Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Cable vs. Apple TV

Recently, Nathan suggested that we do something a tad drastic. Wait for it... wait for it...
He suggested that we off our cable.
And then go live in the woods. With bears. Like that grizzly bear guy.




OK, not exactly. He thinks we should off our cable in favor of Apple TV. His cousin Jason and his fab wife Julie recently did this (Correction: although technically they got a Mac Mini), and it reminded him that we talked about this a long time ago, when Apple TV first came out. Why would we do such a thing? Because then we can watch all the good shows that we want without being sucked into all the crap shows that we watch... well... pretty much every single night.
I've enjoyed our couch potato-ness. It's nice. Comfy. But Nathan might have a point. Unfortunately.

Inspired by Kendi's recent post which included the list
Why Macs are Better than Babies.

Reasons we should get rid of cable and hook up Apple TV:

1. Stop watching crap like America's Next Top Model. Wait-- I can probably still see that on Hulu if I really want.... Nevermind.
2. Save money on our cable/internet bill.
3. The TV won't be on night after night, sucking our souls away. We might even be inspired to work on creative pursuits-- like writing, photography, music, etc.


Reasons we should keep cable in lieu of Apple TV:

1. Inspiration for my writing. I'm serious! I recently started a short story about women and fertility after watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey. You think I'm joking.
2. I've been on a Gilmore Girls/All Star Workouts routine for the last 2 1/2 weeks. Which is pretty good-- for me. I'm even recording the shows over to DVD, probably because in my heart I know that we'll soon have an Apple TV.



Hold everything! Does this mean we get a new HD flatscreen to go with our Apple TV? Because I would be so fine with that.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am not going to have a TV at all in my new apartment. Like you said, most of the good stuff is available on Hulu or on demand through Netflix. Plus there are a lot of worthwhile things (reading, writing, cooking) that are harder to do than watch TV, but more fulfilling. I say cut the cable!

PS my word verification for this is "wivebads." WTF.

Unknown said...

So far it's going great for us, we're really not missing the cable. It's not as easy to just leave the TV running on some crap channel; when we watch something we know it's something we want to be watching. And far fewer commercials. Much better for our mental health! :)

To be totally accurate, though, we got a Mac Mini, not an Apple TV. We started out looking at the ATV, but turns out it can't really do what we wanted. It's a closed platform first of all, so you can't easily install your own apps or use it to get content on websites; it also has an underpowered processor so it wouldn't be able to play things like Hulu smoothly anyway. So we stepped up to a Mac Mini which can handle everything. It's about twice as expensive, but was totally worth it for us.

amy said...

Cool. We'll have to check out a Mac Mini. I bet that by the time we save for it, I'll get used to the idea of no cable. I would also love to upgrade our TV, and prices are just ridiculous right now.
Hmmm. I'm getting a vision of what our Christmas present to ourselves will be.

Stephanie said...

I thought it was going to be horrible when we cut off cable, and TV entirely for the first five months. But, it was the best thing we've done. If I could, I would obliterate TV from the planet.

nathan said...

Two things:
1. Look at the bear. Look in his eyes. He wants to eat that guy so bad. Everyone should have seen it coming.

2. Jason, yeah I was looking at a mac mini first, but then briefly apple supplied access to Hulu via Boxee and a little hacking and at half the price it seemed like the right move. Now Apple TV is off the table.

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