Archives for Category : Review

OK, picked up a new Apple TV 2 yesterday from the Marlton Apple Store and I would suggest that anyone who routinely uses Netflix Watch Instantly go out and get one right now. It’s the best Instant Netflix client I’ve used and I’ve tried the iPad, Xbox 360 and the web based version. Full access to all the Watch Instantly features with a very Apple user experience. Some other boxes like the Roku can only access media you’ve already added to your Instant Watch queue which is kind of limiting.

Setup is dead easy, but requires an HDMI input on your TV or an appropriate (and possibly costly) adapter for DVI, VGA or RGB.

Owners of the original Apple TV show know that there is no syncing of your media to the new ATV2 at all, everything is played via a stream either from the Net or from a Mac or PC running iTunes on your home network. This is less of a chore than I’d expected as the ATV2 has a much simpler scheme to connect to local machines, but it does mean that you either have to keep iTunes running at all times or launch it when you want to use it as a source for movies, music or pictures. Recent vintage Intel Macs will be automatically woken from sleep as needed, as will late G5 (and maybe G4 Mac mini?) and early Intel models if they connect to your network via a hardwired Ethernet cable rather than wirelessly.

I have not used any of the Apple video rental features as yet, Netflix has more than enough to feed my need for new movies.

Have to admit I was a bit skeptical that the new box would replace my original Apple TV even with the addition of Netflix, but the combination of the almost-as-good streaming support and the best-of-class Netflix client kind of make it inevitable now.

And I haven’t even tried AirPlay yet.

Dave

• Apple TV 2

There are some people claiming that even at $29 for a full new version of an OS, Snow Leopard isn’t worth the money. These people are, to put it charitably, uninformed.

If you want to get an idea why, go check out this meg-review of Snow Leopard by the uber-geeks at Ars Technica:

• Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard: the Ars Technica review

This is the most complete review I’ve seen yet. Parts of it are technical. Very technical. But even the technical bits give you a flavor of how much work went into Snow Leopard and how focused Apple was on improving the overall user experience by reducing the time we have to wait for stuff to get done.

OK, here’s something that really surprised me: Comcast has released an actual iPhone app and it’s actually quite good!

With it you can check your Comcast email, manage Comcast digital voicemail, forward your Comcast voice line to your iPhone, browse the TV schedule and also check out schedules and trailers for On-Demand movies. All this in a fairly attractively designed app (other than the gratuitous use of the flip animation instead of a standard slide when you bring up program details.)

They could convert this into a killer app if they allow actual channel selection and DVR programming right from the app.

It’s free and available here from the iTunes App Store.

Oh, and in a related note I just got an email from Comcast that they were boosting their default download speeds but you have to cycle power on your cable modem to make use if it. Just unplug the AC cord on it, count to 10 and plug it back in and you should be all set (if you’ve got Comcast Digital Voice you’ll have to remove the cable modem’s backup battery, unplug the AC then plug both back in.)