Aug 0806
Video on Demand from Apple and Sony Not Quite There Yet
Over the past couple of weeks, my family and I had the opportunity to check out the video on demand services from Apple and Sony. We found the services to be easy to use and competitively priced, but there are still a few kinks to work out in the business models.
Apple TV vs. Sony PS3
Let’s start with the Apple service. We have an Apple TV (we bought ours for $199), which is a device that hooks up to your TV and connects via wireless to your Macintosh computer. Using the Apple TV, we can stream photos, music and podcasts to our big screen TV. Perhaps most fun of all, Apple TV has a custom interface for surfing YouTube! Surfing YouTube as a family, on the big screen, from the comfort of my couch, is wonderful. And now, we can rent or purchase movies from Apple.
The Sony service is available on the PS3. I love our PS3 because I absolutely love Blu-ray. The Sony service has a good selection of movies, although you’d think that a company like Sony would have a much bigger selection than Apple because it is in the entertainment business, but what do I know about these things.
