Apple TV / iTV First Impressions - Technology Evangelist

Apple has announced that their product codenamed iTV will actually be called Apple TV. It's an interesting product, but does it really bring any innovation to this marketspace?

Apple is not the first to create a media center extender, which frankly is what this is. Microsoft has had this through their hardware partners for years. They are one of the first to bring HD resolutions to the box, but they fall short of 1080p only outputting 720p. The Apple TV product is also missing some stuff that other media center extenders have announced at CES 2007: stream content from as many computers as you have in your home not just 5 systems, stream content from a home NAS central storage device, have multiple extenders in the home linked together in party mode, room shifting, live TV tuner support and most of all 1080p.

After seeing what Netgear has to offer with the Digital Entertainer HD the Apple TV product seems like a first generation compromise. Apple brings some nice things to the UI that others are missing and that should not be downplayed, but will the UI be enough to offset the lack of features that others are already offering?

What are your impressions of Apple TV?

What TV will people actually use this for? With no tuner in it and no shipping Mac with a tuner, won't you be limitied to what you buy on iTunes? That should fill up the first weekend and then sit pretty idle I suspect.

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