Comments on: Who’s buying the Apple TV?

By: jjmfe

jjmfe — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 05:21:00 +0000

Yes, their “ecosystem” is so simple to plug and play that it sucks you in. Once you have some components, and the other apple stuff has complementary functions, you take the next step. So many features, such a low learning curve, that we get drawn in… Who wants to learn how to be a geek to achieve geek services…? not me! give it to me easy. yes, that’s why we buy apple. Is it “the best?” No, but it’s easy and a nice featured ecosystem. I don’t have an iPad, but my office girls both have them, and stream content through Apple TV to big LCD TVs. Easy, easy, easy.

By: jjmfe

jjmfe — Fri, 24 Aug 2012 05:13:00 +0000

I have three of the new 3rd gen Apple TV units. I use them in my front and back office to share advertising content (real estate) from and through iTunes, as well as for traditional entertainment too.

I also have two 160 gig first gen. Apple TV units in my home. In some ways I prefer them, because I can load content on them, and it’s there regardless of whether my network is robust or not. There are days when DSL lag is so great that it says it will be “3 hours till movie available” and typically an hour till a streamed movie from my iTunes library in the “cloud” is available to play on my gen 3 Apple TV. That is unacceptably poor. Plus it disrupts any other use of the network for stereo speakers, software updates, or other heavy load use or other items. Try to run 4 or five TVs on a wireless network at the same time drawing content from the cloud and see how sluggish things get.
Even top tier DSL service in many places DOES NOT effectively support cloud based media use. Same goes for HULU plus. Netflix streaming seems to be “bulletproof.” It works all the time, anytime from any of my Apple TV units (not available on gen 1 Apple TV menu). Apple cloud services are not a mature product yet. is Apple at fault, or is it my DSL service. I’m sure there is blame to share, but a 1080p movie, streamed from the cloud takes more bandwidth than Netflix low-res streaming. VUDU HD quality movies does not work on my network…EVER, but I’m guessing Apple is doing something right if they can coax a 1080p out of my network… Lots of guesswork here. Its fun to be on the bleeding edge of technology.

By: Daniel J

Daniel J — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 17:23:00 +0000

I’m not!!!

By: KingKwon

KingKwon — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 16:44:00 +0000

People who are invested in the Apple ecosystem purchase these. Simple as that. Of all the people I know who own iPhones or iPads or both, only the diehard Apple fanatic of the bunch own one. Go figure.

By: mattj78

mattj78 — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 10:42:00 +0000

I bought one, managed to pick one up easily. It’s the first one I got and it’s pretty nice. Netflix works great, all my iTunes match music is there, my Movie downloads are there. It’s not as powerful as my xbmc box – it doesn’t play as many formats – but the set up and use was simplicity itself. For £99 its brilliant and I’ll be getting another to go with the bedroom TV.

By: Sal

Sal — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 22:57:00 +0000

I went to Best Buy with a couple of friends to demo the Apple TV on the day it was released and all three of us bought one. The sales guy said we bought the last three. Even though I’m on iphone 4, I’m able to airplay quite a bit.

By: babarj

babarj — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 18:49:00 +0000

Why would anyone buy this??
Isn’t the Raspberry pi better AND cheaper?

The raspberry pi can do what apple tv does for half the price minus the ‘apple’ part

And plus raspberry pi is fully unlocked and you can do what ever you want with it

By: spacem00se

spacem00se — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:31:00 +0000

Bought two of the 2nd Gen AppleTV, for the sole purpose of jailbreaking it and installing XBMC. I never use the actual Apple front row interface. I only wish I could connect a USB Hub to tether some hard drives to it. I see absolutely no need to buy the 3rd gen AppleTV.

By: Fred_GM

Fred_GM — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:18:00 +0000

I bought one right after the Apple event when the iPad was announced.

The AppleTV device came in time, it even came a day early.

I am missing a volume control with Apple TV, juggling two remotes now …

Also could not figure out how to stream iTunes U content … no app for that available.

AppleTV also could use an extra analog sound only output.
Toslink converters are tooexpensive and require yet another powersupply.

By: DigitalAtrophe

DigitalAtrophe — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:17:00 +0000

I bought the new version ONLY BECAUSE I wanted an additional Apple TV for a second of four of our TV’s. If it were a matter of upgrading I wouldn’t have updated just for the few new features.

I really only use Apple TV for Netflix, which I used to run off of a connected netbook.

I chose Apple TV over the competition because of my limited usage requirements, the price, and iOS mirroring via Airplay. I wouldn’t say it’s the best sytem out there if you’re looking for features.

I’ve jailbroken and went back to stock since half the additional features don’t work and I *still* ended up mainly just using Netflix anyway. ‘Figured working stock was better than jailbroken hit or miss.

By: Jared Robinson

Jared Robinson — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:15:00 +0000

I picked mine up last week at Best Buy, which had a large pile of them. I recently canceled my DirecTV subscription because I was paying $90 a month to watch the news, the Red Sox (part of the year), and Walking Dead. Between my Netflix and Hulu+ subscriptions I can save a lot of money by purchasing my television a la carte through iTunes with my Apple TV. The little box is fast and responsive; being able to mirror my 4S on the TV is the icing on the cake

By: Oversteer325

Oversteer325 — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:08:00 +0000

I picked one up at Best Buy a few days after launch. I already had the last generation one and moved it to another TV. They were re-stocking the shelves with them when I picked mine up, so they had either sold most/all of them out or they had expected to and ordered more.

By: Annomalies

Annomalies — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000

I really do not understand why is the exsisting Apple TV such a big point of contension.
Everyone knows Apple has not been able to provide the content for a TV. So providing a full blown hardware with no content makes no sense, its just doesnt make sense.
According to me the purpose of Apple TV is not to replace your existing TV. Its purpose is to enable you to use your Television with any of your apple devices. The Apple TV does what it does flaulessly. It can stream videos, games, and music from any of your apple device to your TV.

Apple TV is more for a hobbiest than a hard core gamer or a TV viewer. Incase you need someting with more power then you should pickup the iMAC Mini which is excellent if you combine it with your television.

The soul purpose of Apple TV is to connect all your Apple devices with your TV for sharing content.
That’s what we mainly want to do with our devices’s, incase you need to have a high retinal display to replace your TV then I don’t think it would be quite possible or economically feasible.