“We’ve been testing Apple TV for the past 10 days or so, and our verdict is that it’s a beautifully designed, easy-to-use product that should be very attractive to people with widescreen TV sets and lots of music, videos, and photos stored on computers. It has some notable limitations, but we really liked it. It is classic Apple: simple and elegant,” Walt Mossberg and Katherine Boehret report for The Wall Street Journal.
“This silvery little $299 gadget is designed to play and display on a widescreen family-room TV set all the music, video and photos stored on up to six computers around the house — even if they are far from the TV, and even if they are all Windows PCs rather than Apple’s own Macintosh models… Apple TV is tiny, just about eight inches square and an inch high, far smaller than a typical DVD player or cable or satellite box, even though it packs in a 40-gigabyte hard disk, an Intel processor and a modified version of the Mac operating system,” Mossberg and Boehret report.
Mossberg and Boehret report, “In our tests, it worked great, and we can easily recommend it for people who are yearning for a simple way to show on their big TVs all that stuff trapped on their computers. We tried it with various combinations of Windows and Mac computers, with movies, photos, TV shows, video clips and music. And we didn’t even use the fastest wireless network it can handle. It performed flawlessly. However, it won’t work with older TVs unless they can display widescreen-formatted content and accept some newer types of cables.”
“Apple TV isn’t for that small slice of techies who buy a full-blown computer and plug it directly into a TV, or for gamers who prefer to do it all through a game console. And it’s not for people who are content to watch downloaded TV shows and movies directly on a computer screen. Instead, it’s for the much larger group of people who want to keep their home computers where they are and yet enjoy their downloaded media on their widescreen TVs,” Mossberg and Boehret report.
“Apple TV’s most important limitation is that it can’t stream much video or audio directly from the Internet — yet. The capability to go directly to the Internet, bypassing the computers in your home, is built in, but is initially being used only to fetch feature film trailers and short preview clips of popular songs, TV shows and movies sold on the iTunes store,” Mossberg and Boehret report. “In its usual secretive fashion, Apple refuses to say if or when this direct-to-the-Internet capability will be expanded. But we fully expect Apple to add the capability to stream or download a variety of content directly from the Internet, and that this new capability will be available on current Apple TV boxes through software updates.”
Mossberg and Boehret report, “In our tests, streaming worked just as well as playing content from the Apple TV’s own hard disk. Even though Walt’s Wi-Fi network is of the older ‘G’ variety, and the Apple TV can handle newer, faster “N” variety networks, every single movie, TV show and song streamed without interruption from both Windows and Mac computers… [Note:] you can’t plug in an extra hard disk to add storage capacity, even though there’s a USB port on the back and the built-in 40-gigabyte drive is too small to hold many TV shows or movies.”
Much, much more in the full review – required reading for those interested in Apple TV – here.
Mossberg’s and Boehret’s video review (5:59):
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Adam W.” for the heads up.]
