Tag Archives: apple

Episode 3 of My Home Entertainment Trilogy: How to own your media with Apple TV, iPad, and iPhone

This is part 3 of 3 of my Home Entertainment Trilogy, where I detail out my journey to home entertainment awesome. You can read part one here and part two here.

Media Room of the Future

I borrowed this from Paleo Future - an awesome blog. Please check it out.

This year I finally figured it all out.

After bringing home the Sony Bravia and hooking it up to the Mac Mini, I quickly realized that the mini was not powerful enough to run everything I wanted to run. I sat dumbfounded at the unintentional mess I had created.

My PlayStation 3 quickly rose to the top of my list of solutions. I loved that I didn’t have to worry about ram or processor speed – it was an all-in-one device that required little mental overhead. I started looking at it as a total replacement for the mini, but found myself wondering if the solution would be worth the process of trans-coding the 200 + gigabytes of media and installing a new hard drive in the PS3.

Then I got distracted with a new toy.

On my birthday Apple gave me an iPad. I had to pay for it, but it came out the same weekend as my birthday, so I indulged.

The wi-fi only media player kept me distracted long enough to realize I didn’t necessarily need to experience everything on the TV. I loved watching movies in bed or on the couch, but as the apps rolled out and all of my new viewing options were presented, I realized I still like to watch TV on the big screen in my living room. This got my mind racing once again, and I decided it was time to upgrade to an iMac and just get this taken care of.

However, I never bought the iMac.

The mini was quickly becoming nothing but a receiver for my Macbook Pro, thanks to Airfoil from Rogue Amoeba. I looked back at my mini with more frustration, and I started thinking about the PS3 again. Hulu Plus was released, and I was excited to see it available for the PS3, as well as the iPad and iPhone.

“All I want is a box to get everything I want from – is that so hard?” I thought to myself.

Then it happened. I bought a new Apple TV.

I started writing this post before it was out. It was actually just a rumor. It is crazy how

  1. I take so long to finish blog posts, and
  2. How quickly everything can change.

I bought it on a whim. I had a gift card and picked it up at the Indianapolis Apple Store. I recommend you get yours from the Mac Experience, though.

I took it home and was streaming video from the mini instantly. I wasn’t surprised that the experience was much better than using the mini on the TV, so I quickly retired the mini to a new home under a chair and began enjoying it’s new life as a dedicated iTunes box.

I thought again about the iMac, but decided to upgrade the drive in the mini, keeping my music on my Macbook Pro. Airplay made it extra easy and removed my need for Airfoil, although I still use it on occasion.

What I hadn’t realized, but should have, is that Apple would change everything by updating iOS a short time later. The heavens opened and I witnessed it.

The holy trinity of Home entertainment = the iPhone, the iPad, the Apple TV.

It finally happened. I can stream from any device. Video, audio -  anything.  Access to all of my media, and more importantly, control. I can pull media up on my ipad and quickly toss it to the living room, I can play something right off of my phone, I can control 2 media libaries. It is so simple, it was always simple. I just needed Apple to connect the dots.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for new apps that can take advantage of the AppleTV Airplay connection. I’d love to see some full screen games with the iPad or phone as controller.

I have friends who have told me they are “just getting a mac mini” instead of an Apple TV, because they “will have a entire computer.” I tell them again and again, get an Apple TV, and save your computer for computing.

You’ll be glad you did.

My Home Entertainment Triology: Episode 2 – How not Set Up A Digital Entertainment Center

This is part 2 of 3 of my Home Entertainment Trilogy, where I detail out my journey to home entertainment awesome. You can read part one here.

In 2006 I screwed everything up by buying a Mac Mini. I intended to use it to stream media to a TV, only I forgot one thing.

I had no TV.

It would be more accurate to say that I did not have a decent television. I was aware that connecting a computer to a tube television was a terrible idea, but having recently purchased my first home, I needed a computer more than I needed a large flat panel LCD television.

When I brought the Mac Mini home, I ran all sorts of cables, bought a DVI splitter, and tried just about everything I could think of before I realized my obviously poor judgment.

I should have bought an iMac, or simply saved up for a new TV.

Choosing the Screen

Eventually I made right my mistake, and took the plunge. In 2008 I bought a 42 inch Sony Bravia. I rushed home, tore open the box and hooked everything up. Once I made my TV purchase the floodgates of new HD awesome and apps and online video amazing-ness started to pour out of the world. I downloaded the Hulu Desktop App, Plex, Boxee, and everything else.

After all of this it became quite apparent that my Mac Mini was three years old, and not able to provide the horse power required to run everything I wanted it to run, and I was really starting to look at the PS3 and blu-ray with envy.

I still wasn’t happy. The pieces were there, but the performance wasn’t. It was then I started to consider the (at the time) rumored new Apple TV.

Next Week – how I got my content organized and omnipresent (sorta).

Apple, Sony, and I – My Home Entertainment Trilogy

I recently bought a new AppleTV, but this post was originally drafted when the new AppleTV was merely a rumor. Henceforth, I’ve had to adjust it many times. Here it is though, part 1/3 of my home entertainment saga.

Many moons ago I saw the future, and the future was a flat panel TV in my living room hooked up to a small footprint computer. Providing stunningly intuitive access to all of my music, movies, TV shows, pod-casts, photos, and news – it made all of my entertainment dreams come true.

I’d like to share the story of how I have finally arrived in this future.  I have noticed a common thread of threes in this experience, so I will be breaking this post up into a three part series, one a week until Christmas!

When I wrote “many moons” earlier, well… that was 2003 – the year that I first bought an iPod and the year I truly became an Apple geek. I vividly remember standing  on my back porch speaking on my Sony Ericsson cellphone (it could use iSync over bluetooth to keep my contacts up to date!)

“I can’t wait until this is all in one device…” I told my good friend Matt Mansueto.

Looking back, I should have bought Apple stock the moment those words left my lips. Seven years later I still don’t own Apple stock – but I have owned many iPods, three iPhones, an iPad, a MacBook, a MacBook Pro, and a Mac Mini.

These three posts aren’t all about Apple gadgets, though (maybe only 90%). Next week I’ll let everyone in on how I did it wrong, but ended up right.

iPhone Apps I can Live Without

Before the iPhone App store launched, I wrote a post about iPhone apps to check out.

Now, months later, it has come time to purge, so I am giving you the list of iPhone Apps I am at the moment deleting from my phone.

  1. Whrrl – Sorry Whrrl, you where cool for a second, but Loopt is better, and no one cares what I think about the restaurant I am at.
  2. Twinkle – I want to like you. Tapulous made you and they are a cool company, but you just try too hard, and I am happy with Twitteriffic.
  3. Jamd – I love the idea, but I just don’t have time to dish on celebrity gossip these days.
  4. Voice Dialer – You never worked for me. Maybe once, but that was a test call to my office phone.
  5. Now Local – There are better ways to get news to me than by GPS location. It is called Google Reader.
  6. Epocrates RX – I got you for work, and I still don’t have an account, and you are installed on our tester anyway.
  7. Here I am – I keep thinking I will use you for something, but I’ve yet to ever need you.
  8. Audi A4 – Worst. Driving. Game. Ever.
  9. Pocketpedia – I am never going to get around to inputting data into you. Sorry. When you mature a little and I can point you to an external data source that I can import from, then call me.
  10. Simplify Media – Such a good idea, when I have time to re-set up my home network and want to leave my computer on at home all day, I will think about it, until then, I will stick with smart playlists .

Well, that feels good, now I have some room to install Spore Origins, and one less screen of apps to deal with.

Brian