I don't get it. It's a smaller version of the old AppleTV with no local storage. The Netflix integration is pretty nice. Still need multiple boxes to do everything. I actually prefer the older AppleTV. Syncing it makes music and movies, etc available even when the network is running slow, etc.
Is it true that 802.11n slows down to g speeds if there are g devices on the network? Or does it transfer at the highest speed available between two devices?
I have three g devices on my network (Wii, PS3 and iPod touch 2G), hoping these don't slow down my entire network to g-speed.
I ordered an Apple TV yesterday. I was wondering if it is worthwhile considering hard wiring ethernet to my TV location or should WiFi n be satisfactory?
I'll stick with my original AppleTV so I'm not required to stream everything. I also like buying movies occasionally which you can't do on the new device. Netflix streaming is pervasive and I've got it on three other devices. Certainly for current AppleTV owners, there is little to no reason to buy the new one.
I just realized my new iPhone 4 can't connect to my AE dual-band on the 5ghz band I've reserved for N devices. The iPhone does N, but not at 5ghz. I'd prefer N for streaming to the Apple TV, not sure where that bottleneck will live...
I ordered an Apple TV yesterday. I was wondering if it is worthwhile considering hard wiring ethernet to my TV location or should WiFi n be satisfactory?
11N works just fine for streaming Elgato EyeTV recorded shows from a Mac on the old AppleTV... All I've ever used it for. Hope the new one is happy doing that as no NetFlix option here in Europe.
Bah, my AppleTV is currently sat in a cargo jet somewhere half a planet away
Oh, and the drop in power draw from 35watts to 6watts with instant-on should pretty much cover the upgrade cost...
I love my current 160 GB Apple TV however, I would buy new one for two reasons:
1) Silence - I can hear the hard drive spinning, which is annoying during late night music listening.
2) Higher res Netflix streaming than I currently get with my Wii. (It's my only other streaming device)
However, holding me back is the loss of having some hard drive storage for those times when my computer is not on, and more importantly, the lack of emphasis on music.
I work from home and play music on my Apple TV virtually all day. It's an excellent transport. Not perfect, but very very good. The new interface concerns me from that perspective.
For everyone else, of course, this is a must have device.
I still don't get why they did;nt use the iOS and make a killing on more apps sold and distributed. Get everyone hooked just like the iphone....Then just have an iTV app on the front.
I just realized my new iPhone 4 can't connect to my AE dual-band on the 5ghz band I've reserved for N devices. The iPhone does N, but not at 5ghz. I'd prefer N for streaming to the Apple TV, not sure where that bottleneck will live...
The iPad can connect to 5ghz N.
Bingo. That's one reason I run the other band in 2.4 GHz NGB mixed mode.
I did a lot of experimenting with large file transfers when I first got the Dual band express, and I can tell you that for MY use cases, I got best results when I put only the main computer (that the other devices will talk to most often) on the dedicated 5GHz band. I generally attach all the others devices to the 2.4 GHz band even if they are capable of doing the 5 GHz. In this way, more often than not, if two devices are streaming data from one to the other, they are usually not riding the same band and competing with one another. (Because one end is almost always my main computer.) Try it. It works. Also, I'm not typically streaming high bandwidth to more than one device at a time, so there doesn't tend to be a lot of contention on that mixed mode network even though the majority of my devices are assigned to it.
I'll stick with my original AppleTV so I'm not required to stream everything. I also like buying movies occasionally which you can't do on the new device. Netflix streaming is pervasive and I've got it on three other devices. Certainly for current AppleTV owners, there is little to no reason to buy the new one.
If you buy movies with the previous Apple TV, they get transfered back to your host computer, right? Why don't you just go to that computer and buy them through iTunes directly? Then you can stream them to the new AppleTV.
The only problem I see with this is you have to get off the couch to make an impulse buy. The solution is simple: either don't make impulse buys of movies, or get off the couch. :-)
I just realized my new iPhone 4 can't connect to my AE dual-band on the 5ghz band I've reserved for N devices. The iPhone does N, but not at 5ghz. I'd prefer N for streaming to the Apple TV, not sure where that bottleneck will live...
The iPad can connect to 5ghz N.
Put your new AppleTV on the dedicated 5GHZ network if you feel like it's necessary. (FWIW, when streaming from the internet I suspect that your bottleneck will most likely be your internet service to your house, regardless of whether you use 5 GHz or mixed mode 2.4 GHz.)
