Apple TV

Bought this set top box from rediff for rs. 7.6 k all in.

works fine but needs hdmi cable [not included] for your HDTV.

obviously this will not work without broadband or on a CRT.

Pros:

1. decent price since official MRP is supposed to be rs. 7 k when this is launched in india by republic day approx in 1-2 months.

this makes it the cheapest apple device in the country!

1. apple interface is good as expected

   
   




2. free apps for your ipad / iphone to control your STB

   
   




3. movie rentals at rs. 80 for SD and rs. 120 for HD so a decent start

   
   




4. worked out of the box as expected for any ios device unlike my andriod tv

   
   

Cons!

1. our 2 mbps airtel connection was completely inadequate for watching movies with 1-2 min long buffering before it even starts playing so it was basically unusable.

the minimum should be 4 mb/s while apple recommends 8 mb/s so upgrade before installing / buying.

1. netflix and hulu are disabled for india so it may become pointless.

   
   




2. no browser to watch free videos from sites like ndtv which archive their shows without ads for free

   
   




3. no storage / HDD so you can’t buy any content! only rental of streaming video

   
   




4. no music except what you may already have on itunes which 99% indians don’t use [who already have  HDTV and broadband]

   
   




5. no jailbreak possible so far thus apple tv 2 is probably a better buy if available since there is 160 gb HDD and jailbreaks available.

   
   




6. massive pain to enter passwords from the on screen keyboard [wireless keyboard should be available also at a reasonable cost]

   
   




7. tiny remote causes strain on my thumb [this would be fine for women and children though]

   
   




8. hdmi ports are completely smooth so its actually harder to plug the cable in! as opposed to having a metal guide present in all TV / DTH so it clicks into place.

   
   

apple gave priority to form over function I suppose!

how hard can it be for apple to coordinate the color scheme of the stb and the remote?

either go for black remote with the black stb or silver for both.

currently they look mismatched or taken from a spare parts bin!

save your money and get an andriod tv instead since you won’t be able to access the famed app ecosystem for ios in any case. what’s the point?

please write to MS to change the category from ’tv channels’ to ’electronics’...