So I decided to keep the Apple TV, despite a really poor first impression, so what do I think about it now….

The Good

It’s silent, this is nice.

It’s small, but the remote is dark ages IR, rather than bluetooth, so I can’t put it away in my TV unit, it’s got to stay out.

The iTunes catalogue, this is pretty much the only reason anyone would buy one, but it’s a very good reason.

The Bad

Most of the bugs I encountered were in the setup, and are behind me, but the ‘Home Sharing’ bug, which basically means you need to go to your serving computer and turn home sharing off, then back on again.

My Mac is a staircase away, which is a pain for me, but maybe for someone who is elderly or disabled, this is a very serious bug, I wouldn’t accept it for my cable box, so why is it OK for the Apple TV? It isn’t.

At the end of the day, the Apple TV is something I begrudgingly have, because it’s the only way to get iTunes content on my telly, if there were another option, I’d take it in an instant as I doubt they could do it any worse than Apple has.

It’s probably the first Apple product I’ve used that I plain old don’t like, I don’t use an iPhone any more, but that’s because it just wasn’t for me, it’s a great phone, but it doesn’t suit someone who sends a huge amount of email on the go. I own quite a few Macs and like all of them, even my old G4 Mac Mini chugging away as a home server.

In a way, I’ve been spoiled by the PS3, streaming media (photos, films, music), bluray, dvd, bluetooth remote, and great games in a single reasonably priced box. The Apple TV only serves *ONE* of these purposes, and doesn’t even do a brilliant job of it.

Note : The Sony iTunes alternative movie store isn’t a patch on iTunes, not even close in content, usability or download speed. It doesn’t do TV series at all, which is no good for me (Mad Men).