Then, if you intend on streaming stuff from your computer to the AppleTV, put the computer on the other band in mixed mode. You're really not going to have a lot of competing info streaming about there are you? I can tell you this: any decreased bandwidth your main computer experiences just because it is running on a mixed mode network is going to be better than the guaranteed slowdown you'll get from having both ends of the streaming (computer and AppleTV) riding the same band and hitting it very hard simultaneously.
So, my advice is actually this:
Put your main computer and AppleTV on different bands. Probably doesn't matter which one is on the mixed mode network unless you have other devices that have to be on the mixed mode network and that will stream content to/from your main computer now and then. Then you want the main computer on the 5 GHz network.
Actually, the easiest solution is to get one of the new dual band AirPort extremes. Run one band as 5 GHz N only, and run the other one as 2.4 GHz Mixed Mode (N, G & . Go ahead and give them two separate names so you can specifically assign devices to whichever band you want. If you have two N devices that are going to talk to one another frequently, I've found that it is better to attach one of them to the 5GHz N and the other to the 2.4 GHz Mixed, otherwise during any given transfer the two devices are competing for wireless bandwidth with one another. By putting one of the N's on the mixed mode (and potentially slightly handicapped) band the contention is removed, and the result is better throughput... even if there are some G devices attached (but not currently doing anything).
Thompson
Interesting... I have (if all were on at the same time) 8 wireless devices in my house. And normally 3 to 4 on the network at any one time. Can I hook a hard drive to the AE and use as a time machine drive? I know you can hook one and use as a NAS drive. Nothing on the Apple site mentions a time machine drive.
Getting my wife to allow me to spend 180 bucks on a router.... and a hard drive to match... will not be easy... Maybe my TC will take a dive soon.
Interesting... I have (if all were on at the same time) 8 wireless devices in my house. And normally 3 to 4 on the network at any one time. Can I hook a hard drive to the AE and use as a time machine drive? I know you can hook one and use as a NAS drive. Nothing on the Apple site mentions a time machine drive.
Getting my wife to allow me to spend 180 bucks on a router.... and a hard drive to match... will not be easy... Maybe my TC will take a dive soon.
I was using an AirPort Extreme with a USB drive attached to it as a "poor man's" time machine. Then at some point, when a firmware update arrived for the AirPort, it suddenly stopped working in this way. I had to regress the firmware to get the capability back. Ultimately I decided that I should directly attach my time machine drive to my main computer. Things are more efficient that way anyhow. Most of my other devices don't really need backing up.
My hunch is that if you need remote time machine, you're probably best off getting the "Time Capsule" device instead of cobbling together the capability. Good luck.
Comments
I don't get it. It's a smaller version of the old AppleTV with no local storage. The Netflix integration is pretty nice. Still need multiple boxes to do everything. I actually prefer the older AppleTV. Syncing it makes music and movies, etc available even when the network is running slow, etc.
Is it true that 802.11n slows down to g speeds if there are g devices on the network? Or does it transfer at the highest speed available between two devices?
I have three g devices on my network (Wii, PS3 and iPod touch 2G), hoping these don't slow down my entire network to g-speed.
Think about this one.
The packaging is uncharacteristically sloppy for Apple.
What you're not buying the [quote] "slides open like a box of highbrow chocolate truffles" stated in the article?
Ample pictures. Love the black strip that goes around it.
that fedex truck can not get to my house fast enough this afternoon.
Yeah, Apple stickers!!
Calm yourselves Fanboys.
I wish the article had more pictures
Yes, and I wish the pics were a bit closer up. I couldn't quite see the individual molecules on some of those.
Better still buy a new AE with auto dual band
I just realized my new iPhone 4 can't connect to my AE dual-band on the 5ghz band I've reserved for N devices. The iPhone does N, but not at 5ghz. I'd prefer N for streaming to the Apple TV, not sure where that bottleneck will live...
The iPad can connect to 5ghz N.
I ordered an Apple TV yesterday. I was wondering if it is worthwhile considering hard wiring ethernet to my TV location or should WiFi n be satisfactory?
11N works just fine for streaming Elgato EyeTV recorded shows from a Mac on the old AppleTV... All I've ever used it for. Hope the new one is happy doing that as no NetFlix option here in Europe.
Bah, my AppleTV is currently sat in a cargo jet somewhere half a planet away
Oh, and the drop in power draw from 35watts to 6watts with instant-on should pretty much cover the upgrade cost...
1) Silence - I can hear the hard drive spinning, which is annoying during late night music listening.
2) Higher res Netflix streaming than I currently get with my Wii. (It's my only other streaming device)
However, holding me back is the loss of having some hard drive storage for those times when my computer is not on, and more importantly, the lack of emphasis on music.
