Saturday, October 16, 2010

Apple TV 2 is not what I expected

Finally I got the new Apple TV. The set up was easy but pretty annoying. You need to use the apple remote which comes with the TV. After network and library is set up you can use your iPhone. Imagine to put your network password in just using the dial wheel on the remote? It takes forever. It would be nice if I would have been able to use my iPhone from the beginning.

Different than the old Apple TV, you do not anymore pair your iPhone directly to the Apple TV. It uses home sharing, which is nice you don't need to put a pascode in. I am not sure if the iPhone remote is working when the iTunes computer is switched off. This os not a big deal for me because my media computer is always on.



The look and feel of the OS is the same as before but uses iOS instead of Mac OS X. I was expecting the look is more like iPad or iPhone.

The biggest differences is that there is no hard rive, which makes the Apple TV very silent and does not get so hot like the old one. It has only a few connections in the back, for HDMI, network, power, USB and optical sound. But if you use HDMI you don't need to connect sound. My Plasma is connected to a Bose system for the sound.

There are some more internet functions like flickr, MobileMe, podcast and netflix. I was hoping that there is as well a browser, but it might come.

There is no central search that i could search through all my media, flickr, YouTube and netflix. The search is always only within the selected category.

Hence the Apple TV has no hard drive anymore, everything gets streamed even the apple store movies. You can't buy them anymore. You would need to use your iTunes computer to buy the movies. This gives us some exercise at night when we found a movie we like to buy and need to get up to go to the iTunes computer.
But streaming the movies and shows are now much cheaper. Starting at 99 cent per episode.

I have at home a normal internet speed connection, not fast by in theory 10MB down stream. My set up is a little complicated, because I have 3 wireless networks and my apple TV goes to one and then the other to connect to the Internet.

Streaming from iTunes is like before pretty good. However Netflix streaming is everything than good.

The pictures is flickering like light on and off. Fast actions have extremely delays.

I will try to connect to Ethernet to see if it helps, or I might need to upgrade my internet connection.

Apple could have build in a flash memory which allows to stream 30 seconds into memory and then starts to play movie, this would help to get a much better netflix experience.

Right now i am happy that I did not sell my old Apple TV, the old one is big and missing netflix, but it has a hard drive that i don't need to have my iTunes running and allows me to buy movies not only streaming.

Pretty sure 2 or 3 more updates will make the new Apple TV perfect. And don't forget is is only $99 which is a third of the the old one and a third of google TV.



And it is pretty small only a quarter of the Apple TV 1. Perfect device to hide it behind the TV.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad.
Please visit my blog http://www.new-kid-on-the-blog.com

No comments:

Post a Comment