The race to connect your TV to your computer and the Internet kicked into high gear when Apple Inc. introduced a slender, wireless set-top box called Apple TV.
This silvery little gadget is designed to play and display on a widescreen family-room TV set all the music, video and photos stored on up to six computers around the house – even if they are far from the TV, and even if they are all Windows PCs rather than Apple’s own Macintosh models. It can also pull a very limited amount of music and video directly off the Internet onto the TV.
Apple TV is tiny, just about eight inches square and an inch high; far smaller than a typical DVD player or cable or satellite box, even though it packs in a 40-gigabyte hard disk, an Intel processor and a modified version of Mac operating system. It has a carefully limited set of functions.
Yet it works great, and it is recommended for people who are yearning for a simple way to show on their big TVs all that stuff trapped in their computers. It works well with various combinations of Windows and Mac computers, with movies, photos, TV shows, video clips and music. And even without the fastest wireless network it can handle, it performs flawlessly. But it won’t work with older TVs unless they can display widescreen formatted content and accept newer types of cables.
Like the iPod before it, Apple TV isn’t the first gadget in its category. Several other companies have made set-top boxes or even TV sets and game consoles that could link the TV to the digital content on computers. But none has found a mass audience for this, mainly because they tend to be hard to set up and confusing to use.
Part of the secret of Apple TV is that, like most of Apple’s products, it doesn’t try to do everything and thus become a mass of complexity. It can’t receive or record cable or satellite TV, so it isn’t meant as a replacement for your cable or satellite box. It can’t play DVDs, so it doesn’t replace your DVD player. Its sole function is to bring to the TV content stored on your computer or drawn from the Internet.
Apple TV isn’t for that small slice of techies who buy a full-blown computer and plug it directly into a TV, or for gamers who prefer to do it all through a game console. And it is not for people who are content to watch downloaded TV shows and movies directly on a computer a screen. Instead, it’s for the much larger group of people who want to keep their home computers where they are and yet enjoy their downloaded media on their widescreen TVs.
Apple TV’s most formidable competitor is the Xbox360 game console from Microsoft, which, in addition to playing games, can also play back content from Windows computers on a TV. And Xbox360 can do something Apple TV can’t do, which is to directly purchase and download movies and TV shows from the Internet. But the Xbox costs 50% more than Apple TV, is much larger and stores only half the material.
It’s a beautifully designed, easy-to-use product that should be very attractive to people with widescreen TV sets and lots of music, videos and photos stored on computers. It has some notable limitations, but you will really like it. It is classic Apple: simple and elegant.
In tests, Apple TV performed perfectly in a house over a standard Wi-Fi wireless network with Pioneer plasma TV and six different computers – three Windows from HP and Dell, and three Apple Macs. Setup was a breeze, the user interface was clean and handsome, and video and audio quality was quite good. Unlike any of its rivals, Apple TV can play the copy-protected music, TV shows and movies purchased from the iTunes online store.
Apple TV’s most important limitation is that it can’t stream much video or audio directly from the Internet – yet. The capability to go directly to the Internet, bypassing the computers in your home, is built in, but is initially being used only to fetch feature film trailers and short preview clips of popular sings, TV shows and movies sold on iTunes store. Apple TV also won’t allow you to buy media directly from the iTunes store. You must first download content from the Internet or iTunes on a computer, and then Apple TV will grab it from the computer and play it on your TV.
Apple refuses to say if or when this direct-to-the-Internet capability will be expanded. But I fully expect Apple to add the capability to stream or download a variety of content directly from the Internet.
Apple TV is a pleasure to use. The setup is stunningly simple – plug the unit in and hook it up to the TV with a single cable (not included). The unit finds and connects with the Wi-Fi network almost instantly. Any song, TV episode, movie or photo you download or otherwise add to that one computer is automatically replicated on the Apple TV’s internal hard disk for playback on your TV. This synchronisation function works perfectly with both a Mac laptop and a Windows Vista desktop.
In addition to your single synchronised computer, you can designate up to five other computers as sources for your Apple TV. On the TV screen, Apple TV presents a simple, handsome list of content for each computer you choose to view. Media is divided into Movies, TV Shows, Music, Podcasts and photos. You can change among your various computers using a menu called Sources.
There are some drawbacks to Apple TV; it won’t work with most of the older TV sets. Also, the tiny, simple Apple remote control can’t control the volume on either Apple TV or your TV set or audio receiver, so you have to keep reaching for the TV or audio receiver remote. But, all in all, Apple TV is a very well-designed product that easily brings the computer and the TV together.