Customer Reviews
Apple TV is UNBELIEVABLY FANTASTIC!!!! 
2008-06-08
I just had my Apple TV delivered to me via FedEx, and in less than 20 minutes I was watching and listening toeverything I have on my iMac... right on my t.v.!!! Everything that Apple has said about this little silver box is 100% true! I haven't had any hiccups or problems with this amazing little invention. I do not know how easy this set up would be with a non-Apple machine (is there really such a machine? HA) but if you have an Apple, and a wireless network (again, mine is an Apple Extreme with N speed) it couldn't be easier. I have about 200 movies in my iTunes library, and as soon as it is turned on, Apple TV automatically sees all the files, and I can play any of my movies. Works the same with your music or your photos or your television shows. I prefer to wirelessly have access to everything, but you can sync to have it on the Apple TV. I highly recommend this for anyone who is an Apple fan, a movie buff, a music lover... and you have a nice a/v set up in your main TV room. Works like a charm! Totally a FIVE STAR product for sure.
Great Box with Horrible Price Points 
2008-06-02
I tried leaving this review once but it never showed up so I guess I was a little too direct about my feelings so I will try again without being quite so disgruntled about the real issue I have.
Overall I'm happy and satisfied with the hardware. It is stellar work and the other reviews have covered this area in depth. My point of contention, however, is with the price points of the content being sold in iTunes. It is this issue that knocks it from 5 stars to 3 in my mind. iTunes became huge as a music download supplier because it made collecting music convenient AND cheaper. The convenience and savings is balanced by the fact that the product is not as high quality, there is no hard copy unless we make it ourselves and there are no extras to go along with the content. For the suppliers of music there is also a substantial savings in getting the music to the customer so it is only natural that the price would be lower.
Apple does not follow this model with the TV and Movie offerings however. Renting movies costs only pennies less than walking to Blockbuster and getting a better one with the Special Features. It is far more expensive than Netflix that delivers unlimited movies for a subscription fee. What Apple TV does have is HD movie rentals which is a good edge to have.
They don't let you purchase HD movies however which dulls this edge as fast as they created it. Purchasing standard definition movies costs the same as buying the DVD outright in a store. In the case of older movies that you may find in the $5.99 bargain rack you may even pay more through iTunes. This is ridiculous. Printing DVD's, packaging them with boxes and labels, shipping them with trucks and warehousing them for retail sales costs the movie studios a whole lot more than making a copy of a file on a server and using the internet to zap it to us. They look very greedy when they expect us to put all that savings into their pockets and none into our own when we are getting a lower quality product to begin with.
The TV offerings are also priced unreasonably. There is no way that someone who watches very much TV could replace their cable boxes with this product. If you have cable TV AND a DVR it is an even less appealing idea. Apple thinks they can just slap on the same flat fee structure with TV as they did with music. This is a terrible mistake. Music has variables but by and large it is all short running bits. The technology of creating music has also not advanced the quality nearly as much over the past 50 years as TV has. Television has HUGE variations in the offerings. I would pay $1.99 for an episode of Lost. That is a reasonable fee for a cutting edge top rated show. I will NOT pay that for 30 minutes of a reality show or for an episode of WKRP in Cincinnati or 10 minutes of Popeye from 1934 or for the failed 1 hour pilot of a show that never even made it through a season. Apple and the TV studios really need to work this out so that it is more reasonable. The market doesn't always respond kindly to this kind of manipulation. Just ask the music industry.
At this point Apple TV purchases for me are only going to be newer stuff that I missed on cable or for the occasional HD movie. It seems like a complete waste of money to buy TV or Movie content on iTunes when there are better quality longer lasting alternatives available that really aren't that much of a hassle.
If I want to own year old TV shows or movies I may as well buy them on DVD and then transfer them to Apple TV as my legally allowed backup copy. The TV/movie studios are not giving me the incentive to purchase very much of their products through iTunes. This surprises me because they would make more money if I did, even if they sold it for half the cost. I can't imagine what forces are at work convincing them they should do it this way. It's as if they were sabotaging themselves.
No more driving Back & forth to the rental store 2008-05-24
This box does exactly what i want & now that apple is adding content the same day the're release is also great.
