by Yes, I’m late to the Apple TV bandwagon. I thought I’d wait out my wanderlust temptation to try the “black box” edition of Apple TV and leap on the concept when it was more fully realized as an embedded meme in an actual Apple TV that included the actual TV, but like losing patience for the phantom iPhone 5S to appear, I decided to give in to my purchase envy and shell out the $99.00USD for the shiny cube.
Buying the Apple TV was the best $99 I’ve spent on something over the past year. I now have access to all my iTunes music, movies, and TV shows and I can “stream” them to my HDTV, and I also have login access to some of my favorite online entertainment portals like MLB.TV and Netflix and Hulu Plus!
Here’s the PR blurp from the Apple website:
Apple TV gives you access to the best 1080p HD content — including blockbuster movies, your music and photos, and more — right on your widescreen TV. You can even play content from your iOS devices on your TV using AirPlay. Apple TV requires one HDMI cable (sold separately).
Setting up the Apple TV was a small challenge. The black cube didn’t like the HDMI cable I was using with my Blu-ray DVD player, so I had to go search for a different cable. When I used an original, expensive, white, Sony HDMI cable from years gone by, the Apple TV came to life and finally started to spark my attention.
Setting up the Apple TV with content was dead simple. I logged into our WiFi network from the device using the remote control. I enabled “Home Sharing” on my Mac and granted Apple TV access to my iTunes library. I was able to quickly login to Netflix and find the best content on the internet available for streaming.
Watching season four of “Arrested Development” using my Apple TV to pull the content to my big screen HDTV was a new joy like no other. I can also pause and watch the rest of my content on my computer, on my iPhone or on my iPad at will. Netflix streaming is the only way to live!
If you’ve ever had the want to buy an Apple TV just for the experience of good things yet to come, I cannot highly recommend enough the tremendous value of the device for a cheap price. I haven’t watched any regular TV since my Apple TV showed up early yesterday morning.
David,
It seems so odd that it wouldn’t let you use one HDMI cable but it would let you use another. In theory, one HDMI cable should be identical to another HDMI cable — either it transmits the bits and bytes or it does not.
We currently use our PS3 for Netflix, Hulu Plus (Hooray for them adding Coronation Street!) and other video playing. I imagine if we didn’t have it, this would be the best way to go! 🙂
Thanks for the super review.
We just recently singed up for Netflix. They’re finally getting straight on offering Closed Captioned shows. By the end of 2014 their entire catalog will be Closed Captioned.
HDMI cables are notoriously fragile and persnickety. We’ve never had any trouble using the Blu-ray DVD with that cable, but the Apple TV did not want it. I was lucky to have a spare HDMI cable to try.
when I get decent on line access speeds I will have to think about this – I have another friend who swears by hers as well. One of the downsides of living in the sticks I guess. Is all your media – films music etc on-line ? I still have to make that particular leap .
Apple TV is incredibly convenient, and what I like most about it is that it is tiny enough to travel with you — even to a different room in the house if you want to watch your stuff on a different TV.
I use iTunes Match, so yes, all my media is “in the cloud” — but I can download it all locally, or I can just stream from Apple, or I can do a mixture of both.
SO if I understand this right – you rent your music and films as opposed to own the hard copy …….. guess that stops the arguments about who gets your original vinyl and the video/DVD collections!
It depends on the service. Netflix is on demand movie and television streaming for $8 a month for as much as you can watch.
iTunes rents movies or you can purchase them. Music and TV shows you purchase. I tend to prefer to spend a few extra dollar to own all stuff on iTunes because renting a single movie can be almost as much as a monthly Netflix subscription.