I had no idea that the AppleTV interface would be so pleasant. We have been a Tivo household since 2000 and only recently have we switched over to using a DirecTV DVR as our main TV viewing device. We wanted a HD DVR and Tivo HD doesn't support our satellite service. And likely never will apparently. We were certainly disappointed when we left the comfortable and extremely responsive land of Tivo and moved to the somewhat more rigid and more limited world of the DirecTV HR-20. The DirecTV box is usable and it's well worth having a DVR that records in HD over a DVR that doesn't but there isn't an evening that goes by that my Wife doesn't announce to anyone that's listening how much she misses her Tivo.
Enter the AppleTV. The user interface is well and truly on par with Tivo. It felt like coming back home. We found ourselves just cruising around the interface finding where different features lived rather than watching content that was waiting for us on the HR-20 purely from the joy of the interface.
The only minor disappointment came on our second day of usage. After performing the 2.0 software upgrade we lost the cool "swooshy" animation in the menu. Instead we got ourselves a rectangle. Hummm. I guess we didn't spend too much time with the old version of the interface to miss it too much.
Also in terms of interface I wouldn't mind a bigger remote control. My two year old daughter could palm it without too much effort and we wouldn't see it for weeks. I wonder if universal remotes work this sucker? That would be cool.
What's next? Maybe some AppleTV inspired DIY.
No comments:
Post a Comment