Apple TV, Geek Brief TV and MacFan

I am not a Macfan, I am certainly not Apple fanboy. I don't bow when I see the Apple icon show up on anything. I do like the iPod, in fact I'm enjoying my new Nano, read a previous blog for the reason of the Nano.

I was watching Episode 149 of Geek Brief TV. In this episode, Cali Lewis sings the praises of watching the new Apple TV. It is the new attempt by Apple to integrate the home theatre with the computer and wireless networking. On the whole it sounds like a marvellous idea and certainly what you can do with it is amazing. This is especially true with vidcasts. Cali opens by saying we are watching Geek Brief through Apple TV. The feature is you can sync and download podcasts and vidcasts to watch and enjoy on High Definition TV. There is a lot of good to that, the thought of watching Diggnation or as she had on, TikiBar TV. Again a great idea.

What therefore is my problem. Well, first its the attitude of Macfan, they worship anything with the apple icon on it and to that end, they are quick to either ignore, dismiss or justify some of the weaknesses of an Apple product. Cali talks about the fact that words such as simplicity and elegance can be used to speak of Apple TV, yet as you hear her talk, you realize there are some other words. As I watched the vidcast I came up with a list of seven problems that are simply mentioned or stated something that will be improved in later generations.

Here are some of the weaknesses, that aren't mentioned as weakness:

1) Price- $299.00US
2) No Power Button. So here you go, you just purchased your Apple TV. You bring it out of the box and realize

3) No Cables. You have to go back to BestBuy and purchase the cables, so add another $40-100 to the price. Once you return and get all the wires connected. You grab your manual, you stare at the devise and you ask yourself this important question

4) "Where's the Power Button". I mentioned this already but to quote Kryten, it's such a biggie, it's worth mentioning twice. Yes, the question you ask is, "how do I turn it on". Which will be followed by "How do I turn the stupid thing off?". To answer the latter, you push a little button on the remote to put it in 'sleep'. As for turning it on, I have no idea.

5) Okay, you justify the fact you can't turn it off, this leads to the next problem. It overheats. This is simply stated as it gets warm. So you have an always on fire hazard. Good marketing.

6) videos purchased from iTunes doesn't look all that good on the television. So what looks good on your computer monitor, doesn't look good on the TV. You can encode to make it look good, however if you're not a tech geek, this could be a drawback. I suppose there's always piracy.

7) Small HardDrive, it's only 30 gigs. Yes that's a lot of music and videos. But still, 30Gigs, how long will it take to fill up?

All in all, a devise that will have a good future, so long as it gets away from fanboy and fangirl in the present.