Apple TV

I've been kicking this around in my head and thought I'd get some opinions. We currently pay about $65 per month for satelite service. Because of our Netflix subscription (and newly formed Guitar Hero 2 habit) we don't watch the TV a lot.

What I'm thinking of is buying an Apple TV. I've made a list of shows we try to keep up with. We could afford to buy those shows off of iTunes and still spend less than a satelite on a yearly basis. So, for less money, we would own the shows and could watch them anytime. Plus, it would allow us to keep up with the shows. We don't have DVR and so right now, we are missing a ton of our favorite shows because they don't come on at convenient times. This way, they would automatically download for us and we could watch them at our convenience.

But, then the HD-factor comes into play. The Apple TV currently supports up to 720p. We spent a good chunk of change to have a 1080p set so I'd like a box that supports the full resolution of the TV. The other thing is, I don't really want to spend money to buy these shows at DVD quality when I'd like to have them at HD quality. HD isn't currently available through iTunes. I'm thinking of waiting until they flip the HD switch to make this change. As much as we don't use the satelite now, we do have the HD package which is really nice.

At the end of the day, it probably isn't worth even the effort I put into this post, but hey, one has to think on the heavy topics of life.

Hello

Below is the new Apple commercial for the iPhone. It is absolutely one of the best commercials they could have made. It ran during last night's Oscars broadcast. Perfect ad for the audience they were showing it to.

"Cancel or allow?"

This is one of the best and funniest new "Get a Mac" ads to come from Apple.

"You are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or allow?"

"Are you high?"

Really funny Mac vs. PC commercial parody. I've seen a lot of these, but this one is actually pretty good. You can view more of them here.

Shuffle now in Technicolor

Earlier today, Apple released new iPod shuffles in a rainbow of colors. Maybe it's just the bitterness of being an early adopter, but I still like my silver shuffle I bought in November better than the colors. It just looks classier.

Tech gremlins

For some reason if it can go wrong, it has gone wrong lately. First we had still unexplained e-mail issues for about two weeks. Then this weekend my Airport Express decided to take a one day vacation leaving us without wireless internet, but mysteriously worked fine the next day. Then, Saturday, one of the hard drives in my PowerMac decided to start acting up.

Today I have to spend the better part of the morning reinstalling OS X on a new hard drive and reinstalling every program I have. I've never had to do something this extensive, so please pray for me. I use Apple computers because they almost never have problems. Because of the usual lack of issue, I have no patience for tech problems.

UPDATE #1: OS X has been installed on the new hard drive and we're now updating all programs. I'll give one thing to Apple, they make reinstalling all this stuff fairly simple. I've never actually done any of this before, but it's going smoothly.

Netflix gets better? Not so much.

Let me start by saying we subscribed to Netflix about a month and half ago and absolutely love it. In fact most of our friends and family have heard all about it from us. It seems perfect.

Now, they are making it where you can stream the movies directly to your computer instead of having to wait on the mail. The mail is so last century, after all. The bad part is, it's not open to Mac users. I know you are reading this and thinking "so," because you aren't a Mac user. Well I am, and it pisses me off.

But now that I think about it, streaming anything off the internet sucks. Bad. If I can download it directly to my computer and watch it, that's one thing (though I prefer to watch it on my TV), but streaming is often low-quality, stuttering video. Turns out you can keep your streaming Netflix. I don't want it. Me or my Mac.

I'd have to wonder about the economics of this offer, too. It won't be any extra charge to customers, which means no additional revenue from it (not counting any advertising surrounding the video you watch, which there will be). It surely took a huge investment in infrastructure and technology to make this happen. Does anyone really care enough to take advantage of it? If I can't wait 1 business day to see Weekend at Bernies, I've got issues. Most people savvy enough to take advantage of something like this are probably techy enough to own a very large TV with a nice surround sound system. Would those same people be content to watch a movie in poor quality on a computer screen? I know I wouldn't. With the advent of HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disc (more on that later) for high definition movies, this seems like a step in the wrong direction. Maybe this will turn out a lot like mobile video.

Via American Copywriter...again.

Quote of the day

"And, meanwhile, we're trying to write our software for an unfinished OS, which is like trying to perform an appendectomy on a patient who is awake and actively slapping your hands away."

by Wil Shipley
The Delicious Library Blog

Delicious Library, by the way, is a phenominal program that's made for cataloging collections of DVDs, books and video games. I'd highly recommend it, assuming you are a Mac user (it's Mac only) and you are as OCD as I am about having your collections organized.

Truly wireless?

Is it too much to ask for Apple to offer wireless headphones for the iPod? I spent part of the weekend catching up on some audiobooks and podcasts. I spent the other half of the weekend trying to untangle the headphone wires. These things are a nightmare to keep from wrapping around your throat in a threatening manner.

Cut the wires Apple.

However, this is the first significant amount of time I've spent with my iPod shuffle since buying it back in November, and I'm really impressed. Normally it is playing in my car, but this is the first time I've had it on me using the headphones. It's fantastic, and I can't imagine lugging around a full-sized iPod as I was listening around the house.