Courtesy of OSWeekly.com

Continued...

While you can do some pretty cool stuff with the software, do you really want to have a full-fledged PC sitting next to your TV? Most people don't. I'm all about the advancement of the digital lifestyle, but even I don't want a PC taking up space in my living room. Some geeks would disagree with me and argue that the abundance of perks (and there are quite a few) should justify the situation, but I just don't see myself going down that route anytime soon. The PC that I recently bought came with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, but I haven't used any of those features yet, and I just have the machine sitting in my office because I exclusively use it for tasks that could have been handled in the exact same way on the plain version of Windows XP. I know I'm not alone in this usage scenario.

Far from being a full computer, Apple's set-top box will just provide a way for you to wirelessly interface the media content from the computer that you actually use on a daily basis to your home entertainment center. See, this is something that I could actually use. My primary computer contains all of my media, and since I use it all the time, the content is constantly changing. Having the ability to sit downstairs and watch and listen to all of my files from the copy of iTunes on my computer upstairs is really great, and the best part is that the whole process takes place in an unobtrusive way. This so-called iTV may only be an interface device, but that's all that I really want, especially since I already have my "media center" on the computer that I use for everything.

Apple could have released a media center computer that ran a specialized version of OS X called something like OS X Media Center Edition, but they didn't. The one and only consumer version of OS X already does what it needs to do, and as we've seen, other devices can connect with it to enhance the experience.