle

Apple TV Ports

Lost on Apple TV

Packaging & First Impressions

Inside our standard cardboard box was our black-boxed Apple TV ready to be opened up. Under the plastic was the familiar split folding box like the iPod ships in giving us one more clue that this really is an iPod for your TV. The contents won't blow you over as you get the Apple TV unit, a power cord and a remote. A basic guide pamphlet is also there should you need the extra help

We freed our Apple TV immediately and headed straight for our television to hook it up. Using component cables for video and digital optical out to our receiver we were able to get it up and booting in just a matter of minutes. First up was the Apple logo sitting in the middle of the screen followed by the opening video of all the television screens disintegrating as Apple TV takes over your world, and ours.

Worlds of Sync

The first thing we tried after running through all of the menus looking around like a kid with a new bb gun, was to connect up one of our computers the iMac 24" Core Duo. After getting the Apple TV on the network (802.11n don't cha know) which was nothing more than a long password typing, we hit the sources menu to pick our computer running iTunes. Once the code had been entered in iTunes and we had dismissed the register now screen we headed into the iTunes preferences. At first we choose just to sync up a few things but later went full boat choosing over 20GB of data. iTunes started syncing while we went back to playing with the Apple TV and the on screen menus.

We had a chance to look at all different types of media from ripped DVDs using Handbreak, to podcasts from NBC. It was interesting to see the differences in quality from one to the next. Newer (640 x 480) television shows from the iTMS did look much better while the album art and photos looked the best. Podcasts ranged from good of Diggnation to the very nice of MacBreak Weekly.

After the first half an hour of using the Apple TV remote we decided to just program our universal which worked much better.

Likes & Misses

The Apple TV does fill a nice spot in your living room if you have a lot of content in your iTunes. Streaming wireless music and watching podcasts and movies is a all done with the greatest of ease and lives up to the Apple promise of usability. The menu system is simple enough for most users and the album cover screen saver is a nice feature. While we did have some difficulty syncing a few times and thought it took longer than it should of over our 802.11n network we were over all very impressed with the unit and the features of the Apple TV.

This does, however, seem like a 0.9 product as they have a few glaring omissions. Clearly HD content from iTunes is the first and biggest. The people buying Apple TV do care and do have HD screens (if not us). The second and seemingly stupid missing feature is there is no way to turn it off. It is on all the time, gets pretty hot and we are not sure why it can't have a sleep or spin down mode which can be accessed through the menu. The other big missing feature is the access to the iTunes Music Store. It seems like such a duh to have an interface into store so users can buy music, shows and movies from their couch. Throw in a mini (iPhone anyone?) version of the Safari web browser and this would be a killer machine. Hopefully Apple is listening and will release a 1.1 version of the software with some of these enhancements.

UPDATE: To shut down the Apple TV just hold the Play/Pause button for five seconds. Easy (yet hidden)

Conclusion

The Apple TV is a good start on the way to getting computer content on consumer televisions. While it is missing some killer features it is a nice device and will be eaten up by the masses hungry for that kind of integration. If you are on the bleeding edge or can't get away from Steve's RDF, go ahead and get one today but if you can wait we think the next few updates will be the sweet spot.