Apple TV (formerly iTV) Review

I recently purchased an AppleTV and ran it through its paces. I was surprised and disappointed.

First, the surprise; the quality of the image created by the AppleTV on an HDTV was much better than expected. I’ve tried various digital signals, including BluRay, and have been really disappointed by the lack of sharpness or detail. I expected more. Finally, when I hooked up the AppleTV I got what I expected when it came to the quality and detail of the images. Which is strange since Robert Scoble reported that some people have complained that AppleTV is blurry. That has not been my experience. It has been just the opposite.

Now, the disappointment; I was disappointed in the limited functionality of AppleTV. First, it won’t play content downloaded from iTunes unless it can access the Internet. And, where I set up the AppleTV, you can only access the Internet through a proxy server. Well, believe it or not, this Apple tech note says Apple does NOT support proxy settings, in the end it looks like situation of “you can’t get there from here.” This is certainly something that needs to be fixed in the future. Until then, I’ve got a device that I can barely use.

I can’t wait for AppleTV 2.0.