Endgaget’ts review of the $99 box concludes:
[N]one of the other options we’ve tested have felt as simple, solid, and easy to use as the new Apple TV. Putting content concerns aside (which admittedly is difficult to do), the Apple TV has a lot going for it. The video and audio quality of the Apple TV is to be lauded, the company is making a lot of high quality titles available right off the bat, sharing from your current computers is a snap, and if you’re a Netflix user, the inclusion here is perfectly seamless. The question is ultimately about ease versus options — right now it’s hard to whole-heartedly recommend the Apple TV even at its $99 price point given the thin list of partners Apple has courted. If you just want a dead simple movie rental box and you’re not that picky about content, the Apple TV is a no-brainer. If, like us, you’re looking for options good enough to make you can the cable, Apple’s new box still feels a lot like a hobby.
That last is key. Apple has always been careful to finesse the interests of its corporate colleagues just enough to keep them on board. The device dazzles but the content controllers aren’t all there yet. They don’t want you to “can the cable” and Apple isn’t pushing it. That day will come.
iFixIt’s Apple TV Teardown awards it “a coveted Repairability Score of 8 / 10 due to its ease of disassembly, minuscule power consumption, and highly recyclable construction.” Not a surprise. The surprise was finding the unit comes with 8GB of Flash storage.
I’ve had a TiVo box since the very first “Blue Moon” unit shipped in 1999. The best lifetime service subscription I ever purchased. Sadly, my current TiVo may be my last. Engadget explains, “TiVo has held the gold standard for DVR software for over a decade, but that’s mostly because no one successfully stepped up to the plate — not even TiVo itself, whose Premiere interface shipped the definition of half-baked.”
I will be buying an Apple TV, probably before the year is out.
Discussion via Techmeme around the Engadget review and iFixit teardown.