Ten Concerns With Apple's New iTV ('The iDongle') 11 comments
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So it's with great interest that I've been following Apple's iTV initiative (now dubbed Apple TV), an initiative that I dubbed the iDongle a while back. To be fair, I haven't actually tried the iDongle yet. But I've read up on it a bit and for me it lacks some key functionality necessary to make it a winner.
A couple of articles worth checking out are an article by The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg (a fairly meaty hands on review of the unit) and Wired's article, 5 Reasons Why Apple TV Rules, 5 Reasons Why it Sucks. Dave Winer sounds like he is also going to wait on the iDongle because he's not so sure of the DRM-laden content to be consumed on it.
So on with the list.
1. The iDongle cannot easily stream cable or satellite HDTV content to your TV. Whatever you say about the long tail of internet video, much of the professional TV that I end up watching (which is less and less these days) is done via cable or satellite TV. DiscoveryHD is breathtaking beautiful. Watching each of Bill Hendrickson's 3 wives on HBO's Big Love in high def simply rocks. This is the number one reason why I won't buy an iDongle. Especially when both TiVo and Microsoft have developed integrated systems capable of recording premium HDTV content this seems like an obvious flaw in Apple's offering to me. At present I'm using the DirecTV TiVo HR10-250, a four tuner beauty of a machine with a big hard drive that works flawlessly.
Yes, there are rumored solutions to try and get cable HD content on your Mac, but if I wanted complicated I'd be hacking my way around through some DYI Linux or Myth TV type thing.
2. There is not a lot of free HDTV content on the net yet. The problem with a lot of video on the internet still is that it looks like crap. Yes you can find the occasional interesting video on DivX's Stage Six, but that content is extremely limited. The problem comes down to bandwidth. Robert Scoble records fantastic content for Podtech with a great HD camera that I'd love to watch in high def on my 43" plasma, the problem is that it's too expensive to stream these huge HDTV files. So until widespread HDTV content makes it's way on the internet, I'm less interested in watching it on my 43" plasma widescreen.
I'm also not crazy about having to manually convert a lot of different video file formats out there to get them to play on the iDongle. Why doesn't the iDongle just support more of the major video formats out there?
3. No DVD player. Yes, I know Apple wanted to keep it simple, but if for no other reason than it looks cool being able to ditch your clunky DVD player for a beautiful Apple TV might make some sense. When DVD players sell for like $20 these days it would seem like a pretty cheap thing to incorporate into the unit. Both Microsoft's Media Center and the XBox 360 have DVD players built in. How is having to convert my DVDs through something like this simpler than just sticking the DVD into a small slot like the one that sits at the front of my MacBook Pro?
4. $300 for something that basically just allows me to watch crappy quality internet video on a 43 inch plasma or buy Apple supplied DRM'd non HD content (that I'm already paying for and recording on my HDTV TiVo in HD)? No thanks. Jeremy Horowitz notes that recent changes in Quicktime's Export mode *might* make more HDTV quality video available via the iDongle in the future.
5. It doesn't play kick ass video games. I originally bought my XBox 360 to use it as an extender unit for my Microsoft Media Center PC. I wasn't a gamer and though I'd never be a gamer... until I started playing games on the XBox 360. My two sons and I have probably spent 20 hours over the course of the past month playing Lego Star Wars II on the XBox 360. We just bought the Anakin Skywalker ghost character in the game and are working hard to get the Ghost of Yoda next. Yes, the XBox 360 is a great way (even if slightly more expensive) to stream Media Center content to your TV -- but it also has a kick ass gaming platform.
6. You can't control the volume with the iDongle's remote. Huh? This seems like an absolute no brainer. The earliest and I mean very earliest television remote controls did two things well, change the channel and adjust the volume. To not include super important volume control on the iDongle remote seems, well, just odd. It means that you must cannot simplify down to a single remote without buying a Universal remote.
7. Wireless speeds still suck. Ok, so you're king of the bittorent pirates and the iDongle is for you because, well, why pay HBO to record HD movies anyway? The problem is that getting these large files to seamless zip around your network might not be so easy wirelessly. As Mossberg notes, "We also bought some TV shows, movies and songs from iTunes on our synchronized laptop, and they were automatically transferred to Apple TV, where we could watch them. It can, however, take hours to synchronize large files like movies over a slow wireless network."
8. A 40GB hard drive with no expandability functionality? How the iDongle works is it synchs up with your primary computer and then synches your video content onto it's 40GB drive. Huh? Did I just say that? 40GB drive? What is this 1997? My HD TiVo has a 250GB drive and if I really wanted more I could send the thing to Weaknees and get up to a terabyte of storage.
9. What kind of Apple solution wouldn't involve being able to directly stream YouTube content? Pandora? LastFM? Mossberg notes:
"Apple TV's most important limitation is that it can't stream much video or audio directly from the Internet -- yet. The capability to go directly to the Internet, bypassing the computers in your home, is built in, but is initially being used only to fetch feature film trailers and short preview clips of popular songs, TV shows and movies sold on the iTunes store."
