TV, Apple Style

Posted: February 15, 2008 
Filed under: Techno Mumbo Jumbo
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As many of you already now, the Farland household has gone without broadcast or cable television for nearly four years and that isn’t going to change any time soon. Yesterday, Madelyn and I went down to the Apple store in Salem and picked up an Apple TV.

In its previous form, the Apple TV was essentially nothing more than an iPod for the living room. It was designed to play music, photos, and video stored in your Apple iTunes library on a computer (Windows or Mac) somewhere in your house. As of this month, that has all changed. Now the Apple TV is capable of so much more like the following:

• Rent movies directly from the Apple iTunes Store in standard and high-definition.
• Buy music, videos, movies, and TV shows direct from Apple TV
• View any iTunes content stored on your computer in your living room.
• Subscribe to and view/listen to video and audio podcasts, most of them free.
• Watch YouTube videos on your TV.

We haven’t had a lot of time to kick the tires, but I’m already impressed. We can import our DVDs into the iTunes library and watch them without having to put the disc in a player. This is very useful when the greasy little fingers in the house get the shiny side of the DVD all messed up.  It will be nice to have the full music library available in the living room too.