Review: Apple TV media player

Take two for Apple’s set-top box

In a moment of humility at the Macworld Expo in January, Apple’s Steve Jobs admitted that the original Apple TV was “not what people wanted”.

The problem was that the Apple TV merely acted as a middleman between the computer and the
high-definition flatscreen TV.

This meant that you had to use your computer to buy films and TV programmes from the iTunes Store, and then download them onto the computer before transmitting them to your TV via the Apple TV box.

It was a clumsy approach, made even less appealing here in the UK by the fact that most of the film and TV material sold on iTunes is only available in the US. So Apple had a bit of a rethink and came up with the Apple TV ‘Take 2’, as they’re unofficially calling it.

The hardware inside the little square box hasn’t really changed and the interface is just as slick – the big difference is simply that the Apple TV can now link your HD television direct to the iTunes Store over the internet without using your computer at all.

It comes with either a 40GB or 160GB hard disk, so it’s extremely easy to download material from the iTunes Store to watch at your convenience.

Apple has also launched a new movie rental scheme on the iTunes Store – a lot of the movies are in high-definition too, which is great if you own an HD television. However, this rental scheme is currently only available in the US, and we will probably have to wait more than six months before it’s launched here in Europe.

There’s some decent TV content on the UK iTunes Store, but until we get a quality selection of films, the Apple TV is little more than a very expensive hard disk.