Despite my allegiance to the wonderful iPhone and iPad I have never had anything else Apple in my home – and when looking at streaming a few years ago I decided to go down the squeezebox route. However, when recently deciding to put the squeezebox from my living room into my kitchen I needed to replace it with something. Originally I started looking at a Squeezebox touch for the kitchen with the original squeezebox staying where it was. But the insane prices were putting me off. I then looked at another squeezebox radio. However, I already have one of those in the bedroom and much as I love it – I wanted something new to play with, not a duplicate of another piece of tech.
So I started looking at the Apple TV. The original decision to start looking at it was a rationalisation of what I actually used the squeezebox for. It was merely used for music – the Mede8er was used for video. And as all my music is ripped within iTunes, it really did not matter that the Apple TV was locked into that format.
But the more I looked at it, the more impressed I was – in a device that costs under £100. It streams your music and videos from within iTunes. It does playlists and album art. The display on your TV looks gorgeous. But it also does photos REALLY well – much better than any other device I have tried. And it also has a really extensive video library to rent from (something I wouldn’t do) and serves you trailers for the latest movies (something I have used extensively and the children love).
So – after living with the device for a week I am EXTREMELY impressed and have already ditched my Mede8er. It was a great idea but in practice it was rarely used. I am now going to look into the possibility of ripping all my movies into iTunes to see how easy it is to do.
I will, of course, review the Apple TV fully once I have been using it fully for a longer period.
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