While the Apple TV may have the potential to become a hugely powerful media hub via a variety of hacks, it still has one major rival in the quest for living room glory — the Xbox 360.
The Xbox 360 not only can play games, but also stream videos, photos, and music from a Mac (with special software) or PC, download movies and TV shows to a 20GB (and now 120GB) hard drive, and extend a media center PC. Already, that’s a pretty impressive set of features, but the new Xbox 360 Spring 2007 Dashboard update, which will be available for free download the week of May 7th, will make it an even more impressive media hub.
The Spring update will include several game-related updates, but there are two important media-related ones. One is updates to the 360’s movie and TV show download abilities. These updates will first allow the 360 to go into a low-power mode while downloading videos and then auto-shutdown, making it more appropriate for overnight movie downloads. They will also allow the Xbox to start to play partially downloaded movies, such as in iTunes and the Apple TV while syncing. The next major media update to the Xbox 360 is the ability to stream and play H.264 and MP4 videos. This is huge because at long last the 360 will be able to play Apple-native H.264 and normal MP4 videos, in addition to unprotected AAC files.
These features make the Xbox 360 an even more formidable opponent for the Apple TV. I just got an Apple TV evaluation copy yesterday, and while I still think it integrates with my media much better than the 360, if I had a choice between the two, I would pick the Xbox over Apple’s offering. Despite my love for Apple’s sleek UI, with the 360 for the same $299 I gain gaming, direct movie and TV download, and now, instant messaging, features.
Update: As several commenters pointed out, I hastily missed some details in saying that the Xbox 360 is also $300. For one, the $299 Xbox 360 Core System does not include Wi-Fi ($100 retail addon), a hard drive ($90 retail; though it may not be required for streaming), and HDMI (only the $479 Elite has that). But keep in mind that even the $299 Core System has DVD-playback and gaming functionality, and it includes cables (the Core system has no hi-def ones, the $399 system comes with component cables), which the Apple TV does not. For a more detailed look at comparing the Apple TV and the Xbox 360, I may have a review in about a week or two.
Same $299? You need more than the core system to do the things that you are talking about.
That being said, I would like to see Apple beef up the AppleTV, which I own.
I agree with the previous post and I will add that with the xbox 360 you will have to be lucky not to get the "Ring of Death" as I did and so many others after only a few months and multiple times. Xbox 360 is a very troublesome hardware with a very high probability of failure. Ihope that the elite version willl rectify the problems but at this moment you will find users with problems at least in a few hundread thousands.
Evalutation copy? Why don't I get the love too? ;)
I saw AppleTV at the Apple Store and the picture quality was awful. I saw Xbox 360 at CompUSA and it looked great. I'm reluctant to go Microsoft but it is very hard to resist the Xbox 360.
Xbox 360 Core system: $299
20 GB Hard Drive: $89
Wireless Card: $100
Cavalry is right. To have direct TV and movie downloads, you gotta buy the $399 version. Plus the AppleTV has HDMI. You're looking at $479 (or whatever it was) for the 360 Elite. I'd still choose the 360 because you get the gaming too.
Now, Aaron. I expect more from MacUser. Have you read the 10 myths of Apple TV?
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/58FDAFCD-8549-4406-8ABD-2339995CFFFA.html
The Core Xbox System is $300. Add $100 for the hard drive and another $100 for wireless networking (g, not n) and you have a very loud $500 system that can't do what an Apple TV does.
That article is about as disingenuous as all the articles it snips quotes from.
Myth 1 No 5.1 Surround:
The article goes all over the place trying to dispel the myth, but really just settles for the fact that most people can't do anything with 5.1 surround anyway so Dolby Pro Logic is good enough. Apparently the only 5.1 it can deal with is DTS (by letting the receiver deal with it) or AAC 5.1 which no receiver can deal with. It ignores the point that the AppleTV could decode the 5.1 AAC itself and output the analog 5.1 channels which a receiver with the proper inputs COULD handle now (like mine). Finally, the people complaining about no 5.1 ARE the people who could actually make use of 5.1 surround.
Myth 2 The AppleTV is just like the XBox 360 only it doesn't play games: This, just like their first myth, is all over the place in terms of an argument. Finally, it breaks down to insults, by saying the 360 is large and loud (subjective concepts) with a big remote control (I'll take that to mean that it might actually provide useful functions that the Apple Remote doesn't like the ability to change the TV volume).
Myth 3 Price: This one actually has some meat (but they still can't help but fall back to insults). But what they seem to miss is that the 360 does more than the AppleTV and thus costs more.
Myth 5 AppleTV Requires Widescreen: Okay, but this is a myth that Apple itself perpetuates. AppleTV requirements clearly and repeatedly state Widescreen. This one also connects back to Myths 1 & 3 where he goes on about Dolby Pro Logic being good enough and the fact that the 360 doesn't have HDMI. All of those non-widescreen TV's with component input don't have HDMI either, so why is this any different than AppleTV's lack of 5.1 surround?
Myth 6 AppleTV should include cables: This is all a matter of opinion, but I think it should include at bare minimum a component video cable and RCA stereo audio cable. Fine, there are theoretically 5 different cables, but those 2 are pretty much guaranteed to be on any TV the AppleTV attempts to hook up to.
The other "myths" are pretty nonsensical rants I can only assume were added to get to 10. The website of this article is roughlydrafted but the responses to these "myths" seem more roughly thought out. That's my bit of insult to go with theirs...
Apples and oranges. I don't know of anyone who bought an Xbox to watch video content. It's a gaming platform that happens to do movies. So you buy it for games, and oh hey look! It does movies too! You buy an Apple TV to watch your iTunes content. There is no competition. If I want to play games, I'm going to decide between PS, Xbox, Wii, etc. If I'm thinking about buying something to stream my iTunes content to my TV, I'm getting an Apple TV. Xbox will not even enter the equation. I think that's about as crazy as the iPod-PSP-DS correlation. Granted, the video/audio entertainment qualities may become a bargaining chip when comparing Xbox to other *gaming* platforms. Then it's a bonus, not it's intention. At least not yet. Oh, and if Apple happens to add simple games to the Apple TV such as the little games you can get on the iPod, don't rush out just yet and think it's in direct competition with Xbox, like everyone claimed about the iPod when games became available. Everyone was like, Oh! competition for PSP! Not.
Your Mac has DVD playback so you don't need a DVD on the Apple TV. You don't buy the Apple TV for games either, you buy it to watch your tv shows and movies and listen to your music and watch your photos play.
Something that too many people forget about the XBox 360 is the amount of noise it kicks off. It's been measured to operate at a level of 60 dB, which is roughly equivalent to a normal conversation. So to have an XBox 360 as the media centre in your living room is to have the noise of two people talking right there with you all the time. I sold my XBox 360 just for this reason: it was noisier than the average volume I watched movies at. Too often I found I had to crank the volume on my tuner up to uncomfortable levels just to hear the dialogue in a movie, or to hear the sound effects in a game. In comparison, the Apple TV operates at up to 10 dB, which is barely audible.
@ John:
My Mac also plays iTunes movies and TV shows, so by your reasoning doesn't that mean I don't need an AppleTV either?