Now isn't that Eric Schmidt guy from Google on Apple's board or something? Why in the world isn't there built in functionality to search and view YouTube videos (that little company owned by Google) on this thing? Or at the very least have some area for highlighted most popular YouTube clips? You can't easily download clips from YouTube and get them on this thing so why not at least let you stream it?
10. Why not just buy a Mac Mini, use Elgato's EyeTV, and skip the middle man? Although a Mac Mini costs more than the iDongle you get something pretty cool with it, another actual usable computer. Even if more expensive, at least with EyeTV you can get OTA HDTV. This seems to represent better value to me than to $300 iDongle which doesn't even come with cables. Of course Monster Cables is happy to step in and fleece you for the cables that you might want to go with your iDongle.
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This article has 11 comments:
There's a few responses to these points, like:
Why put a DVD player in it when Apple is dropping Blu-Ray machines in a month?
Are most consumers actually getting the most out of HD anyway?
Thus, are most consumers getting the most out of their wireless networks? [I personally would run cable for an iTV regardless]
Games are a matter of choice. I personally don't get gaming.
But really, none of us know what's up with this box. It could be a mistake, it could be the next iPod. I'd venture to guess that Steve Jobs doesn't know either, which is why he runs around chatting on his iPhone.
Finally, the unit just shipped, and like you said- you have not used one yet, so before you issue complaints, try one yourself.
I'm hoping Apple introduces some hefty upgrades for the ITV, otherwise it looks pretty unappealing to me.
And of course you need to remember they said far worse things about the iPod.....
Let's just see shall we?
This "iDongle", as you call it, is not for people who want to watch their HDTV programming on their 43" plasma screens, those who get the works from their Cable or Satellite subscriptions and subscribe or own Tivo. And it not for playing video games. It's not for you. It's for watching the stuff you buy from iTunes on your TV. If you don't want to use it for what it's meant for, don't bother writing a review.
1) I would think that by now, EVERYONE would realize that Apple is not in the piecemeal consumer electronics business, that everything they sell is designed to tie one to another Apple product. It is NOT a TiVo. Every Mac has a DVD player, and nearly all Windows machines do. The "iDongle" REQUIRES a connection to a computer (preferably a Mac, in Apple's eyes, but even a Windows machine is a potential future Mac customer), ergo, it ALREADY HAS A DVD READER by virtue of said connection. I repeat, it is NOT a TiVo. Last time I checked, an HD-capable TiVo cost more than twice what the iDongle does, plus it requires a subscription that would purchase another iDongle in less than a year. But the iDongle also requires a computer to use it, and a TiVo does not. So if you don't have a personal computer of some form or other, then the iDongle is not for you. If you DO have a computer, then the iDongle extends its usefulness by allowing it to display media kinds of things on an HDTV.
2) as to point#10, please go out and do a little research on the difficulty of connecting a Mac mini to an HDTV set. No component video ports on the mini, no HDMI ports on the mini. While it can be done, it requires a lot of up front research as to what HDTV will support a direct connection from a computer (most will not, or will do so in a problematic and unsupported manner). And by the time you have purchased a DVI-to-HDMI or DVI-to-component video converter, you might have spent more than you would have for the iDongle. This is, in fact, my primary reason for purchasing an iDongle, as it was cheaper than a Mac mini, and would simplify my goal of networking every Mac in the house to be able to send stuff to the HDTV. While using a Mac mini (or any other Mac) to directly drive an HDTV is a laudable goal, for most people that already have HDTVs, or have a particular one in mind, it simply isn't practical. A Windows Media PC might do the job, but I'm not up to speed on those -- do they come with HD video tuners? Can they output to HDMI or component video? I'm pretty sure that they cost more than $299.
3) (yes, so I can't count) I don't plan on using it primarily for internet video, as I've had an eyeTV unit for several years now (HIGHLY recommended), predating our purchase of a plasma HDTV a year ago when our ancient console TV gave up the ghost and died. I had been burning the captured over-the-air HD video to DVD, and loading it up in the living room for viewing -- as opposed to people huddled around the computer monitor to watch TV -- and have been eager for quite a while now for a good way to make the Mac with the eyeTV attached into a smart DVR. Now I have it. I hope to put all our movie DVDs onto a few terabytes of disk drive(s) and have a fully digital home entertainment center. I doubt that very many people are buying iDongles to watch YouTube.
Now, if you'll excuse me, Fedex has just delivered it, so I have to plug it in and see how well it really works!
My biggest problem with Apple TV is that it apparently does not play DivX files. I also don't get the point of the 40-gig hard drive. That's much too small and so I would not even use it; I'd stream everything. Why not sell a cheaper version without a hard drive? Perhaps that will come.
Overall I think the Apple TV is the TV version of the iPod - hardware that intentionally locks you into Apple's file formats and DRM. Probably smart for Apple, but not very consumer-friendly.