Apple TV
If you have even one iOS device (iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch), the Apple TV is a no-brainer. AirPlay is the killer feature here, letting you wirelessly stream audio and video from nearly any app, straight to your TV. The recent update to add full-screen mirroring from Mountain Lion on recent Macs only sweetens the deal.
The good: The Apple TV lets you stream all of the movies and TV shows available in the iTunes Store to your HDTV on a rental or purchase basis, with purchases stored in the cloud. Netflix, Hulu Plus, MLB.TV, and a handful of other online media services are available, plus music, videos, and photos can be streamed from iOS devices using AirPlay. AirPlay Mirroring lets you stream any Web video to the Apple TV, including free Hulu, if you have a newer Mac running Mountain Lion. And Apple TV's user interface is one of the best there is.
The bad: The competing Roku 3 offers many more content sources (including Amazon Instant), cross-platform search, and a remote with a headphone jack. The Apple TV is also a much less useful box if you don't own other Apple devices.
The bottom line: The Apple TV is an indispensable living room companion for invested in iTunes content and Apple hardware, but for everyone else it's a step behind the Roku 3.
October 31, 2012 9:13 PM PDT
Photo by: Jason Cipriani/CNET
