“According to analysts – Gene Munster, of Piper Jaffray, in particular – Apple is soon to launch a revolutionary Apple TV device,” Johnny Winter writes for Mactuts+. “Don’t mistake this for another Apple ‘hobby’ – it’s not going to be a set-top box. This is going to be the real-deal, Siri-enabled, iCloud-attached, iOS-controlled, large flat-panel to dominate your living room! Apparently.”
“But since Gene has been banging on about this for three years or more (Apple has its ‘hobby,’ and Gene has his), the Mac mini makes for a pretty good media centre in the meantime,” Winter writes. “It runs silent, draws little power and can be upgraded relatively easily if you are confident and competent with paint stripper (yes, seriously!) and a screwdriver. Even if you don’t fancy getting handy with tools, plugging in a large external drive to house your media is sufficient, even over USB 2.0.”
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Winter writes, “In it’s current form, neither the Apple TV 2 and Apple TV 3 are able to store media locally nor can they install third party client apps. For that reason, we need to find other ways of getting audio and video to the television. Some of this can be done with Apple’s AirPlay, the rest with third-party software solutions.”
Much more in the full article here.
