Before you flame me as a Apple fanboy – I am not. Yes I have a iphone and iPad, bu my macmini runs Win7 100% of the time and I have a dell laptop after I sent back a Macbook pro, also running a windows home server.

So why do I say this? Well I have a PC plugged into my TV purely for iplayer, C4OD, you tube and streaming music. Last night I am tryign to watch something on C4OD and the bloody thing crashes every-time an advert comes on (I think they are doing new flashy embedded hyperlinks on ads) – I tried 3 browsers and tbh it totally spoiled about 1.5 hours of my evening. I went to bed and watched it on my ipad’s C4OD app.

It got me thinking – iOS does virtually everything I am asking of my HTPC and being a closed system it generally works (I am certainly not going to claim everythign works 100% of the time) – but compared to my PC it is more reliable, turns on faster, smaller foot print, more energy efficient blah blah. An i reckon for the limited web surfing I do on my HTPC, mobile websites would be alot easier to browns form the sofa in 1080p!

I’m certainly not saying it could replace my laptop – which is my work horse not media center.

XBMC is what you need.

I was so impressed with iOS I bought a Mac Airbook laptop thing (the really thin one). The OS on that is pants. The browser blows up, learning the shortcuts is like learning sign language and I can’t get GEM out of my head.

But yeah, iOS is great.

XBMC is what you need.

…that or Plex.

I have a PC plugged into my TV purely for iplayer, C4OD, you tube and streaming music

If you want to stick with iOS:

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/shop_ipod/family/apple_tv

XBMC is what you need.

My first issues doesn’t bode well

XBMC 4OD Plugin
This plugin no longer works, and has not worked for a long time…

http://jasonfry.co.uk/?id=16

GrahamS – can you run the ‘apps’ on apple tv?

GrahamS – can you run the ‘apps’ on apple tv?

Not got one but I don’t think so.

I’m not too convinced by them I have to say – but they are pretty cheap (£100) and if the OP already has a lot of iOS stuff then it may be the way to go.

Good review here:
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/pc-mac/networking-and-wi-fi/media-streaming-devices/apple-tv-2010–900409/review

It has the advantage that the OP can use his iPad/Phone as a remote.

Hmm.. apparently it doesn’t support iPlayer – just stuff of iTunes, your own server and YouTube. So maybe not ideal for what you want.

I own an Apple TV, and I love it. At the moment we’re living in a 2 bed house and the majority of our watching of stuff and listening to music happens in the living room and a bit in the master bedroom.

Our current set up is something along the lines of.

Living Room:
47″ TV
Sky+ HD
Blue-Ray
Sound system
Apple TV

Bedroom:
Older PC connected to 32″ TV and splitter from Sky Box in Living Room
PS3

Spare Room:
Mac.

Now, with home sharing, both the itunes librarys on Mac and PC can be synched, so music and film stored on the Mac can be sent to either Bedroom or Living Room (through Apple TV) which is brilliant, and as both itunes librarys can be run individually, it means that 2 people can watch /listen to different things from the same library (I’m getting to the stage where I want /am making digital copies of everything).

Obviously with airplay, you can send photos and film directly from the ipad (Mrs got me one for christmas) or Iphone (3GS and 4).

iplayer is the only issue, however, I have heard rumours that the next revision of iplayer for ipad will have an airplay feature. Either that or be able to project to your HD tv through the HDMI aux plugin device on ipad.

I would definitely recommend an Apple TV, as it will over time allow pretty much anything, it will only be a matter of time before iplayer and 4od etc is compatible on it, much like PS3.

Hope that makes sense.

Yeah I have now done some research on apple tv – yes it is pretty nice piece of kit, but doesn’t really have anywhere near the functionality that ipod/pad has – shame really. Maybe one day.

XMBC etc are far to techy…

I guess apple have a dilemma – iOS could potentially replace a lot of the functionality that OSX has….yes designers use macs but most people buy them because they supposedly just work (photos/music/internet/movies) and iOS does this even simpler and easier (Flash content aside)

A playstation 3 does everything you want, plus you can play games, use it as a PVR, and watch bluerays 🙂

P.s.