I work from home and play music on my Apple TV virtually all day. It's an excellent transport. Not perfect, but very very good. The new interface concerns me from that perspective.
For everyone else, of course, this is a must have device.
I just realized my new iPhone 4 can't connect to my AE dual-band on the 5ghz band I've reserved for N devices. The iPhone does N, but not at 5ghz. I'd prefer N for streaming to the Apple TV, not sure where that bottleneck will live...
The iPad can connect to 5ghz N.
Bingo. That's one reason I run the other band in 2.4 GHz NGB mixed mode.
I did a lot of experimenting with large file transfers when I first got the Dual band express, and I can tell you that for MY use cases, I got best results when I put only the main computer (that the other devices will talk to most often) on the dedicated 5GHz band. I generally attach all the others devices to the 2.4 GHz band even if they are capable of doing the 5 GHz. In this way, more often than not, if two devices are streaming data from one to the other, they are usually not riding the same band and competing with one another. (Because one end is almost always my main computer.) Try it. It works. Also, I'm not typically streaming high bandwidth to more than one device at a time, so there doesn't tend to be a lot of contention on that mixed mode network even though the majority of my devices are assigned to it.
Thompson
Ample pictures. Love the black strip that goes around it.
Wonder why it's black. Wouldn't a clear strip effectively achieve the same color?
I'll stick with my original AppleTV so I'm not required to stream everything. I also like buying movies occasionally which you can't do on the new device. Netflix streaming is pervasive and I've got it on three other devices. Certainly for current AppleTV owners, there is little to no reason to buy the new one.
If you buy movies with the previous Apple TV, they get transfered back to your host computer, right? Why don't you just go to that computer and buy them through iTunes directly? Then you can stream them to the new AppleTV.
The only problem I see with this is you have to get off the couch to make an impulse buy. The solution is simple: either don't make impulse buys of movies, or get off the couch. :-)
Thompson
I just realized my new iPhone 4 can't connect to my AE dual-band on the 5ghz band I've reserved for N devices. The iPhone does N, but not at 5ghz. I'd prefer N for streaming to the Apple TV, not sure where that bottleneck will live...
The iPad can connect to 5ghz N.
Put your new AppleTV on the dedicated 5GHZ network if you feel like it's necessary. (FWIW, when streaming from the internet I suspect that your bottleneck will most likely be your internet service to your house, regardless of whether you use 5 GHz or mixed mode 2.4 GHz.)
Then, if you intend on streaming stuff from your computer to the AppleTV, put the computer on the other band in mixed mode. You're really not going to have a lot of competing info streaming about there are you? I can tell you this: any decreased bandwidth your main computer experiences just because it is running on a mixed mode network is going to be better than the guaranteed slowdown you'll get from having both ends of the streaming (computer and AppleTV) riding the same band and hitting it very hard simultaneously.
So, my advice is actually this:
Put your main computer and AppleTV on different bands. Probably doesn't matter which one is on the mixed mode network unless you have other devices that have to be on the mixed mode network and that will stream content to/from your main computer now and then. Then you want the main computer on the 5 GHz network.
Thompson
When do owners of earlier models get NetFlix?
Actually, the easiest solution is to get one of the new dual band AirPort extremes. Run one band as 5 GHz N only, and run the other one as 2.4 GHz Mixed Mode (N, G &
Thompson
Interesting... I have (if all were on at the same time) 8 wireless devices in my house. And normally 3 to 4 on the network at any one time. Can I hook a hard drive to the AE and use as a time machine drive? I know you can hook one and use as a NAS drive. Nothing on the Apple site mentions a time machine drive.
Getting my wife to allow me to spend 180 bucks on a router.... and a hard drive to match... will not be easy... Maybe my TC will take a dive soon.
Interesting... I have (if all were on at the same time) 8 wireless devices in my house. And normally 3 to 4 on the network at any one time. Can I hook a hard drive to the AE and use as a time machine drive? I know you can hook one and use as a NAS drive. Nothing on the Apple site mentions a time machine drive.
Getting my wife to allow me to spend 180 bucks on a router.... and a hard drive to match... will not be easy... Maybe my TC will take a dive soon.
I was using an AirPort Extreme with a USB drive attached to it as a "poor man's" time machine. Then at some point, when a firmware update arrived for the AirPort, it suddenly stopped working in this way. I had to regress the firmware to get the capability back. Ultimately I decided that I should directly attach my time machine drive to my main computer. Things are more efficient that way anyhow. Most of my other devices don't really need backing up.
My hunch is that if you need remote time machine, you're probably best off getting the "Time Capsule" device instead of cobbling together the capability. Good luck.
Thompson