14 DAY TRIAL // A week after its release, everyone has had a good long look at the little Apple TV box, and has had enough time to reach a conclusion. Not surprisingly, the device has been received with mixed feelings.
As a stand alone device, the Apple TV has been compared quite a lot to the XBOX 360 and other consoles or Media PCs, a comparison in which inevitably Apple's box comes up short. While the Apple TV is not a games console, or a dedicated all in one solution to media, the fact that many industry reports have made such analogies has only reinforced the public's perception.
Looking at the Apple TV as a stand alone device is next to impossible simply because it needs computers with music and videos, movies and TV shows to have any functionality whatsoever, without them being quite useless.
Unfortunately, very few see the Apple TV for what it is, a platform. Much like iTunes, which started out as a simple music player and then became a music store, only to go on and expand into all media, Apple TV is just a first step. The little box is capable of a lot more than what it currently does, and no doubt it is part of a larger Apple plan, the end of which is not visible from just this first step. In fact, the Apple TV is a striped down mini, complete with a trimmed version of OS X, it has a lot of room to grow into something bigger.
The fact that the Apple TV has not shown all it can do is further emphasized by Apple's video offerings. While the box supports high definition video, what can be currently bought from the iTunes store has a lower quality. Furthermore, dissection of the device has reveled that it has dedicated processor and memory, which are not needed for it to do what it currently does, and points in the direction of games.
As it is, the Apple TV is not for everyone, and in fact many are very likely to find it lacking certain features. However, as a foundation for Apple to build on, it looks very promising.