iSee little for now
I got kinda hooked on Apple TV when I went over to a friend’s house and took it along to show off with my iTouch (don’t worry, I’ll be telling you all about the iTouch in two weeks or so).
I love doing that — taking new technology to friends’ homes to show off how “bleeding edge” I am. I know they see right through the charade and most probably laugh behind my hairy back, but while I’m showing off my precious gadgets I’m as hung-up as Golum, yet nowhere near as attractive. So, where was I?
Oh yeah, so I’m at this friend’s house and we connect the Apple TV with the television set, and voil€ — we begin watching all the YouTube videos I’ve downloaded and stored. It was a good little demonstration, but some of the videos I’d downloaded came out looking a little fuzzy and I couldn’t get it to sync with my iTouch, never mind connect to the thing.
When I went to the launch of the Apple TV in the last months of 2007, the pitch I got from one of the reps was that it has an awesome ability to download film trailers from the Apple website. That’s nice, but I’d like to be able to watch films that I’d actually love to download off iTunes, except, wait a second: there ain’t no iTunes for South Africa. How disturbing. This kind of renders the Apple TV a little bit useless, unless you don’t mind watching your two-minute YouTube clips and other bits of media.
Okay, let me get away from the video stuff for a bit and focus on the aesthetics. Yes, Apple TV is sexy-looking (it shares a close resemblance to the Mac mini). It has a great interface too. Then there’s the Apple TV’s remote with its iPod-esque navigation and menu buttons. Oh, and one thing you must know before you buy: this baby will not work at all if you have an S-Video connection on your TV. It needs those yellow, red, grey and white ports that still confuse me every so often. Plus, it does have a USB port, but ha ha ha, this is not for your iPod, which I know sounds silly; it’s there only for USB keys and external hard drives.
I feel like I’m veering into negative territory here, but actually I’m not. These are logical glitches that the Apple TV has — for now. When the next generation comes out, I’m sure most of these problems will have been solved. However, for now, I wouldn’t put it up there with the iTouch, which is something quite remarkable. Yeah, yeah, I will tell you all about it soon.
The Apple TV is available at selected Apple stores across South Africa. Starting price: R2799.
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