I was so impressed with iOS I bought a Mac Airbook laptop thing (the really thin one). The OS on that is pants.

You seem to have got this entirely the wrong way around. iOS is pants. OSX is great.

P.p.s. OP – why on earth would you send a MacBook pro back?

Sent from my iPad.

XBMC is what you need.

I prefer Mythbuntu

A playstation 3 does everything you want, plus you can play games, use it as a PVR, and watch bluerays

Actually you may be right here…I may boot up my ps3 tonight and remind myself what it can do.

You seem to have got this entirely the wrong way around. iOS is pants. OSX is great.

I am with 5thElefant here – OSX is not great at all (don’t get me started lol!) iOS as a desktop is boardering on perfect for my HTPC needs!

Please explain what’s not great about OSX. In all seriousness, I really find it hard to think of a problem with it.
Oh just thought of one – it doesn’t play well with flash, but that’s deliberate on Apple’s part…

Please explain what’s not great about OSX. In all seriousness, I really find it hard to think of a problem with it.
Oh just thought of one – it doesn’t play well with flash, but that’s deliberate on Apple’s part…

For me it just didnt work, I bought a mac mini (current model) to plug into my TV. iphoto won’t read off my network drive, safari wouldn’t expand to full window, itunes won’t play flac, my logitech mini keyboard only had limited functionality. So I installed firefox, picasa and a flac player – it was like using a pc again so I installed windowns 7.

I also bought a macbook pro for lightroom photo editing and out of curiousity I ran benchmarks for DXO and lightroom between Win7 and OSX and in both cases Win7 was 33-50% faster – so I repated on my minimac same as well as my girlfriends macbook (she is a deisgner so uses macs 100%) – I sent the pro back and got a much cheaper and faster dell (but I do miss the macbook looks!)

in short thats why I dont like OSX – I have all the benchmark details somewhere to back up my findings. for me it just doesn’t cut the mustard. Don’t get my wrong the hardware is AMAZING – I still have my mac mini as a HTPC – just running win 7. And I actually wish I kept my Macbook pro albeit slower…its so pretty and that trackpad was awesome even in Win7.

Please explain what’s not great about OSX. In all seriousness, I really find it hard to think of a problem with it.

Inability to resize windows via (four sides/corners) dragging – a real PITA.

Lack of functionality in Finder – nowhere near as capable as Windows Explorer.

And I have a MBP and a Mac Mini both running 10.6.6 so I’m not coming at this from an anti-Jobs angle. I just find it dysfunctional in ways that Windows isn’t.

My macbook pro runs horribly slow (and hot) with Win7 rather than OSX.
Re. the benchmarks, are you sure you didn’t just have the integrated graphics card switched on rather than the dedicated one (most MBPs have 2 graphics cards)? Windows can’t see the integrated graphics, so only uses the faster (and battery sucking) dedicated card.

Oh, btw safari doesn’t expand to full screen cos that’s not the way windows work under OSX – they expand to the content. You can add full screen button to safari if you really want it. I use chrome anyway, on windows and osx – much better imo.

So I installed firefox, picasa and a flac player – it was like using a pc again so I installed windowns 7.

I’m not really sure I understand this. How does using a few different apps make it like windows? What about all the myriad of stability, functionality and security advantages of the underlying system? I don’t use itunes, iphoto or safari on my MBP, but there’s no way I’d run windows on it, apart for occasional windows only software use.

Bootcamp does have known issues for causing heat in MacBooks as it cannot access the required temp sensors. Workaround is to run the likes of Speedfan but is a lot noisier. This is a hardware / driver issue not related to Win7.

I actually find running parallels much much quicker than a straight Bootcamp setup.

regards performance of the later CS packages. My understanding is that Apple stiffed Adobe prior to the release of CS4, which prevented the utilisation of Multicores, or indeed 64 BIt on the Intel Macs as they were expected to utilise Carbon, but instead went with Cocoa.

Obviously two sides to every story but does mean that Win based machines do have a performance edge at present if built correctly.

I’m not really sure I understand this. How does using a few different apps make it like windows? What about all the myriad of stability, functionality and security advantages of the underlying system? I don’t use itunes, iphoto or safari on my MBP, but there’s no way I’d run windows on it, apart for occasional windows only software use.

