That's the thing, Apple products work fine in an Apple ecosystem but not so when you take them out of it and this is another example. This is why people use things like Android but neither Apple or its users seem to get that. Don't get me started on my Airport Extreme.
I am a long time Apple user of many many years for as long as I've been old enough to know how to use a computer I've been in Mac environments if not owning one dating back to when I was 6 years old. It really does seem strange that I would actually get shunned for "thinking differently"What happened to the days of it being more fun to be a pirate. Now it's more fun to be locked in a prison cell... Apparently...
This is coming across as contradictory and dramatic. On one hand you acknowledge that apple builds a complete ecosystem where they test everything working together and then complain that the products don't work properly when used outside that ecosystem in way that Apple did not intend.
Apple users understand perfectly well that there exists a use of IT outside Apple, and that some people prefer to do things differently to Apple.
Apple itself understands perfectly well that not everyone wants to do things Apples way and that there are alternatives to Apple. They even used the argument themselves in the court case against Pystar to say that alternatives to Apple exist.
Apple don't try to be all things to all people. Instead they are building a system around media consumption using iCloud and iTunes. Within that system then the ATV sits under the HDTV allowing the use of streaming your iTunes purchases, whether from your iTunes Server, running on a Mac and connected over your Apple Network in either the form of Airport Extreme / or Time Capsule, or from the iCloud. In this sort of system which is as Apple intended the AppleTV does exactly what Apple says it does.
If people want to do things differently then that is fine, there are alternatives out there and Apple and its users know this.
There are of course alternatives to this, a lot of people on this very forum like Plex and mini's in the living room instead of the ATV, with a Plex Server holding the library and not using iTunes at all.
You can even stream your iTunes to a PS3 console if you wish. ( I looked at this and rejected for an ATV as don't play console games )
Prior to using Apple, (I have only been using since late 2008,) I used to run Windows PVR, Linux PVR and I have to say that the Apple system works for me much better, but there are definitely alternatives out there, I know I have tried them. I find that the Apple system works for me and buy the Apple products.
Having said that they don't make a suitable Desktop machine so i run a hackintosh instead that I use for the Video Encoding. I want more power then a mini/iMac and don't want a Mac Pro. So I don't just blindly follow everything Apple says.
