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.