Prelude
I was one of the earliest adopters of the first AppleTV. I owned it for more than three years, only to be frustrated by what it can do and what it never was allowed to do. It continues to infuriate me that AppleTV is still considered a hobby. The new AppleTV is marginally better in some instances and outright backwards in many aspects. You would do much better off buying a Boxee box, Google TV in some format or just buy one of the internet enabled super TVs from Samsung. I pre-ordered the Boxee Box, since I like Boxee – I currently use Boxee through a laptop.
Update
I got beat up by many that this is very anti-apple. You should read “What kind of a HTPC user are you?” for background of why I feel this way.
AnandTech has a great review of Boxee Box, check it out here.
Limited internet content
You want to watch TED Talks on your TV? Tough luck. You like to hear your last.fm or pandora music channel when you browse your photos in Smugmug? Fat chance. There are limited apps on the AppleTV – the apps that exist are limited to Netflix, Flickr and Youtube other than mobile me and free internet radio stations. You get to see content that is blessed by Apple. Not the content YOU want to see or hear.
With an open platform like Boxee box, you get a massive array of apps. If there is content worth watching or listening on the internet, there is a Boxee app for that. If you are a hacker, writing a boxee app for your needs is ridiculously simple.
The AppleTV is great in one thing. Renting and playing content from iTunes. You like to rent movies from Amazon? Tough luck. Apple is in the content selling business. AppleTV is one way for them to sell content. Someone like Boxee is in the “media center hardware / software business”. Boxee will do everything they can to make that experience the best in the world.
This has been dealt with elaborately by an Apple fanboy way better than I can say.
But airplay will get me there
Yes, I know about airplay that lets you stream content from your iPad and iPhone over iAir to the AppleTV. Magical, isn’t it? You know what sucks there? Airplay works on SD. SD as in Standard Definition. As in the pre historic days of the television. As in days before 720 p “HD”. As in it will look like crap on your 60″ LED backlit 1080p brand new hot TV. I am sure you will like SD on that. Give it a pass. Airplay is one more way to up sell iTunes content that you can buy. Pass it.
Crippled hardware
720p. Low powered processor. Lack of flash support. The hardware is powered just enough to play 720p MP4 H.264 content from iTunes. Nothing more, nothing less. Again, your 1080p TV and your backed up 1080p Blu Ray content is useless on this hardware. You really want to compromise on the one device that can become the center of your digital media life? Look ahead, if you like apple, get a Mac Mini for this. If not, just get a Boxee Box.
iTunes
If you have a lot of local content that you need to play, AppleTV can do that. But ONLY through streaming from iTunes. You need iTunes to be running all the time to stream the content for you. Since iTunes accepts only MP4 H264 content, you will have to convert all your DVDs, your Blu Ray content, your Divx files and the zillion other video formats to the format iTunes understands. Boxee box doesn’t have that problem.
iTunes has its own quirks. Have you tried to get iTunes work off content from a NAS? If your content is in a NAS, have you thought how it will be streamed to your TV through AppleTV? Content will go from your NAS to your iTunes and back to your TV.
Why fight? What can’t you just make your media center talk directly to your NAS? If you don’t have a NAS, why can’t you make your media center box talk to local content connected using an external HDD on the USB port? Why do you have to depend on iTunes?
With the Boxee box, you can simply hook an external HDD and be done. No other server is needed for it to show your local content. Better still, if you have a NAS, Boxee box will talk directly to the NAS and stream content from it.
Maintain your sanity. Let go of iTunes. If you do not have a desktop at your home, AppleTV would be a burden to maintain, if you want to see local content. If you do like Apple products, again, go the Mac Mini way.
Conclusion
AppleTV is nothing more than a crippled iPod attached to your TV. By crippled I mean it depends on iTunes running on another server to feed local content. AppleTV is great in doing one thing – which is to let you buy and rent content that Apple allows you to. Pass it. Get a better product. There are plenty of options out there.