Apple TV is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Related articles:
Apple TV projected to surpass TiVo, Netflix – March 20, 2007
Former Microsoft ‘Enthusiast Evangelist’ Gartenberg looks at impact of Apple TV – March 20, 2007
Apple TV ships – March 20, 2007
Apple shares rise on positive Apple TV analyst comments – March 19, 2007
Analysts: Apple to ride Apple TV + iTunes ‘Trojan horse’ into living room – March 19, 2007
Will Apple TV be even bigger than iPhone? – March 19, 2007
Apple adds 720p Apple TV high-definition export mode to QuickTime – March 19, 2007
Apple planning to buy Miglia to add DVR capabilities to iTunes and Apple TV? – March 17, 2007
Miglia debuts TVMAX+ Mac PVR, TV tuner, content provider for iPod, iPhone or Apple TV – March 16, 2007
Piper Jaffray expects 2 million Apple TV units to be sold in 2007 – March 16, 2007
Apple TV ships – March 15, 2007
Solution providers expect Apple TV to be hot seller – March 15, 2007
Apple TV could help kill traditional TV ads – March 14, 2007
Apple TV manufacturing ramp up to begin as early as today – March 12, 2007
Why Apple TV is more important than iPhone – March 12, 2007
Apple TV concept may eventually catch on with consumers – March 12, 2007
Apple CFO talks Apple TV, iPhone, Leopard and retail (link to full transcript) – March 07, 2007
PC Magazine: Why Apple TV matters – February 23, 2007
Bear Stearns: Apple TV and iPhone have changed the Apple story for the better – February 21, 2007
Deutsche Bank: Apple TV could take 30% of set-top box market within a few years – February 21, 2007
How do Apple TV and Elgato’s EyeTV work together? – February 16, 2007
Apple embraces casual gaming; iPhone, Apple TV to join iPod as gaming devices – February 09, 2007
Former GM of Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade: Apple TV to become video game console – February 08, 2007
ZDNet’s Graham: Apple TV hits a number of sweet spots, poised to make a big impact – January 25, 2007
Is Apple out to kill cable television? – January 25, 2007
RUMOR: Apple TV sales blowing away Apple’s internal expectations – January 25, 2007
Steve Jobs: Apple TV is the ‘DVD player for the 21st century’ – January 22, 2007
Apple TV beats out iPod, hits top spot on Apple Store sales chart – January 19, 2007
Report: first batch of 100,000 Apple TVs to ship this month – January 11, 2007
Steve Jobs moves to control the living room with Apple TV – January 10, 2007
Analyst Bajarin: Apple’s iPhone and Apple TV are industry game changers – January 09, 2007
Apple premieres Apple TV: movies, TV shows, music & photos on your big screen TV – January 09, 2007
RUMOR: Apple may enter video game market – December 05, 2006
Could Apple become king of game consoles? – September 26, 2006
It’s a great review. I like how Mossberg stresses that you don’t need and iPod or a Macintosh to use the device – just iTunes. But anyway, it’s a great read on the AppleTV and if one has a ton of content and are tired of looking at it on your 24″ iMac (or smaller), then this would be a perfect device to integrate into one’s home entertainment system.
One word-
Movie rentals.
also the phrase ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing.’ is such a ‘drag’.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”tongue wink” style=”border:0;” />
MW:believe
It’s only one generation behind in technology:
1. No 1080p capability (HDMI 1.3 missing?)
2. No DVR capability (besides tiny disk drive issue)
3. No Blu-Ray (or DVD) playback support (only iTunes content)
PS3 with Blu-Ray is a better deal for those with HDTVs.
No reason that Apple couldn’t have slam dunked this with innovation and cutting edge technology, but Steve wanted to support iTunes only.
I was kind of reluctant at first with this iTV thingy, thinking it’s a over priced piece of hardware.
But lateley I have been enjoying downloading and watching commercial free video content from iTunes. The computers screen is too small and the large screen HDTV is in another room.
This device would fit my needs wonderfully.
Instead of watching solo, I can let the rest of the family watch as well.
Only problem is renting content via cable box/netflix is substancially cheaper than iTunes.
I don’t think I’ll be buying many movies at $14 a pop.
™, because the PS3 has been such a success. Innovation does not need to have anything to do with being cutting edge at all times.
“No reason that Apple couldn’t have slam dunked this with innovation and cutting edge technology, but Steve wanted to support iTunes only.”
There’s no technical reason iTunes couldn’t have supported those features. 1080 and Blu-Ray would not have made it harder to use, altho a DVR would’ve made it just a tad more complicated.
So some combination of Apple/Jobs vision and Apple’s market research convinced them not to include those features and price it at $299. We should know more about that vision when Leopard/iLife and iPhone are released.
Can I play DVD’s on my mac and watch them online on my TV using AppleTV?
I consider the AppleTV as a possible replacement for my faulty DVD-player…
You do not need 1080i
You do not need DVR
You do not need Blu-Ray
The idea with Apple TV is to take the content from the Mac to the TV.
