Apple releases Apple TV update

John Brownlee ()

Apple releases Apple TV update

Apple’s most useless-out-of-the-box product, the “hobby” Apple TV, has just gotten a minor update.

Don’t expect this to revolutionize (or even improve) the usefulness of your dust-catching Apple set-top. It’s an update so inconsequential that Apple couldn’t even be bothered to write up some change note for it.

That said, Apple TV users are piecing together that the update, once applied, is mainly to improve the way that the new Aperture 3 pro photo software suite shares images with the Apple TV over the local network, while bringing support for iPhoto and Aperture’s Places and Faces features.

If you don’t care about that, there’s another reason to tempt you top upgrade: users are reporting that the update seems to fix intermittent issues the Apple TV has when switching the HDMI output cable.

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If you’re interested, you can update the firmware of your Apple TV to 3.0.2 through the “Update Software” option under Settings > General. Otherwise, we’ll be sure to shake you all awake when Apple finally gets serious about Apple TV.

26 comments »

About the author

John BrownleeJohn Brownlee is news editor here at Cult of Mac, and has also written about a lot of things for a lot of different places, including Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, Gizmodo, Kotaku, Lifehacker, AMC, Geek and the Consumerist. He lives in Cambridge with his charming inamorata and a tiny budgerigar punningly christened after Nabokov's most famous pervert. You can follow him here on Twitter.

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Posted in AppleTV, News, Software |

  • http://kevaddict.com kev_addict

    What’s with the Apple TV hate right-out-of-the-box?

  • George

    So why are you so down constantly about the Apple TV? You may not like it but it’s fantastic for what it does. I can play songs all though my house using a single Airport connected to my whole house audio system. Control everything though my iPhone using the Remote app. Get TV shows. Stream movies.

    What do you want it to do? Wash your dishes?

    For what it’s targeted at it’s the best consumer grade (note, not a Sonos) AV net player out there! Did an Apple TV scare you when you were sleeping?

  • John Brownlee

    As a set-top box, the Apple TV sucks. It has slim support out of the box for online video sites. It ships in embarrassingly meager hard drive capacities. It only plays Quicktime files, so it’s worthless if you don’t consume all of your video through iTunes (or bother with converting all of your files). It doesn’t even start getting usable until you upgrade the hard drive and install Boxee on it.

    Why don’t I like Apple TV? Who can blame me? Hell, even APPLE doesn’t like the Apple TV. Jobs has dismissed it as a “hobby” and they haven’t released a significant upgrade in years. You really think this is a product Apple thinks they got right?

  • Beavis

    I love my AppleTV. It is perfect for what it is meant to do….. I use it every single day and I have all my movies (alot) on my iMac ready to load on AppleTV…. good addition to my home entertainment center.

  • Rob

    Wow! I could agree with you more. I bought the Apple TV a few years ago and still don’t have it connected. I was unimpressed with it from the start; put it aside and later reconnected it to add boxee support. An upgrade later interfered with the boxee support and I just unplugged it. It truly does now just collect dust in my entertainment center. Too bad, this could’ve been a very useful AV system add-on if only Apple had wanted it to be that way.

  • Eric

    I agree with John. While I know most people will defend it to the hilt since it’s “made by Apple” (and Apple can do no wrong), it’s pretty useless as a product for the price. The lack of compatibility for most formats is a major deal breaker for me. If I have to convert videos (again) before it will play then what’s the point?

    Hear me out.. I could buy just about any blu-ray player on the market (for less money than AppleTV I might add), pop in a USB memory stick with movies, pictures, music, etc. in just about any format I choose and it will play it. Most even allow for NetFlix rentals right to the player. PLUS it still plays DVDs, Blu-Ray Discs, and VCDs. Again, all for less money than AppleTV.

    For that matter, my TiVo (for a bit more money) will also play movies/music/pictures from my computer plus it records live TV and I can also rent movies from it just like AppleTV.

    Sorry, but John is right. Apple really needs to improve this product if they ever expect it to succeed.

  • http://www.toxicspark.com Andrew Macdonald

    While I agree for some that Apple TV is a bit “useless out of the box”, for us people who consistently buy music, films and tv programs through itunes, this device is perfect.

    Just because you guys who want the box to do more than it was originally designed to do, (boxee, web browsing etc), doesn’t mean the rest of the market find this device useless.

    The same is true for all the people slagging off the iPad. the only people who are slagging it off are the people who want it to do more than it was designed to do. If, like the vast majority of the market want, is just to browse the web, watch videos and read the books, the device is again perfect for the job.

    It winds me up that you lot seem to love slagging off some of Apples products. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. That doesn’t mean the rest of the people who have purchased it to work directly with iTunes (what it was designed to do) share your opinions that the device is useless.

  • http://arrowquick.com Perry Lund

    Love using my AppleTV for movie night at our house. Need more content choices in the store, but the delivery mechanism and usage of AppleTV is great.

  • JJSX

    Yes, really nice product, simple and well working interface, just love it.
    But when can I buy and/or rent films here in the EU via itunes/appleTV ?!?

  • bb

    I think the AppleTV is just great at what it does. I just want an easy way to stream my iTunes media, podcasts, and Internet radio through my A/V system. Been a satisfied user for many years.

