Cinemira

What About Audio on Apple TV?

I would say my use of Apple TV is about 50% audio. We tend to talk a lot about TV and movies for Apple TV but one of the main reasons I got one was to be able to play my iTunes music collection on my home theater system. I have it hooked up using the digital audio optical connection and I find the music quality to be excellent. Likely the biggest reason for getting the Apple TV for music was how well the user interface handles a large audio collection. I have a D-Link DSM320 media player and it is very painful to scroll through huge lists of artists or albums – the UI is slow and unresponsive. Needless to say, the D-Link is gathering dust in the basement now. I also have a dedicated iPod connector for my home receiver which uses an on-screen menu to select songs, it’s slower than the D-Link, now I don’t use that anymore  The slick way Apple products can let you scroll through long lists make them much more usable for any reasonable size music collection. The reason I bring this up is that given Apple’s benign neglect and rumors of Apple TV changes ahead – it’s still a very good digital audio player. There are still more expensive music only players on the market. Here’s hoping that Apple doesn’t mess with this aspect of the Apple TV.  Just in case anyone from Apple is listening, my audio wish list is:

  • FLAC support
  • Visualizers
  • Internet radio
  • Music streaming apps like Last.FM or Pandora
  • Built in disc with CD ripping, sync back to iTunes (CD -> Apple TV -> iTunes)
  • Music info (technical and artistic details) 

Written by Bill G. on September 28, 2008

Filed Under: Editorial

  • Mikey R.

    The ability to shuffle by album.

    I find myself constantly streaming my music to the Apple TV (even though I have more than enough storage to keep it all) simply because iTunes has the capability to shuffle by album.

    My old iPod did this. iTunes does this. Why can’t Apple TV and the new iPod / iPhones do this?

  • Galley

    How about the ability to separate similarly-titled albums? If the iPhone Remote app can do it, why not Apple TV? I just happen to have 44 albums titled “Gold” and 45 titled “Greatest Hits”.

  • http://twitter.com/m_dot Michael P.

    If you create an iTunes playlist that contains radio stations, then sync it to the appletv, you can stream them directly from the device. It’s a crummy workaround, but it works.

  • davek

    there needs to be a way to shuttle songs within playlists while u are already playing your music instead of that one option to begin with “random” before u choose what so g u begin with

  • gordon

    How the Apple TV lacks visualizers is beyond me. Thanks for calling that out. I’d add SIRIUS XM radio to the list of support – shouldn’t be too difficult. Speaking of artist/band info on screen – any idea why there isn’t a web browser on Apple TV? With iPhone as a solid input device, the Apple TV could be the ultimate couch web surfing device. Yes I know the Mac Mini can handle, but it just seems that for the “price” of a download to the Apple TV and taking up hard drive space, it should be able to handle it (I kinda want to watch hulu and other on-demand web video)

  • Bill G.

    @Mikey R – doesn’t Apple TV do this – when you select an album there is shuffle option as the top option. Maybe streaming is different? Either way a needed feature.

    @Galley – good point.

    @Michael P – I tried this and it worked, once. What’s the key to keeping it working?

    @davek – agreed.

    @gordon – take a look at Last.FM app. While playing a song it tells you about the artist. Apple TV could have a Genius side bar which promotes other songs and artist info. If course, web surfing is available for a hacked Apple TV…

  • Kris

    Concerning Visualizers on AppleTV: I’ve heard from someone on the AppleTV team that running visualizers consumes a lot of power, in turn creating way more heat. There have been complaints that the ATV already runs too hot. :-(

  • Bill G.

    @Kris – another good point.

    Take a look at this link: http://news.digitaltrends.com/feature/76/apple-tv-heat-test

  • http://twitter.com/m_dot Michael P.

    @Bill G. – Regarding streaming, I believe you would have to rsync (recreate?) the playlist. Like I said, it is a crummy work around.

  • http://twitter.com/m_dot Michael P.

    Sorry, resync, not rsync.

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