This is the coolest! 2008-05-24
Wow, this works better than I figured it would. The Tv and photo quality is very good, and it plays You Tubes without trouble. Some are a little blurry, but a picture is only as good as the source. The initial sync took quite awhile, but the updates are quick and easy. And that's on wi-fi!
And it set up nicely with my Harmony One remote.
I am tickled pink.
Where are the rentals? 
2008-05-23
I purchased the Apple TV primarily as a vehicle to rent movies only to discover that many movies that are available through normal rental channels are not available on the Apple TV. It is an elegantly designed device that now just sits there due to lack of content. Check the Apple Store for the type of content you are after before spending your money on the product.
Pretty darn slick! 
2008-07-04
The more I use it, the better I like it. It isn't perfect, but it does what it does very well. I see there is an "AppleTV for Dummies" book. Man, if you need a book to get this thing up and going, you have w-a-y bigger problems! You need a decently fast internet connection and an iTunes account. Then, open the box, plug in the power, connect the HDMI cable, and if you are wireless, wait a bit and you are ready to go. There are a few very simple steps the AppleTV walks you though. Piece of cake!
I am using this with a Comcast internet connection, that averages 5Mbps and bursts higher. I have an Apple Extreme Router set as "N" only, but have tried AppleTV with a good ole' reliable Linksys "G" WAP and it works just fine. I am using a Costo Visio 37" LCD - nothing very fancy.
Quality? This isn't for the purist videophile. The image quality is about the same as a DVD played on my Sony upconveting DVD player; in other words pretty good- less sharp than good broadcast HDTV, but very watchable.
We had a DirecTV account we have had for about 10 years. Ten years ago, that was pretty zoomy- today, not so much. There are very noticeable compression artifacts and other problems. I was already spending north of $60 a month with no HD and no premium channels on Directv. We also subscribed to the Blockbuster by mail movie rental. That works pretty well, by the way. At least for the summer, we dumped both Directv and BB mail rental. I really like the Apple TV arrangement that there are NO ONGOING FEES! for using it. You pay for what you rent or purchase - nothing more. At 4 to 5 bucks a movie from iTunes, we save money over DTV and BB combined. Five or 6 movies would be a big month for us, and that comes in in the $20-25 range. Plus, no hassles driving to get it, losing the dsk, late fees, driving to return the disk, etc.
Enjoy!
There is only one thing bad about Apple TV: Apple's insistence on closed systems 2008-06-29
I give it two stars for the following reasons:
- Device stays on, even after you put in 'standby' mode. All this does is to turn of the video. Also, putting Apple TV in standby mode requires pressing a button for 5 secods!!
- The device in its current form is VERY VERY restricted. It is impossible to play anything that is not in iTunes and not MP4. Both cases do not really work for me since I have all my movies on a RAID - that includes family movies in Divx and MP4 and so Apple TV would force me to add all this to iTunes and convert it to MP4.
But Apple being Apple, I don't think I'm in their taget market. If you're looking for a solution that let's you buy online content, the Apple TV might be it.
Best Thing for TV since DVD 2008-06-24
This is an awesome item, although I would recommend going with the 40GB if you want to keep your photos on it. The menus are clear and fast and more and more content is added every week. My only complaint is that the remote is a little too simplified and it would and a more suggestive search interface would be nice (or a wireless keyboard addition).
Delivers on promises 2008-06-15
Integrates well with my iMac and iTunes. Finally a seamless way to access all my music on my Mac and play through the house. Access to uTube and rentals works very well. Why not now add access to all Internet sites up on the big screen?
where is all the HD content? 2008-06-15
I recently purchased the 40 GB Apple TV. This is an amazing product; worked perfectly right out of the box with only 2 connections required.
The only downside is the surprising lack of HD-quality content available through ITunes! You can rent only a few select movies in HD, but not as much as one might hope! And none of the TV shows are in HD-quality, so basically all the TV shows, and most movies, look kind of dissapointing on a 42" 1080i HDTV.
So 5 stars for the quality of the Apple TV product, and 3 stars for the quality of the Itunes HD content....
