Apple TV

Happy New Year! 

I just wandered over to the Macworld Expo and checked out some of the latest stuff from Apple.  One item that caught my eye is the new Apple TV.

Seems OK, but not as cool as a full on Apple-powered DVR/Tivo.  Basically, think of Apple TV as a big video iPod that happens to use your TV as a display and pumps sound through your stereo speakers instead of headphones.

You have to sync the aTV with iTunes on a Mac in order to move songs/videos/TVshows/movies from iTunes into the aTV unit.  You can set it up to sync automatically, I think.

So the whole system still revolves around your Mac+iTunes as the controller for your media collection.  E.g., buy a new music video in iTunes on your Mac, and then sync it to your aTV unit in order to play the video on your home stereo & TV.

Not sure why this is better than just plugging a Macbook into your home stereo & TV directly through the built-in audio & video outputs when you want to play a movie on your TV.  I guess it’s for folks who want to have an Apple device dedicated to their living room and it’s cheaper to buy an aTV than to dedicate a full-on Mac computer to that purpose?