First Impressions: AppleTV
We received our new AppleTV today and we set about our usual routine of ripping the box open as fast as we can and racing over to our entertainment center to hook it up. Once we opened the box we had two immediate thoughts: first, I can't believe they shipped this thing with that puny little remote. Sure we knew that was coming, but we were just hoping that they would have come to their senses and given us something with slightly more functionality. Our second shock was that the only cables that shipped with the box were the power cables. No ethernet, HDMI, or any other cable that you could use with it. We didn't think it much to send at least one! Let us hook the damn thing up right away. Don't make us hunt for cables.
After the initial shock wore off we slowly walked over to our media center, plugged it in and hooked it up to our network and to our HDTV via HDMI cable. Once it booted up we were given a code that we had to enter into iTunes. Once that is done the unit is 'paired' up with the iTunes server. We then can either copy files to the device or tell it which files in our iTunes library it should play.
OK, so we have finished all the configuration needed for this little puppy to play. Now its time to see what all the hub-bub is all about.
To be honest we really aren't that impressed by the AppleTV at all. It uses a revamped Front Row interface that gives you some more options beyond the basic four of the original. You now have options for podcasts, TV Shows and some configuration stuff.
We first went to the picture section saving the video for last. The picture browsing has to be one of the more inane things we have ever come across. Either they didn't care about picture browsing or they just didn't get it. Basically it allows you to browse your iPhoto library, and anyone that has used that terrible application knows how horrid it is for oganization. You are presented with your folder layout that you have in your iPhoto collection and you can choose which folder to view. So far so good you are saying...where is the inane part this guy is talking about.
Well, the inanity( yes thats a word, we are just as surprised as you are ) starts in that you really don't have a lot of control in how you can view your photos. It defaults to what is known as the Ken Burns Effect. This is cute and gets old fast. To view your pictures you have to use the remote to constantly select the next one. No thumbnail view of the photos in the folder. No ability to skip halfway through your folder and start browsing there. Just basically a flat list of your photos that you have to scroll through one at a time.
We are just completely lost as to what they were thinking when they thought up photo viewing with this device. So basically we were so flabbergasted that Apple would release such a clunky interface for photo browsing that we quickly moved on to the video aspect.
The video playback actually wasn't half bad. It displayed nicely on a large format LCD screen and the overall quality of the picture was decent. We do give Apple high marks for letting us actually browse a video and resume from where we left off. In the previous version of Front Row you could not fast forward or rewind and if you hit the wrong button by accident and canceled the playback it would start at the beginning the next time you tried to watch it. So the fact that they fixed that is a big plus in our minds.
But other then that it is your same basic system that was there before. You can watch your iTunes purchased movies, tv shows and whatnot. Looking at the specs it only supports resolutions up to 720. Guess they couldn't pack a powerful enough processor in there to support full HD, oh well.
We haven't given the product a full run through, this was just a quick, out of the box test. From what we have seen we aren't that impressed. We have reviewed other products that basically do the same thing and do it better. The only thing that the AppleTV seems to have going for it is that it works pretty seamlessly with your existing iTunes library and for many that is important. The fact that we aren't big fans of iTunes probably didn't help in this review. We will be having a lot more coverage of this as we compare it against other products on the market as well as giving it our full run through.
At Amazon.
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Posted by David Ficocello at March 23, 2007 11:46 PM
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