Apple TV user reviews (fall 2010)

Pros The idea of Airplay is golden! Nice design and good price point.

Cons There was no overwhelming con to this product. Yeah there are things that I wished could be here sooner, apps, streaming recorded video from iPhone 4, etc but I have a feeling all that will be coming.

Summary Airplay was the reason I purchased this product a few days before the 4.2 update and I can tell you it is even better than I thought it would be. I am an iPhone 4, iPad, and iMac owner and Airplay was definitely the best thing to come out of the recent updates. This is so simple to do setup and there are features that you can't see unless you own one. For instance, this setup appears to be the quickest way to show pictures to friends in person at your house on the best screen in the house. I can literally take a picture on my iphone and show it on my big screen in less than 5 seconds...no joke. I can download a song on my iphone and play it immediately on my surround sound system. It is phenomenal! I don't think any setup is faster or more convenient. Even if you have a computer hooked up as your media hub you would have to email (or post) the picture to yourself and use a keyboard/mouse to jump into your email and pull up the picture. Another con I thought of was, you have to be an Apple user for many of the benefits. If you're not using an iOS device you may not see the the innovation behind ATV. For those of you who have an iOS device I think you will be amazed at what you can do and the ease with which you do it. I think ATV is really a treat for those who dedicated iOS users. I could certainly see if someone thinks the functionality would be the same with other devices will be disappointed, so if you're reading this make sure you research your options carefully.

Pros Incredibly easy to setup and brings all my music, photos, movies and TV shows wherever I have an Apple TV

Cons Trying to think how to improve it.... iOS games would be very cool!

Summary I just bought my second Apple TV2 today. I bought my first one back in December 2010 and have been extremely happy with it. I'm full on into the Apple eco system with all my media stored on my iMac with iPhones for all the family members and an iPad to share. All I can say is everything works perfect with the Applet TV2 and it took only 10 minutes to setup. I would also recommend a Harmony remote which I have at both my TV/AppleTV2 locations to reduce remote clutter. The AppleTV2 works great with the harmony remote. Using Handbrake, it's very easy to get all your video/movies/tv shows into iTunes and once it's there, it's on your AppleTV2 as well for large screen consumption. I have to hand it to Apple, their hobby has definitely grown up into a real and useful device. Down the road I can definitely see an AppleTV at every TV in my house and a blu-ray player on for my main big-movie screen so I can enjoy my 1080P. But for everyday movies and TV shows at 720P and music & photos it's the cats meow. My next project is getting all my movies into iTunes. Pretty soon I'm going to have to look at a 3TB network hard drive like the myBook world edition with ethernet connectability to hold all my stuff. Bottom line...Apple TV2 is highly recommended if you buy into the Apple/iTunes eco system.

Pros Faster, Smaller, Cheaper! I've been wanting to get an ATV but have waited until now. I don't care about buying content on the device if it keeps the price low. If I need to buy, I'll buy a real copy from Wal-Mart and rip it myself --> then stream it!

Cons No customer accessible USB port to add a hard drive to. This isn't really a big deal though as streaming takes care of what I need to do. One thing I always wanted in an ATV was a blu-ray drive but that would never happen and would've made it more $!

Summary In order for this to become a success, Apple needed to get the price to $99. I think it's an impulse buy now for those buying a computer or even an iPad. With 8GB of onboard storage, we'll be getting Apps on this and this will become the box that can do it all. Any shortcomings on TV rentals will disappear as networks offer their own apps.

I own a lot of DVDs that I've ripped and just want to be able to use on either TV (I have two 50" HDTVs) and I have a Mac Mini on one room. I like it but you still have to use a mouse and keyboard to get things started. Also, the setup is too cumbersome to tote back and forth from livingroom and bedroom. The AppleTV however will very portable and I'll be able to move it back and forth with ease. Mainly I just want to be able to stream whatever I have to either set and the ATV lets me do this without any problems and is much cheaper than investing in another Mini which is what I've been thinking of doing.

I think that Apple has finally the hardware and software just right to get these into millions of homes. I think that with an App store, this would just be a magical device!

Pros Dead simple setup. Easily streams media (music, video, photos) from my computer. Great price. Very nice Netflix interface. YouTube access is very good as well

Cons Wish it had access to Hulu. Also wish it had access to the major networks web sites or had iPad like applications (hopefully will come sometime soon). Being able to rent movies and TVs is a snap

Summary Super clean and easy to use product. There seems to be a ton of potential as well. I like that it can easily access all of my media on my computer (through iTunes) as well as the Netflix and YouTube access. Can't wait to see what the future brings.