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got Apple TV this weekend; wishlist for v2

I

IdiddidI

macrumors member
Original poster
Jan 22, 2008
51
1
I picked up an 40 GB Apple TV this weekend, primarily as a way to get music and movies from my iMac to my HT. So far, it's worked as advertised, and I'm generally really impressed with it.

I do have a major gripe with navigating my music library, though. I have about ~230 GB of music, and it is a huge PITA to scroll albums and artists (nevermind Songs!). I know playlists are my friends, but I don't think I should have to hold down a button the remote for 20 -30 seconds to scrub down to Wilco. This seems very un-Apple.

I hope for version 2, they take a cue from their iPod Classic UI and add:
- Search in Songs/Artists/Albums mode. Type letters on virtual keyboard and see live results.
- Albums list shown with artwork thumbnail and artist for each album
- Ability to view more info for song playing (rating, comments, lyrics, etc.)
- It would be great if they added a visualizer--having that run on a widescreen TV would be sweet--but I'm not sure the device has the processing power for that.

I know this the business model for this device is movie rentals, but these few features would really improve the experience for users with lots of music.
 
I concur wholeheartedly with the music search situation. It baffles me why this is so poor on Apple TV in it's current state. Navigating round a large music collection is a right pain.

I don't think things are improved in version 2 though as far as I can see from what has been shown so far, hope I am wrong.
 
I was under the impression there was a on-screen keyboard on the new version, but maybe that's just for searching for movies ? Seems silly they couldn't use it to search through your music too.
 
I was hoping the remote would change. I'd like to see the same form but make it the old ipod nano (tall and skinny) front. That way you can speed scroll or slowly scroll depending on how fast you run your finger around the circle. Wonder of there would be a cost issue though.

me
 
I'd like some sort of sleep timer or somesuch when Apple TV hasn't been used in X-amount of time. I gather there isn't a huge difference in power usage between "on" and "sleep" mode, but I'd like Apple TV to be as turned off as it can get after a certain period of inactivity.
 
bergmef said:
I was hoping the remote would change. I'd like to see the same form but make it the old ipod nano (tall and skinny) front. That way you can speed scroll or slowly scroll depending on how fast you run your finger around the circle. Wonder of there would be a cost issue though.
Click to expand...
The more you keep pressing up or down buttons the faster it starts scrolling, so feature is there with a slightly different interface.

Yes, I was hoping for a search function in songs or artists etc. A bit disappointing...
 
theBB said:
The more you keep pressing up or down buttons the faster it starts scrolling, so feature is there with a slightly different interface.

Yes, I was hoping for a search function in songs or artists etc. A bit disappointing...
Click to expand...

The scrolling of long lists is a tough problem. If you scroll too fast, you can't see what's going by and skip over what you want, if you scroll too slow it takes forever to get to the end of the list.

The search functionality is only implemented for the store in this release (including Movies, TV Shows, Music and Podcasts)

Kevin
 
mechamac said:
I'd like some sort of sleep timer or somesuch when Apple TV hasn't been used in X-amount of time. I gather there isn't a huge difference in power usage between "on" and "sleep" mode, but I'd like Apple TV to be as turned off as it can get after a certain period of inactivity.
Click to expand...


Yes, I've been thinking about the same thing. At some point, the iPod Classic will fall off the store, the Touch will take over and the iPod Nano will be the only remaining Click Wheel iPod.

Apple's implementation of the Click wheel into the iPod menu is genius, hence so many companies wanting to copy it. They should bring it over to the :apple:TV.
 
imlucid said:
The scrolling of long lists is a tough problem. If you scroll too fast, you can't see what's going by and skip over what you want, if you scroll too slow it takes forever to get to the end of the list.

The search functionality is only implemented for the store in this release (including Movies, TV Shows, Music and Podcasts)

Kevin
Click to expand...

It is a tough problem, and it's too bad it won't be addressed in this next release. I do hope this feature is still on Apple's radar... it couldn't be too hard to implement for the user's local library if it's already been done for the iTMS, right?
 
imlucid said:
The scrolling of long lists is a tough problem. If you scroll too fast, you can't see what's going by and skip over what you want, if you scroll too slow it takes forever to get to the end of the list.

The search functionality is only implemented for the store in this release (including Movies, TV Shows, Music and Podcasts)

Kevin
Click to expand...
Isn't the search function and keyboard already there for YouTube?
 
I am frankly baffled why this has not been sorted out yet. A search function is there for other aspects of the :apple:TV but not your own media library. Surely it can't be too hard to implement?
Whenever I am entertaining I like to use my :apple:TV to play music and the way you have to navigate around the music collection (and the fact you can't create playlists) is the one thing that always gets criticised and puts other people off buying one.
I might have a look round and see if there is anything else that I can use for my music instead.
 
To be fair, I can't program my microwave to warm a bowl of soup up properly so maybe I should be too harsh...
 
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