Maxed Out: Apple Takes Over my Home
May 2, 2012 |Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Over the course of my last few columns, I’ve been ruminating on the way things used to be technology-wise. It really is amazing to me how fast things have developed over the last 50 years or so. As an example, let’s consider two of today’s hottest electronic items.
Apple TV
As you may recall from earlier columns, I held out against getting an iPad for the longest time. When the first iPads hit the streets, I looked at the various computers scattered around my office and home and thought, “Do I really need yet another computer?” I even held out after the launch of the iPad 2. In fact, it wasn’t until the Design Automation Conference (DAC) in the summer of 2011 when I saw my peers using them for real-world business applications. I decided the time was ripe and took the plunge and bought one, and I have never looked back.
I tell you, I LOVE my iPad 2. Quite apart from anything else, I have a load of television programs downloaded on it that I purchased from the iTunes Store. Currently I have Season 2 of The Walking Dead, Season 1 of Misfits, and Season 5 of The Big Bang Theory awaiting my attention (to name but a few). There are several reasons for this, including the fact that (a) I really like watching episodes in order and (b) I’m always so busy that I constantly miss episodes if I’m trying to watch them on TV when they first come out.
So what I tend to do is to wait until the end of a season without watching any of the episodes on TV, and then I download all of the programs to my iPad 2 and watch them at my leisure. Quite apart from anything else, this certainly helps to pass the time when I’m travelling, especially since I always purchase the cheapest seats I can, which means I often end up with long layovers in airports.
Having said this, my wife (Gina the Gorgeous) is a realtor, which means she often works on the weekends. And while Gina is at work, I may well decide to watch a few episodes of my programs. Thus, until recently, I would often be found sitting on the sofa in our family room watching a program on the small screen of my iPad 2, while a super-large high-definition screen sat across the room from me, lonely and unused.
I must admit that I had wondered about the possibility of displaying videos from the iPad on the big-screen TV. I did ponder a couple of options, such as an iPad To VGA Cable Adapter or an iPad To HDMI Cable Adapter, but having to physically connect your iPad to your TV using a cable seemed “So 20th century, my dear!”
Now, this is where I have to admit to feeling like a fool (but where are we going to find one at this time of the day?) The thing is that over the course of the last year or so, I’ve heard the term Apple TV being bandied around in conversation, but I never really knew what it was. I don’t know why, but for some reason I made the assumption that this referred to a digital TV that was in some way "Apple-compliant" or "Apple-friendly." I guess I was thinking that you could go down to a store like Best Buy and purchase a special TV that could be wirelessly connected to your iPad or whatever, and once I made this assumption I looked no further.
You are probably aware that I was completely wrong. As I have now discovered, the term Apple TV actually refers to a rinky-dinky little box around 4" square and 1" deep that sits next to your regular digital TV and connects to it via an HDMI cable. The Apple TV also connects to your wireless router, thereby allowing you to stream content from the Internet and/or from your iPad or whatever.
The Apple TV is totally geared up to detecting your home WiFi network and letting you connect to it. Once both your iPad and Apple TV are connected to the same wireless network, the Apple TV appears as one of your display options when you are playing videos without your having to enter your Apple ID or anything. You can also “mirror” things so that whatever appears on your iPad screen also appears on the TV, which is great if you want to bore large numbers of people with the holiday photos you have thoughtfully prepared for them on your iPad.
Furthermore, if you have a Netflix account (which is just $7.99 a month for unlimited downloads), you can use your Apple TV to stream any of the hundreds of thousands of films and TV programs to your TV, without needing to go through an iPad or a Wii or an Xbox or whatever. And you can stream YouTube videos, and the list goes on!
Wireless Boombox
I’m afraid that we are still on the topic of me and my iPad – as you can see, I am nothing if not an enthusiastic convert. Unlike a lot of folks who have Apple products (iPods, iPads, and iPhones), I have never really gotten into the habit of downloading music, until…
A couple of weekends ago I was enjoying a lazy Saturday afternoon sitting on our back deck. Gina was at work, and I was sort of reading an e-book on my iPad 2 and letting my mind wander. At some stage I started to think about a Supertramp concert I had seen back in late 1970s. Many of the tracks they played were from their Crime of the Century album, which was absolutely fantastic.
Thus it was that I got the urge to listen to some Supertramp. Isn’t modern technology amazing? Without moving from my chair, I bounced over to the iTunes store, downloaded three or four albums, and spent a happy afternoon humming along to the music of my youth.
But you can only get so much sound out of an iPad, and I quickly grew to want MORE! So I searched the Web (using my iPad, of course) for wireless speakers. There are lots of different options available, from docking stations to multiple standalone units. The one I ended up really liking the look of was the Logitech Wireless Boombox for iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, which I found on Amazon.com.
This little beauty connects to your iPad, iPhone or whatever via Bluetooth, and it will remember and automatically connect to up to eight different Bluetooth devices, although you can only drive it from one device at a time, of course. You can use this unit on its internal rechargeable battery, but the sound is much better when you have it plugged into a wall socket.
Anyway, this little scamp arrived at my office yesterday as I pen these words, and I couldn’t wait to race home and try it out. This is a pretty beefy unit (18.8” long, 5.5” tall, 3.7” deep) – you can get much smaller ones – but it’s just what I wanted. The bass sounds meaty, the mid-range is where you would expect it to be, and the treble is well represented without being squeaky. Now I am thinking of all sorts of other music I would like to revisit, from Jethro Tull to Genesis to Led Zeppelin to Rush. The world truly is my lobster, or the crustacean of your choice.
Until next time, have a good one!
Clive (Max) Maxfield is founder/consultant at Maxfield High-Tech Consulting. He is the author and co-author of a number of books, including Bebop to the Boolean Boogie (An Unconventional Guide to Electronics) and How Computers Do Math featuring the pedagogical and phantasmagorical virtual DIY Calculator. To contact Max, click here.