Classic AppleTV (160GB)

The new AppleTV also looks pretty cool, and at $99 it will likely be a market success, but it does not do 1080p; and I have concerns about it picking up all the internet media that I want.

The real media center is probably a Mac Mini, but it’s a lot more expensive.

Old AppleTV: 100baseT/802.11n, 720p, 160GB drive, Mac OS X 10.4 with some bits stripped out $149
New AppleTV: 100baseT/802.11n, 720p, no drive, iOS under the hood $99
Mac Mini: 1000baseT/802.11n, 1080p, bigger drive, full Mac OS X 10.6 upgradable, can work as a DVR with EyeTV $699

Let’s be comprehensive, and compare:
AppleTV (new $99) stream Netflix, iTunes, Flickr, YouTube, Internet Radio, MobileMe, etc
AppleTV (old $149) stream iTunes, Flickr, YouTube, Internet Radio, MobileMe, hack to play Boxee, XBMC, etc
Roku ($59, $69, or $99) stream Netflix, Amazon, Pandora…
Boxee Box (coming in November), plays Boxee content
GoogleTV software coming soon, on which media boxes?
Popcorn Hour ($179 – $361), plays many media formats, can even add a DVD or Blu-Ray drive
Sony Netbox ($130) streams Sony Bravia services (encapsulated Netflix, YouTube, etc)

Update:
Apparently all Profile 2.0 (aka BD-Live) Blu-ray players have an internet connection for upgrading firmware and streaming live audio and video from internet sources. Our new Panasonic DMP-BD85 streams Netflix, Amazon, Youtube, and Pandora… This essentially means that the streaming-only devices we are comparing above are redundant if you already have or plan to get a Profile 2.0 or newer Blu-ray player.

Classic (40GB and 160GB) Apple TV features:
stream youtube
stream internet radio (hundreds of stations)
stream audio, photos, video from iTunes computer on your own LAN
stream photos from MobileMe, Flickr – or sync them from iTunes on a local computer
stream podcasts from internet – or sync them from iTunes on a local computer
stream and sample music from iTunes Music store – or sync music from iTunes on a local computer
rent or buy Movies and TV shows and Music from the iTunes Music store (though that’s pricey)
preview all the trailers you want

With a patchstick hack – Classic Apple TV can also:
run XBMC to view local to disk, or NAS, or LAN movies/music in nearly any format
run Boxee to stream TV shows, podcasts from the internet – or play local media
run CouchSurfer to view internet websites and Flash content (requires extra hacking and either an Intel based Mac OS 10.4 machine or Intel based Tiger install disks)

It great news is that the new iPhone OS will finally have several features it should already have:

• finally support cut and paste both within an application and between applications
• finally support synchronizing notes between the iPhone and a Mac desktop via iTunes (probably PC too)
• finally support search, globally through the core applications (Mail/Notes/iPod/Calendar) using spotlight

There are also some pleasant surprises:

• CalDAV support for any CalDAV server, not just MobileMe; could be useful for some SOHO operations with shared calendars
• stereo bluetooth; very useful for ballroom dancers, one partner wears iPod/iPhone and wired headset, 2nd partner wears bluetooth headset and both can dance to music and ignore the other music sharing the studio floor
• landscape keyboard now available in all main applications, was already in Safari, it will be nice having it in email, notes, etc; this is a big deal for those of us with big fat fingers
• support for MMS messages, I think this lets you “text” a photo directly to someone’s phone (that also supports MMS), or a voicemail, or a sound file

Update: Wow – how could I have missed the addition of peer to peer connectivity via Bluetooth!? Potential for security lapse here, but also potential for lots of new applications. Very interesting.

I am sad that there is no apparent change on the “please allow my Apple bluetooth keyboard to work with my Apple iPhone” front; not sure why this would continue to be blocked.

I am unsurprised there is still no Flash and no tethering; for Flash is a security nightmare, and I am glad we don’t allow flash on the iPhone; and tethering is a problem with the carriers (AT&T and others) who want to collect more money for tethering because they are greedy bastards and don’t understand that data is data regardless of wether it lives on your phone or your TV or your tethered laptop.

I gotta say, if they are considering releasing a new major revision (iPhone OS 3.0) without global search, cut and paste, the ability to synchronize notes between iPhone and Mac desktop; they need to delay.

Network tethering (allowing a connected laptop to use the AT&T dataplan for mobile networking) is important too, but that can be a separate application pretty easily.

My very, very old Palm devices all have global search, cut & paste, and the ability to synchronize text notes between desktop and PDA. Nearly every smart phone can do these things… it is shameful that this otherwise amazing ultra-portable computing platform we call the iPhone cannot do these basic things.

Yes, I have installed PhoneView (commercial application) to sync my notes between Mac and iPhone (and it works pretty well). Yes there is a hack that lets cut & paste work in a few applications; but these are essential to any PDA and should be part of the platform and universally implemented. The absence of global search is downright crippling; it means I can only afford to put so few notes on my phone that I know exactly where to find them. It also means that I continue to carry my Palm Tungsten C.

• The switch from embedded Intel graphics to NVIDIA GeForce 9400M is a huge energy savings; the new Mini uses only half the power of the old one, and gets much better graphics performance as a bonus. It also has two display connections out of the box; which is a big bonus for people wanting small nettop servers and desktops.
• Maximum memory configuration is now 4GB using 1066MHz DDR3 sticks; that is a big boost where it is needed for small servers.
• Firewire 800 port means that you can externalize your storage to your favorite high speed RAID array or even just a bunch of really cheap, really large capacity drives; but you get the fastest speeds available via the Firewire 800 bus.
• With both Mini DisplayPort and Mini-DVI video out, and “Combined optical digital audio output/headphone out” this should be an excellent contender for a media center if you can convert the A/V outputs to HDMI or Component Video and Digital Audio out for an amplifier.

The entire new Mac desktop line includes NVIDIA graphics for lower power consumption and better graphics. Nice.