[josteink]

> I realise it's twice the price, but an Apple TV will be much simpler to use

But it's made by Apple and will require you to install iTunes and iCloud on everything you own and it will only work if you throw away all the equipment you already own and replace them with Apple-made devices.

That's potentially quite a grab of money.

But that's just the smallest cost: The only reason ever to buy Apple is if you're willing to go all in. Choosing Apple is trading away your freedom. And as a guy who likes having options, that's a cost I will never be willing to pay.

[sjwright]

The person in question already owns an iPad, so there's no more to install or buy.

iTunes is not required. iCloud is not required. Your comment is a troll.

[jlgaddis]

I bought the iPad for her this last Christmas. She has yet to "install iTunes and iCloud on everything [she] owns" and is getting along just fine.

(Side note: I'm an open source zealot, my e-mail address ends in @gnu.org, and my primary laptop runs Debian GNU/Linux. I also own a MacBook Pro and an iPhone. I like having options too.)

[josteink]

But to use an Apple TV to play or display anything from your network, you will need to publish it via a "iTunes library".

This will require you to install iTunes. If on Windows, iTunes will completely hijack your machine, steal all file-associations and if you're lucky (like I was) completely molest all ID3-tags when attempting to clean up music-metadata, meaning the only "good" copy left of my music's meta-data was the iTunes library. How convenient is that for Apple, eh?

I had to manually go and tag 10000+ MP3s to make them usuable again outside iTunes. But I did that, because to me, choice matters.

If I need to go through that shit again to get an Apple TV to work.... Yeah. Not happening. Ever.

Fuck that shit. I don't say that often on hacker news, but seriously: Fuck that shit.

[sjwright]

You clearly haven't used an Apple TV for many years.