Monday, April 16, 2007
Apple TV: Good at What it Does, But Has Limitations
Posted by Jeremy Charette in "HARDWARE" @ 04:00 PM
"Compared to the Xbox 360 working as a media extender, the Apple TV is missing some features such as the ability to find new content easier and the ability to buy that content over the extender itself instead of having to do it on your PC. The ability to "rent" HD videos on the Xbox 360 is definitely something that is worthwhile (if you had more than 20GB of space) and value to the system as a whole. In general though, these are iTunes issues not really anything specific to the Apple TV."
Another review of the Apple TV, another comparison to the Xbox 360. Same conclusions. The Apple TV is great at what it's intended to do: get iTunes content from your PC to your TV. However it's limited by iTunes as well. No high-def content (save one HD video podcast), you can't buy content off the Apple TV itself, there's no way to "rent" movies and TV shows, and scaled up iTunes video looks bad on an HDTV. If Apple can fix these shortcomings, they may be able to compete with the likes of the Xbox 360. We'll be waiting and watching over the next year.
Another review of the Apple TV, another comparison to the Xbox 360. Same conclusions. The Apple TV is great at what it's intended to do: get iTunes content from your PC to your TV. However it's limited by iTunes as well. No high-def content (save one HD video podcast), you can't buy content off the Apple TV itself, there's no way to "rent" movies and TV shows, and scaled up iTunes video looks bad on an HDTV. If Apple can fix these shortcomings, they may be able to compete with the likes of the Xbox 360. We'll be waiting and watching over the next year.
