Apple TV

When it comes to the latest technologies and the coolest gadgets, Apple has done more than any other company to advance the world we live in. Over the years, we’ve come to expect Apple to release a new world-changing device every couple of years, and they deliver almost without fail. So amid all the hype surrounding the iPhones, iPads, and so on, it’s not surprising that Apple’s less flashy efforts often fall beneath the radar. The Apple TV is a perfect example. Why don’t more people know about this product? They should.

What is the Apple TV?

First, the basics. The Apple TV is not a TV. It’s a small, black box with a USB input and an HDMI output. You connect it via the USB port to your router, and you connect it to your TV with an HDMI cable. And that’s really all there is to setting it up. When you switch it on, there are a few additional steps if you customize certain features, but you can literally start using the Apple TV mere seconds after plugging it in. In this way, it’s every bit as intuitive as the most popular Apple devices.

Think of Apple TV as a media receiver. You can hook it up to your iTunes account to watch movies and TV shows available through the Apple store. That’s the feature most prominently displayed when you switch on the device. But there are other things you can do as well. If you have a Netflix streaming account, you can enter your login information to watch any of Netflix’s streamed content on your TV. You can also watch YouTube videos, stream MLB, NHL, and NBA games, view Vimeo videos and Flickr photos, and get news from the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, if you have a home network, you can watch any movies that you have stored on your computer and loaded into your iTunes. And for file formats that don’t work in iTunes, there are plenty of free software applications that convert all types of media to iTunes-compatible formats.

If all of that sounds great enough, keep in mind that the Apple TV undergoes periodic software updates that are automatically loaded when you switch on the device, and Apple regularly releases new features. So while it’s unfortunate that the Apple TV doesn’t stream media from sources such as Amazon, stay tuned, because there are new developments in the works.

Is it worth buying?

It’s easy to understand why the Apple TV has not been hyped up as much as some of the other Apple products. It’s certainly not world changing, and it’s not the type of awe-inspiring device that Apple is known for. But if you ask practically anyone who owns one, they’re liable to tell you not only that they love it but that they use it every day and have come to rely on it for much of their media consumption.

There have been some complaints about bugs in the Apple TV system, and indeed it is clear that the engineers at Apple are more concerned with other projects. But for all the bugs, there is plenty of information online about how to fix or work around them. Sure, it’s not an ideal situation, but the bugs certainly do not render the device unusable. They’re just minor annoyances that you won’t even be aware of most of the time.

And if none of this has convinced you that the Apple TV is worth buying, consider the price. At under $100, the Apple TV is perfectly priced for a relatively simple device that does some straightforward things. It’s worth buying if you just have a Netflix account and want to be able to stream to your TV, and it’s also great if you are interested in Apple’s movie rentals. These services alone make it worth the price, and of course there are other features that one can explore. All in all, the Apple TV is a worthy offering from one of our most innovative companies.