Apple makes biggest move yet into living rooms

Apple Inc. made its biggest move yet into the living room by starting shipments of the Apple TV box, a gizmo that lets people take music, photos and video stored on a computer and play them on a television screen.

The small silver box with a white Apple logo costs $299 (Lm100) and can store up to 50 hours of video, 9,000 songs, 25,000 photos or a combination thereof. It is available this week at Apple's online store, retail stores and also from resellers.

Apple TV has garnered some positive early reviews, including one by Wall Street Journal technology columnist Walt Mossberg, who said the wireless box was easy to install and simple to use.

A remote control lets user watch film or TV shows bought from Apple's iTunes store, view photo slide shows, or listen to music.

One of the chief complaints is that the Apple TV does not - at least for now - record TV shows, which means it cannot replace digital video recorders like the TiVo.

Over the past year, TV networks and film studios have increasingly made their shows available online. That spurred a flurry of gadgets and services that connect the PC to the TV - including those from Microsoft, Sony and TiVo - but none has emerged as a clear winner.

The company hopes the burgeoning amount of content sold on iTunes, which has fuelled sales of the Apple's leading iPod digital music player, can also spur sales of Apple TV, Macs and other Apple products, analysts said.

But some critics say the market for consumers interested in shifting media from the PC to TV is still small.

Waiting in the wings is Apple's much anticipated iPhone, a sleek device that integrates e-mail, a full web browser, an iPod, instant messaging and phone services. Apple has said that device, starting at $499, will ship in June.

Apple TV synchronises with one computer and content downloaded from iTunes is transferred to the 40-gigabyte hard drive in the device for direct playback on high-definition TVs. Users can link the relatively small box to as many as five other computers.

While iTunes is by far the largest online store for digital content, Apple TV also offers a limited ability to stream other content from the web, such as film trailers and song previews.

Analysts expect Apple to selectively expand the amount of content that users can stream straight from the internet. Video-recording ability also is likely down the road.