Mac has the DVR capability with Elgato/Miglia.
Let´s see first what happens with Blu-Ray.
About the 1080i you need to read:
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/D1925D1E-7479-4F44-B3B7-472113B366D8.html
“Blu-Ray can deliver a 40 Mbit/sec video bitrate, and HD-DVD 29 Mbit/sec. There is simply no way that Internet downloads can deliver much more than iTunes’ existing 1.5 Mbit/sec until much faster broadband service becomes available. The problem is the pipe, not the server, so “peer to peer” and torrents are no solution.”
“simple and elegant”
Which also describes George and Laura Bush very well.
” . . . all that stuff trapped on their computers.”
That explains the muffled screams coming from the basement. Thanks, Walt.
@tm
A PS3 is only a better deal if you don’t want any of the facilities Apple TV offers you plank. They are totally different devices.
Thats like saying, Looking for a new car? – The new Honda drives great, but it doesn’t float and doesn’t have a propeller!! – You’d be better off with a boat!
Apple TV is made to bridge the link between content on your mac / PC and your TV. SIMPLE.
I personally couldn’t give a rats ass about HDMI, 1080P, or Blue Ray.(Thats pretty easily added, and DVR capabilities are seemingly in the pipeline anyway, which is becoming increasingly obvious.) None of those are involved in me playing my library of iTunes tracks, Videos and pictures stored on my iMac.
It does its job very well for the vast majority of people who just want to watch whats on their Computer. HD content is very limited at the moment, and HD TVs are still in the early stages. most people have a standard widescreen TV and lots of standard video, pics and songs.
If it doesn’t do what you want it to, buy something else!!
MW: Rather, as in i’m ‘rather’ bored of people complaining that a product doesn’t have so and so feature. get over it, buy something else.
Do you honestly think you know better than a multibillion dollar electronics company what people want?
The people carping about the technical specs about AppleTV remind me of the famous Slashdot riposte when the iPod came out — “no wireless”. Do you remember that one, guys? Do you remember how stupid and how wrong they were? And yet you plunge ahead, regardless of history. I hope you enjoy the taste of your own words, because you’ll be eating them in three months or less.
And whom do the Bushes have in their basement? Let’s hear it. Better yet, let’s compare them to the Clintons and the endless amount of documentation on the latter’s dirty tricks.
Short summary: Apple TV is a winner.
Also remember that the switchover to HDTV is being forced by law to be done by 2009. The potential market will grow soon at a fantastic rate.
It’s too late for Microsoft to run their copy machines on Apple TV. It must be raining chairs in Redmond.
@TowerTone Said: One word-Movie rentals.
Falkirk: I’m with you on this, TowerTone. I’ve given up thinking that I’m smarter than Steve Jobs. I’m always thinking: “why don’t they add this, why don’t they add that” and everytime, Jobs and his staff seem to know what the core features on a product should be.
For example, the Ipod has never had a radio (although they allow for an add-on). And Jobs eschewed the subscription model and insisted that people wanted to own thier music. That seems like common sense today, but it went against all the norms 5 years ago.
I’m hoping that Steve-o decides that people want to rent, not own, their movies. I know many others like to own movies, but I have no desire to do so. I just want to watch it once and be done with it. The combination of Itunes/Apple TV and movie rentals would, I believe, be the killer ap.
@J:
Do you honestly think you know better than a multibillion dollar electronics company what people want?
Yes I do. I think I know better than Sony and Microsoft what people want.
TM, give it up. No consumer tech does true 1080p other than the displays out there that can display the signal. Blu-Ray does an intermediate step of rezing to 1080i and back to 1080p internally thus loosing the advantages of 1080p. Even if it did do true 1080p, the only thing that could take advantage of it is material shot in 1080/60 frames per second. Because film transfers of movies and shows are not shot on 60 FPS video cameras (most are shot at 24 FPS), they won’t look any better on a 1080p display than they will on a 1080i display. For that matter, 720p actually has more resolution than 1080i on a frame per frame basis.
