On order

Well, only a few months ago when Apple announced the Apple TV, I really wasn’t convinced it was a good idea. I still think it is under-featured if you want to use it to handle TV programs and films that have not been bought via iTunes, although people have been busy hacking the unit and it is now possible to add quite a bit of the missing functionality. (It looks like Philips might soon offer an interesting competitor, which might force Apple to add some features when it comes out)

However, it seems to offer the ideal solution to get Ruth to agree to move all our CDs out of the lounge into storage in the cellar. She really likes flipping through the CDs, looking at the covers, to decide what to play next. And that is something you can’t do with our Roku SoundBridge (it only has text display), so until now the CDs have remained where they are. I had been planning to wait for the next revision of the Mac mini and buy one, freeing up mine to be moved into the lounge as a media center, but Apple is taking it’s time about updating the mini and there are even some gloomy voices saying it might be at the end of it’s product lifecycle, although I’m not convinced about that, yet.

The Apple TV offers the same sort of CD-cover previewing that the Mac has in iTunes, so now we’ve decided to order one and give it a spin – we’re hoping it will arrive in the middle of next week. And I’m hoping to see the back of three cupboards full of CDs soon after that!