My AppleTV review is not up on MyMac, I have a few other articles up there and hopefully will have many more in the futre. It’s a great site with a dedicated and enthusiastic staff. I’m very glad to be a part of it!
Steve Jobs did something during Macworld Expo 2008 that Apple customers have rarely seen him do. He admitted that he might have, maybe, made a small mistake in the AppleTV. The result is the free to download software update dubbed AppleTV Take2. The update changes the AppleTV from a simple bridge between your iTunes library and your television and turns the device into a much more powerful tool.
The way I used to describe the AppleTV is that it was an iPod for your television. It worked just like an iPod, allowing you to sync movies, TV shows, music, and podcasts to the device though iTunes, to the device. Customers didn’t seem to be interested in that style of device, although I was very happy with the AppleTV before the update. Take2 takes the AppleTV to the next level allowing you to rent movies, buy music and TV shows, and download podcasts on the device itself. These are features that should have been included since day one. The update makes the AppleTV feel like a much more complete device.
Movie Rentals
The newest addition to the iTunes store is the ability to rent movies. Movie Rentals range from $3 for older titles to $5 for HD content. Rentals last for 30 days after purchase and 24 hours after you begin watching the movie. Movie rentals from the AppleTV work beautifully. The movies are displayed by showing the artwork in rows allowing you to quickly glance though nearly 800 titles at the time of this review. HD content is still lacking, however, with fewer than 100 titles.Each of the four movies that I rented was available to watch in under a minute. The AppleTV is able to gauge the speed of your connection and estimate how long it will take for the movie to download, and then it tells you when you can start watching. If the AppleTV is correct you will never notice that the movie is still downloading as you watch it, and I haven’t yet run into the situation where I could not continue watching the movie because it had not cached enough of the film.
There is a downside to renting movies on the AppleTV. While you can send movies you have rented from your computer to the AppleTV, this does not work the other way around. If you happened to queue up a few movies you plan to watch on the AppleTV and want to instead watch them on your Mac or your iPod, you’re out of luck. Also, for some reason I cannot figure out, you are not able to buy movies on your AppleTV. This turns into a problem, for example, when I rented “Stardust.” I would have preferred to buy it for the full $15 but did not know the option existed. You can tell this is an agreement Apple was forced to make with the movie studios. Apple would not go out of their way to limit the functionality of their device.
For the full review jump on over to MyMac and enjoy!
