Tuesday the president of the Maui Apple Users Society (MAUS) asked me to stand in for him at this weeks meeting. The subject of this meeting was to be the new AppleTV, so my part was to take his new one home, figure out how it worked, then present it to the understandably impressed inmates.

MAUS is a pretty mellow group, our membership drive consists of occasionally asking people to join. The meeting attendance varies from a few geeks to a full house depending on the surf conditions and the weather.

The first thing I realised is that nothing I own will plug into an iTV, I mean AppleTV. My stereo will, but that runs off a spare PowerBook or an Airport Express. My ten-year-old analog television on gets turned on by my wife, and only then for Oprah, the Travel Channel, House and the Daily Show. We get the rest of our news and entertainment from the web and these things called books - you’ve heard of them? 

I may write more detailed accounts of the AppleTV and there will be a Podcast about it as soon as I can get Carmen back into her chair. - i promise. Until then, I’ll just say that wile I personally can’t imagine buying one - I’m saving up for a $100 book called “Recording the Beatles” - it does everything it says better than you could imagine.

Because I couldn’t set it up at home, I had to go from ignorance to demo in a half-hour as the room filled. The TV in or borrowed our Lab at Maui Community College had all the right parts, and I had uncharacteristically  read a few pages in the teensy users manual.

The set-up is about as hard as configuring an iPod and the on-screen menus are brilliant, beautiful and practical.  We got three different Macs hooked up with no trouble and the performance was as good as the content.

In short the AppleTV is an iTunes server which makes whatever you can put into that program available on your big screen either over a wireless or an ethernet connection. If you’re into Final Cut Pro, iMovie or torturing your friends with slideshows you’ll be able to justify this as either a terrific way to demo, proof your work or make people leave the room.

If you regularly download iTunes videos and want to see who else may be living in your house and your content is  safe for family viewing - you could be a potential user.

If you’re into serious hi-fi and have a drive full of lossless files the optical output circuits Apple uses are said to make this one of the best sounding wireless systems on the market. The Airport express is a less expensive option, but it isn’t as much fun to play with.

Finally, if you loose the remote, you are screwed because that’s the only way to control the device - so but a spare on day one, “pair” it and hide it in a drawer against the inevitable day you lose one.
 
Bottom line - if you have one of those new wide-screen Tv thingies eating a hole in your brain, you can find some content worth watching and have lots of stuff in iTunes you’ll no doubt want a AppleTV - the $299 price is fair enough and it’s fun to play with.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 8:15 am and is filed under Apple, Tips, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.