Not so long ago Apple described their network to TV bridge device - Apple TV - as a "hobby"device. Rather cruel I thought, even though on the scale of iPads and iPhones this hasn't been a roaring success, at least in sales terms. You have to admit some Apple products are cursed by being ahead of their time and I'm wondering if the time has come for Apple TV.
Many moons ago, when we got married, we inherited an old TV set. I bet the speaker inside cost less than 50p. Dreadful. Have you seen today's TVs? The sound from a new set is brilliant in comparison and many sport multi speaker surround sound systems to compete with cinemas. So what could be more natural than to pump your music via iTunes into your living room via a compact device such as Apple TV. Several of our CD ripping clients use Apple TV for this and are very happy with it. If you think coverflow looks good on your iPod Touch wait till you see it on a top-flight plasma screen.
Our other venture in analogue to digital media conversions, our photo scanning service 1Scan, is also recommending Apple TV. Trust me, your holiday photos or your old family image library will look great blown up on screen. But you also get an automatic facility to turn static images into a rolling slideshow.
The interface that drives Apple TV from your computer is iTunes, a program familiar to so many people now. And it runs faultlessly on Mac and Windows. Apple TV will play nicely with your home wireless network although if you must you can drive it via ethernet. In typical Apple fashion (forgive the pun) it looks cool in its nice white box, makes no noise although I have noticed they can get very hot.
Look great, sounds great, networks nicely and is reasonably priced. What's not to like about Apple TV?
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