    It doesn’t aspire to be the Swiss Army Knife of media centers, so why bother judging it on this basis? Do I see ways it could be better? Sure. Does it need a hardware refresh? Yup. Would a wider range of available movies and TV shows at a cheaper price be good on it? Certainly (though it’s largely out of Apple’s hands). Do I give a hoot about getting Hulu or any of the other lame Flash video based sites out there playing on it? Nope. Do I care about it not playing video formats common to file-sharing sites? Definitely not. Might it be truly awesome if it streamed Netflix movies? Most definitely. Overall, it’s a good solid unit that works fine today doing what it does but has the potential to be much better. Whether Apple does anything to fulfill that potential is the real question.

  • Gabriel

    I bought an APPLE TV just about 90 days ago. The first week i came home from a few days away and had to touch the device for some reason. It was so HOT I almost had to drop it, being afraid it was going to burn me. I called APPLECARE right away, and was transfered to a manager type, who then proceded to take a statement from me, that I or any of my furniture was not burned, They then said they’d send me a replacement and I could do what I wanted with the old one. Well, the replacement shows up and ONLY works a for few minutes after I connect and disconnect then reconnect the device to my MAC. This was a nightly event for 85 days, until I made them go away. APPLE refused to return my purchase (some 14 day BS! ), blamed my network. APPLE TV SUCKS!!

  • ChrisF

    Think of the AppleTV as an Airport Video and you might be able to re-calibrate your expectations to actually like it. I use mine mainly to be the graphic front end to my music collection in my theater room. It also gets my favorite internet radio station (since I can’t get reception in my house). It is yet another source for on-demand movies. It can view photos, etc, etc. I know everyone expected it to be the holy grail of STB’s but it’s not. It’s a very functional piece that does what it does very well.

  • http://www.jv21.com/ John Keogh

    Come off it! Flickr and YouTube browsing from the sofa – fantastic! Apple TV is great! I invite people round just to see my album cover screen saver.

  • Dave

    The one thing Apple could do to instantly improve AppleTV is to add HDMI support to the Mac Mini.

  • footagehead

    The magic wand for ATV : BOXEE

  • Scott

    I agree with the sentiment here: Apple TV could (and probably should) do more, but what it does do, it does pretty well. My parents love it, mostly for renting movies in HD without having to worry about late-fees, or complicated UI’s, and showing slideshows of the trips they take to friends. I even taught them how to use their iPhones as a remote, so they can control the music wirelessly without having to change what’s on the TV Screen.

    My biggest gripe with the thing is the inconsistencies in the ITMS between titles being rentable vs. buyable. I would love it if Steve had a preference setting that allowed the user to hide all buy-only movies. There’s nothing worse than being excited to watch a show, clicking on it, and then realizing it’s buy only (especially with older titles).

  • Chuck

    John:

    You couldn’t be more wrong about your opinion of the Apple TV. I have a Mac Mini with two 2-terabyte hard drives streaming content using iTunes to 2 Apple TVs in my house. As far as I am concerned, they don’t need any hard drive. I download content and move it into iTunes on the Mac Mini and it is immediately available – wirelessly – to both Apple TVs.

    I never watch commercials anymore and the setup and use of the Apple TVs are easier than boxee, slingbox, or anything else out there – I know, because I have tried them.

  • dave “the Apple Fanboy”

    I love my Apple TV too, one day Apple will update that box and blow away the TV as we know it today.

  • Brian

    John:
    IMO You are so wrong. Like many others I like my Apple TV. It forms a central part of my media distribution centre. I really don’t understand this stuff about lack of hard drive space. You don’t need it. Just like Chuck says huge amounts of cheap storage are instantly available on a mac mini or any server . Why buy more?

  • Bill

    TV is truly one of the under-rated products that tech has to offer. Simplicity in what it does, rent movies, easy; watch HD television, easy; view family photos on the big screen, easy; watch pod-casts on plasma or LCD screens, easy! I think the reason it’s still in hobby form is Big Hollywood. I have four of ‘em and think the future is some how tied to this product type.

  • Ava

    First, I admit that I am an Apple fan. As for the whole debate over the merits of AppleTV, it is exactly what I wanted: a simple, easy way to use the content in my iTunes library in my living room. It probably could do more, but the same argument could be made for nearly anything.

    Best of all, I don’t have to try to skip through 15 minutes of unwanted trailers just to watch my movie or television show :)

  • Jeff

    Apple TV works for me. I use it all the time. It’s worth the price admission for getting my pics on our big screen. Bonus is the music. Home Movies…youtube…podcasts…

    They should charge more for this machine.

  • Chris

    ??? I go Apple for everything, but the Apple TV is my favorite out of the box product. Simple, an elegant. The definition of a great Apple product. Is there something you want the ATV to do that it isn’t doing? Because I cannot think of anything. I think John Brownlee didn’t get his Apple love. Or skipped his morning coffee?? I don’t know, but there was some serious uncalled for negativity in this article.

  • Rob

    I’m from Canada, where we have no netflix or other comparable service for downloading movies. The Apple TV is a good substitute for a video store – it has a reasonable selection of movies and the HD quality is good. Movie rental prices aren’t too bad. I don’t buy movies. There is an okay selection of TV shows, although I don’t buy many tv episodes since they are relatively expensive, and most I can record free from cable using PVR.

  • David

    John, your parents should’ve told you, you’re an idiot.

  • Ned

    I bought the Apple TV for one reason. I edit HD footage and wanted an easy way to show content in HD. All I do is run it through compressor and put the MP4 file into Itunes and it’s immediately available on my 50″ screen in full HD through the wireless network. Adding a guest laptop when someone comes over is also ridiculously simply. The ATV does what is designed to do and it does it well. Techies, and I am one, have to stop getting mad when a device doesn’t let them force it to do what they want.