Same here….apart from I do use Safari, iTunes but run Picasa instead of iPhoto as I am a Google whore.

Shame as for me it didn’t work out.

I still want iOS desktop!

I still want iOS desktop!

Well you can’t have one! 😛

I have all the benchmark details somewhere to back up my findings. for me it just doesn’t cut the mustard.

Yet strangely no review mentions this amazing anomaly you’ve discovered.

if you have an ipad with the apps you need to watch iplayer etc, can you not stream from that to the apple tv using airplay? not sure if that works with all the apps but would be cool way of using these apps on the big screen.

Please explain what’s not great about OSX. In all seriousness, I really find it hard to think of a problem with it.
Oh just thought of one – it doesn’t play well with flash, but that’s deliberate on Apple’s part…

The number one reason why no-one should buy Apple kit. Flash might be annoying, but the principle behind only letting you run what they allow you to should put anyone off buying.

Same applies to Apple hardware, which is typical beige PC hardware that’s been tinkered with just enough to make it non standard and more expensive without offering any benefit to the end user.

Displayport vs HDMI.
AAC vs MP3
Apple UEFI vs normal UEFI
The USB socket on Apple keyboards

Displayport vs HDMI.

Fair enough I guess. You can get an adapter but it still costs. You get HDMI on a Mac mini though, which makes sense.

AAC vs MP3

AAC is a non-Apple standard. Most players do AAC now. Even the dreaded ‘Zune’ did AAC. Better quality, apparently. If you’d said ‘Apple Lossless’ it would be more apt.

Apple UEFI vs normal UEFI

What’s different about that?

The USB socket on Apple keyboards

USB is a standard, unlikely Apple will b*gger about with it and be allowed to use the USB symbol. What’s up with it?

The number one reason why no-one should buy Apple kit. Flash might be annoying, but the principle behind only letting you run what they allow you to should put anyone off buying.

Or is this the number one reason non tech type should buy apple? Harder to cock up.

AdamW: Apple did bggr the USB socket on Apple keyboards – its normal USB pins / circuits but a different shape plug. Apple UEFI is non standard and won’t work with normal components unless you flash them.

AAC didn’t need to be created – it’s like re-inventing bike wheels at 26.5″. No noticeable difference like say with 29ers, but 26.5″ wheels wouldn’t work with normal stuff. Creative licensed AAC and paid up, but no-one else did. It’s a useless divergence from standard.

ericemel: would you buy a car that only drove on certain routes, and was more expensive then a normal one? Sure, you wouldn’t get lost with the Apple car, but that’s because you’d have to get a second car for half the journey’s you needed to take.

Lack of functionality in Finder – nowhere near as capable as Windows Explorer

Really? Finding it hard to think of what I want do in WE that I can’t in Finder. In particular, Finder’s “Quick Look” has really made it possible to search very quickly for documents I want, and AFAIK there is still nothing comparable in WE (I am using Vista).

Really? Finding it hard to think of what I want do in WE that I can’t in Finder. In particular, Finder’s “Quick Look” has really made it possible to search very quickly for documents I want, and AFAIK there is still nothing comparable in WE (I am using Vista).

I wouldn’t worry about it Doctor. I think we have established what we have here is a severe case of user error 8)

ericemel: would you buy a car that only drove on certain routes, and was more expensive then a normal one? Sure, you wouldn’t get lost with the Apple car, but that’s because you’d have to get a second car for half the journey’s you needed to take.

Of course not – but I wouldn’t buy a kit car that I didn’t know how to put together or maintain either.

I wouldn’t worry about it Doctor. I think we have established what we have here is a severe case of user error

Think again. Finder’s contextual menus just aren’t as functional/user-friendly as their Windows counterpart. That’s all IMO of course. And the inability to resize windows from anything other that a single corner is a PITA.

Just in case you were loosing sleep over my C4OD issue, I installed adblock on firefox and c4od no longer crashes on adverts…as there are no adverts! Double win.

I find OSX Finder quite limited compared to Windows XP, particularly moving files around a folder tree – which is easy in Windows – in fact I often just use XP under Parallels to tidy up the OSX folders…