I have wanted an Apple TV since shortly after they came out. I read the articles about how to hack them and was interested in poking around under the hood. During Apple’s black friday promotion, the Apple TV was discounted enough to pay my sales tax. I bought one.
Since then I’ve come to really appreciate the addition to my living room. There were several things about the Apple TV that I didn’t realize. In addition to storing and playing my iTunes library from its local disk, it also streams iTunes music to my stereo system. Voila, I no longer need the Airport Express in the living room.
I had also forgotten that the Apple TV would sync with my iPhoto library. While playing with it the first night, the screen saver kicked on and photos from my computer were gracefully sliding across my screen. As I watched, I recalled researching LCD picture frames. For any of them under $100, I’d have to specially format my photos and then transfer them to the frame. The AppleTV syncs them wirelessly from my computer and scales them automatically.
The value of the photo feature was manifested over the Christmas holidays. We had a Christmas party for family, and then a birthday party for Ricardo. During both we had the photos playing. Having them play in the background evoked many memories and sparked many conversations. It also sparked several, “how are you getting your photos on the TV” conversations. They couldn’t believe it could be that easy or fun. Oops, I just boosted my Apple stock a bit. 😉
Finally, the Apple TV motivated me to do something I hadn’t yet. I have quite a few DVD movies stored on my file server. I started ripping them all to mp4 and dropping them into my iTunes library. After adding them into iTunes, they automatically sync to the AppleTV. Now I have a library of movies available in the living room and the DVDs are safely away from harm (Kayla) and mayhem (Lucas).
And can barely remember the urge to crack it open and start tinkering. I like it just the way it is.