Oh my goodness! Your responses to my news blew me away! I feel so loved. Thank you so much for taking the time to comment and make my day! I just adore you for it!!
We’ve been doing a lot of lounging at the Curtis house for the past week or so (at least). With 3 sick kids and 1 sick mommy, the TV has been on near-constantly. Because of this, the kids are pretty tired of the movies we own and there are often skirmishes surrounding the choice of the next show we’re going to watch. That’s always so fun, right?
Enter my saving grace: our Apple TV box. Holy moly, this thing is the greatest invention since sliced bread… or at least since before the iPhone. We bought ours years ago when they first came out and have never regretted it. For those of you who aren’t well-versed in Apple technology, I’ll give you the quick run-down of what this baby does:
- Streams all music, photos, videos and TV shows from your computer, directly to your TV so you can watch anything you’ve got in your libraries on your TV (we don’t even buy DVD’s anymore since the kids love to get into them and scratch them – much easier to just buy it on iTunes and then the kids can select which movie they want to see in the movie menu)
- Because of this, we still don’t even have TV stations on our TV. I love having this much control over what my kids watch and especially love the fact that they miss all the toy-filled commercials. We just buy whatever TV shows we want to own via iTunes and then can watch them whenever (& put them on our iPhones, too, woot!). Think we spend a lot of money on TV shows for the kids? Think again. There are always free shows as promotions (how we got “Dinosaur Train,” “Jungle Junction” and a few others). Also, TV seasons go on sale and you can get them for a smokin’ cheap deal (i.e. “SuperWhy Season is on sale for only $9.99 right now).
- And my favorite feature right now is that you can stream YouTube onto your TV (and this reason I will dedicate the rest of this post to – are you soooo excited?!)
So YouTube is great, mostly, right? Well, the best part of YouTube for us is how you can find most any Disney movie and watch it on there (& with the Apple TV, watch it on your family TV)! Yes, they’re broken up in like 10 parts each, but that’s a small price to pay when you’re able to have an entire Disney movie library at your fingertips. My kids have watched Disney’s “Beauty & the Beast,” “The Little Mermaid (1, 2 & 3),” “Aladdin,” “Cinderella (1, 2, & 3),” and many more. I didn’t have to do ebay searches to find, bid on and buy the old Disney movies (fabulous), nor did we need to spend any money (even more fabulous).
It’s no secret that we’re BIG Apple fans. The primary reason is that Apple has made our life soooo much easier! I could write a whole post about how the iPhone makes me a better, more efficient mother… maybe I will someday. Okay… stepping off the Apple soapbox for a bit now.
Isn’t Apple TV so dang cool, though?!
Apple in no way has sponsored me to write this about them – do they do that for anyone? – and I wrote this purely from all the love in my heart.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Also, many dvds now come with the digital copy that is directly importable into iTunes! So, if you can find a sale on the physical dvd that happens to be cheaper than the iTunes version than you can get 2 for the price of 1! Also, with the combination of the free programs VLC and handbrake you can convert your existing library of movies into iTunes movies.
Also, for the more technically advanced, you can install xbmc software to expand the types of video you can playback on ATV.
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I think Apple can take Apple TV to the next level
if they mate it with iPad as remote control. add
over-the-air reception and small DVR.
plus add best foreign shows in a HBO like channel.
That is the killer feature I am waiting for.
Also use iPad chip and technology getting rid of hard drive
by doing that the price would be reduced as well.
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Fernando, my husband is SOOO excited about digital copies coming with DVDs now! Such a great idea. ANd, yes, we’ve converted quite a few of our existing DVD library to digital format and put it in iTunes. Works great! DIdn’t know about the xbmc software, tho. Thanks for the comment!
Nahin Yahan, I agree. I would be shocked if they didn’t make the iPad work with the Apple TV. The options with that connection are limitless, especially as it could really expand Apple TV’s ability to do gaming, also. I think the Apple TV has so many possibilities for the future. It’s exciting to watch it unfold. Reducing the price would be fabulous! Thanks for the comment!
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