Although I’m a fan of Apple TV, one of my biggest pet peeves is that there was no way to play music videos back to back. This made no sense to me at all. I think it’s cool that if you’re throwing a party or just having a few friends over that you could not only have music playing in the background, but also the music videos themselves. Some music videos also make for good entertainment and conversation pieces.
Well Apple finally fixed this in the most recent Apple TV software update. Not only did they add Genius Playlist support (new in iTunes 8), but they also quietly added the ability to not only play videos back to back, but also shuffle them as well.
You can build music video playlists in iTunes just like you do music playlists. As a matter of fact you can even mix the two. This way you could create a mix of your favorite songs and throw in the music videos you have without worrying about be limited to just music videos.
While we’re on this subject of fixing things, the next thing on my list is support for the iTunes visualizer. I’m still stunned that Apple doesn’t include this in the Apple TV. I guess as a work around you could record it with a screen recorder app (such as iShowU) and then add it to your library as a video and play it that way, but it’s just not the same. This feature should be built-in to the Apple TV, iPhone and iPods.
Movie Rentals Appearing Sooner
I also noticed that Apple is getting some movie rentals quicker than others. I remember being very disappointed when Steve Jobs touted the iTunes movie rental feature and then said that they would get titles to rent 30 DAYS after they made their debut on DVD. That pretty much killed it for me. I was thinking "long live Netflix!" However, I see that they are getting some titles at the same time that they come out on DVD/Blu-ray for rent.
For example, "The Happening" just came out yesterday and it’s now available on the iTunes store for rent as well.
If this trend continues, it could sway me away from Netflix. We’ll just have to wait and see.
The Bottom Line
The Apple TV continues to get better with each update. It has become an essential component in my home theater setup. Apple TV starts at $224 (40GB version) at Amazon.com.
Amen! I know the Apple TV has its critics but really for what it says it does, it does that very well. I’ve dropped my Netflix account for over 5 months now and don’t miss it a bit. Sure, I wait longer for new releases than DVD but I was waiting anyhow since the cinematic release; what’s 30 more days.
Plus, I have become a Video Podcast junkie!! There really are some great as well as traditional choices out there to view on weekly if not daily basis. The quality and choices grows everyday.
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You’re lucky that you’re Americans. The Canadian version of the Apple TV has not added this feature with the latest update, but worse then that, we have very pitiful selection of TV shows available for purchase here in Canada due to licensing agreements that are already in place between American and Canadian networks, restricting all the best American content from ABC, CBS, HBO (which isn’t even available through most cable networks here), and of course, NBC. Sucks!
I think Apple TV needs to support video playlists for TV Shows also. Either by a playlist or just shuffling the shows that you have.
Terry – maybe you could clarify something that D9 wrote above. He makes it sound like you can now watch playlists of video podcasts on Apple TV. Is that true? I haven’t found a way to make that work. As time marches on for the Apple TV, I’m starting to think Apple sees it as nothing more than a gimmick to promote video sales. With so many obvious features missing, it doesn’t really support the $230-330 price tag, in my opinion. Thanks for all your great work.
David,
I just tried it and I don’t see it working either. If I put two podcast episodes in a playlist, ATV doesn’t even see the playlist. If I add a song to it, it sees the playlist, but only the song in it, not the video files. Perhaps he’s talking about audio podcasts?
Wow – thanks for the quick reply. That’s exactly what I had found. Such a bummer; it doesn’t seem like it would be so hard to include video podcasts!
This is a bit of a nuisance when you want to watch things from iTunes University. The audio lectures show up, the video ones don’t. Damn!
I am in the UK. It seems this update hasn’t happened here.