The apple TV has been called one of apples side projects. I think it has become far from a side project. With the battle for the living room in full swing, things like boxee embed LCD TV’s to the PS3 and onlive, a new comer to the game. No doubt much of US entertainment happens in the living room. With the aging model of cable TV, people want more and they want it instantly.
The original apple TV has been on the market for some time now and is one of the best things you can hook up to your TV in the living room. With the new version of the TV out this holiday season the original can be found even cheaper on ebay. I just saw this device going for about $66. That is just a steal.
Let me go into some of the things that make this device so good.
- It is completely silent and has very few moving parts
- It is always on so I don’t have to wait for boot up
- I can sync it with iTunes for local playback of music
- I can add itunes from all computers in the house to stream into the living room
- I can send music to my living room via airplay
- I can stream any Podcast without downloading it (news, bible teachers, tech stuff)
- I can control it from my TV remote, My iPhone, and my iPad
- It acts as a backup for my pictures and music
- It is set to play a slide show of all my favorite pictures from flickr (Pictures of my wife =D)
- You can put Boxee on it and play just about any media off your network
- I can hack airplay on it that allows you to send video from your phone and iPad over the air
- You can watch youtube videos on the big screen
- Has built in internet radio
That is just from the top of my head.
Summary
Both my wife and I use the Apple TV every day. For the price of a nice dinner for 2 you can get a device that just keeps on giving. You can’t really go wrong with it. The only con is it does not have built-in netflix like the new one does. But the pros far out weigh the cons.
