Bad Apple

Dear Apple TV Product Manager:

A: I want your job, please vacate your office immediately, but leave the Macbook Air and the 24" iMac behind.

B: Please tell the Apple.com web page maintainer for the Apple TV that the iTunes Movie Rental page for the Apple TV is misleading, as is the main Apple TV "front page". The update to allow movie rentals to be downloaded to the Apple TV has NOT been released as of 10:00 PM Eastern, 06 February 2008. I know this to be fact because I checked for said update.

C: I would also like some clarification on two key issues:

1. Is content from the Apple TV going to be backed up via Time Machine? Is this feature even being considered? If I am going to purchase content directly to my Apple TV I would like some way of recovering said content in case of catastrophic disaster to said hardware-based device by act of God, dog or other. Please let me know.
2. Will movies rented via iTunes on other laptops be allowed to stream to the Apple TV? What about movies that are rented on the Mac that acts as the synch host; will this device be able to stream or "push" rented moves to the Apple TV for viewing on the big screen?

Apple Product Manager, you may be happy to hear that a watershed moment passed in my house last night around 10:15 PM. My wife and I somehow got hooked on a delightful little show called Rob and Big that plays on MTV. You know the show - small white professional skateboarder Rob Dyrdek and his mammoth black bodyguard Christopher "Big Black" Boykin manage to get into all kinds of antics along with friends Drama and Bam Bam. Good stuff. Good times. Back to the story: we tape Rob and Big on the DVR, at least we did until last night. We tape the show because are old fuddies who don't like to stay up late in our advanced age (tongue in cheek.. a little). While viewing Rob and Big last night on the DVR the ending got cut off and that irritated us (that and fast-forwarding through all the commercials was really tiresome).

I'll get to the point: last night we stopped taping of Rob and Big and elected simply to download each episode from iTunes. We don't watch the show the night it airs anyway so why not just download and synch to the Apple TV and watch the show any time I want without commercials? I looked into that season pass thing and I don't see how this option would be more cost effective then simply purchasing each episode outright.

There is a missing feature with purchased content from iTunes as well and that feature is the ability to purchase a show directly to the Apple TV bypassing my wife's laptop. I don't know if I can be any more clear when I say we don't watch video content on our laptops or iPod so why clog those devices with content that we watch on the television? I hope the ability to purchase a television show directly to the Apple TV is included in the next major software release for the Apple TV. Please.