1080p is a marketing gimmak at the moment. Because of bandwidth it most likly won’t be broadcast in the next 10-20 years in any form (cable, off-air, sattelite, etc….). Blu-Ray and HD-DVD beyond their internal technical limitations get most of their material from 24 FPS film which defeats the quality of 1080p.
Everyone, don’t get caught up in the hype. 1080p is so they can charge you more money for less of their effort. It doesn’t really exist outside of a small amount of footage shot on very expensive cameras mostly for demonstration purposes.
Busting: The two jokes were unrelated. But this morning it occurred to me that supporters of Hillary could be called HillBillies.
And now back to more Apple stuff.
Interesting that the Apple remote cannot control the volume on the aTV. I understand that it cannot control the TV set colume, but with an HDMI output, volume control should not have been too difficult.
Apple didn’t want the Apple to do what the PS3 does, mainly because they didn’t want it to cost close to $1000, but also because they have no interest in promoting BluRay, as there is abssolutely nothing in it for them. Last time I checked, Apple is not in the business of selling BluRay discs.
Sony, on the other hand, is more than willing to lose $200 per unit to have the PS3 as a Trojan Horse to establish BluRay as the standard for high def DVDs. As Sony developed it, they wil collect raoyalties for the next 20 years from anyone else using BluRay, including those producing discs, the studios, and any other device maker that wants to put out a BluRay drive or player.
No adding USB storage. They want there to be a dynamic relationship between iTunes and TV instead of just house everything on the box and never go back to your computer. Wonder if it’s easily replaceable and if its OS can be reinstalled?
Cheers Gill, Walt sees it as it is. He also points out that he sees Apple adding features like direct internet access to content etc. I believe he really like Apple, but it is not some kind of blind admiration he has for them, it is based upon fact and from actual usage of products. Basically, I like him.
To “J”,
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” /> Just a thought.
I totally agree with you on everything except for “Do you honestly think you know better than a multibillion dollar electronics company what people want”.
Microsoft is one of those and there is nothing there that I want.
I have a question on the compatability issues raised in the article, particularly the issue of widescrean format.
Mossberg says: “It won’t work with most older TV sets, the square kind that aren’t capable of handling widescreen programming.”
Does this mean that the Apple TV doesn’t just letterbox output if you are using a 4:3 display? If that’s the case, then Apple really is just stupid. I would think this should be just a configuration choice.
One bit of technology is crucial: SUPPORT FOR CLOSED CAPTIONS.
As far as I can tell, iTunes does not pass along the closed caption information encoded on every television program and virtually every movie release. There are 30 million Americans who rely on captions to enjoy television and movies (including my wife), and until Apple TV fixes this flaw, I’ll wait on the sidelines…
Magic Word: GROWING, as in I’m growing impatient for iTunes to support captions!
I have to agree with the rental proponents. Buying movies on iTunes makes little sense to me when they cost almost the same as a DVD and the quality is much worse. It worked with music because most people ripped music they already had rather than buying it from Apple (average person buys around 10-20 songs a year from iTunes). And most people are satisfied with the quality of AAC/MP3. I suppose you could rip your movie collection with Handbrake and import them into iTunes (doesn’t solve the quality problem), but since you have the DVD already in that case, why not just pop in the disc?
People argue that instant gratification is the thing. You can buy a movie from iTunes without having to go to a store or wait for it to come in the mail. That’s cool, but I don’t want to *own* every movie I watch. I know some people do, they love to watch movies over and over again. But I believe the majority of people want to *rent* movies. That’s why the movie rental business is so huge. Okay, I’ll agree, both options are huge, renting and buying. Why not offer both? I really hope Steve will give us that choice in the future. That would be a big incentive for me (and many others) to buy one.