ok listen; i’ve owned an appleTV going on a year.

it clearly, *out of the box*, is nothing more than an iTunes delivery device (oh wait you can view YouTube and flickr–big whoop). it’s far worse than iTunes in this regard, as there’s no easy way out of the box to simply drag and drop various media formats and have them automatically available on the AppleTV. On the real, if i knew i couldn’t hack this box, it wouldn’t have gotten bought. On its own, for the price, it’s flat out a waste of money. i said it.

that being said, it’s a hackable box, and if you are one to have the skills enough to buy a memory stick, and google for the proper software, you can be running a software called “boxee” on it, which will “free” your appleTV to play more native file formats, items outside of iTunes, and stream video from a wide array of growing sources (including Hulu, the WB, CBS).

if you are one who is OK with getting your hands a little dirty, the AppleTV is actually a *wonderful* box. For your average consumer? not worth even a look.

j.

The studios fundamentally control the price and availability of what is available online – not Apple or Netflix; that’s my point.

I feel like I saw a quote from a Netflix executive speaking exactly to their limitations on offering streaming video, but I can’t seem to dig it up.

HD-DVD… Blu-Ray… Netflix… discs… yawn! Browsing at WalMart? Clicking on a PC to manage a “queue”… yawn… man some people just refuse to see a good thing when they see one.

Must suck to live your life that way…

I don’t understand your last paragraph. You basically say Netflix is better and then explain that we won’t see cheap rentals on the Internet any time soon… But that’s just it, Netflix has already arrived as the cheap-on-the-Internet solution.

Al,

Sounds great, but I still think Apple TV isn’t much without its rental/purchase offerings. If Apple was relying on consumers like you that already have 1 TB of media, well, they wouldn’t sell much hardware.

The movie rental service is only available in the United States.

No joining at the hip at all Bob. The Apple TV is the iPod for your HDTV. It connects the audio and video content on your computers and on the Internet to your HDTV. It does it very well. You wouldn’t say the iPod and the iTunes Store are joined at the hip since it is common knowledge that only about 3% of iPod content is purchased from iTunes Store. Most of the content streamed through Apple TV does not come from Apple either.

The movie rental service, as it now stands, sucks. It does, however, work with a Windows PC, a Mac, and the iPhone as well as Apple TV. If you don’t need Apple TV to use the service, Bob, it is not joined at the hip to Apple TV.

My Apple TV serves over 1 TB of media to my HDTV flawlessly.

That’s really something Bob. If you ever saw the ease at which you can browse 100′s of movies or dozens of play-lists and stream any digital file to your HDTV instantly, you’d be blown away.

You think that Time Warner’s move on per-bandwidth pricing is “testing” now just imagine if the media companies let Apple undercut their prices while using their pipes.

Apple has plenty of shortcomings, but I find it odd when people seem to blame them for decisions clearly not entirely of their choosing. Apple could care less what it charges for the media- they just want to sell ipods, iphones, appletvs ,etc. It’s about hardware to them.

Clearly, netflix is a better deal than renting movies on AppleTV. Netflix is also a better deal than on-demand or the local dvd rental brick and mortar store. But until the media-companies grasp that, we won’t see cheap rentals on the internet any time soon.

Nice! Here are my responses to your responses:

1. Um, actually all those options you mentioned are great ways to get TV shows… TV shows come on DVD, you know.

2. Yeah, but Apple made several of its products obsolete in under five months… a bit much, don’t you think?

3 & 4. Point taken.

5. Agreed, even if Apple’s logic does the opposite of what they’re hoping (for me).

6. O.k., sounds good… But Apple not being in a position to lead?? Heaven forbid! j/k

7. There’s an easy answer here: Mac users may not be worth the trouble for Amazon or Netflix (at least, in comparison to the much larger market needing to be served first). Both will eventually go for Mac support, once it makes sense financially.

And Apple and Mac users needing to be apologetic in their offering? That’s not really the point. Again, it’s simply a matter of economics: Apple simply can’t afford to go through all this without enticing the PC crowd; it just wouldn’t be worth it. That would be like making iPods only for Mac users, simply not an option if the company wants to continue growth. So whatever Apple comes up with better be good for everyone (like the iPod is/was), otherwise Apple would be left with its dedicated, smaller fan base (which doesn’t bring in nearly as much as the masses with their iPod purchases).

But you make it sound like a matter of fairness of some sort, which really can’t be the purpose of a corporate entity. If Apple wants to design this only for the Mac crowd, then great, but it won’t take off (do you think the iPod would have taken off in that context?). But Netflix and Amazon? It may be hypocritical in some way, I suppose, but their role isn’t to make sure the universe is balanced between Mac and PC users. They’ll come out with Mac support at some point… but that’s no reason for Apple not to have high quality PC support immediately. It may not be fair, but it’s reality.

8. “Do you think since I can’t get a movie rental on iTunes, I’m now going to drive to Wal-Mart and buy that DVD?!” You, no, I don’t think you’d do that. But how many of the millions of users buying DVDs at Wal-Mart will switch to Apple if they have to wait an extra month? Answer: Hardly any.

9. Interesting… For me, Apple TV would be an addition to my setup. There is nothing I could take away as a result. I still need my DVD player, game console, receiver, cable box, etc, etc. But hey, if it allows you to consolidate and take something out of your setup, then great.

10. Fair enough, I suppose, but I’m still waiting until it “takes off” before I go buy one.

All and all, if Apple TV works for you, I’m glad it was available for you to make the purchase.