As mentioned earlier, Apple released version 2 of their Apple TV software today (or now yesterday). You can find information about the upgrade here at Apple’s website. Some of the new features of the version 2 upgrade include:

• Supports movie rentals direct from Apple TV
• Built-in music store (via iTunes)
• Access to Flickr photostreams and .Mac web galleries - all from Apple TV
• Automatically checks for new software every week
• Rent and download HD movies
• New user interface design

I checked out the update tonight and decided to take some snapshots of the overall update process as well as some of the new user interface elements and features of Apple TV. This is NOT a comprehensive overview of the new version - just a quick early primer.

Here’s a a snapshot of the Apple TV User Interface BEFORE the upgrade:

To get the update, go to Settings and then click on “Update Software”:

Apple TV will check for new software and yes.. it found something:

Click on “Download Now” and let the waiting game begin. The download process itself was estimated by Apple TV to be around 5 minutes. It actually took approximately four minutes on my cable connection.

Once the download is complete, Apple TV will display the following:

I selected “Update Now” and then waited approximately 5-6 minutes while the installation of the update took place. The device restarted several times during the entire process (I totally lost track of the number of times but it was definitely more than 3 times). During the process, you’ll see something similar to these screens:

After minutes of installing, a new splash screen appeared. Here are some stills of the splash screen:

You’re then presented with the new Apple TV user interface. The first thought that came to mind when I saw the new user interface was “sparse”. First off, the background has images of various movies available for rent via iTunes. In the foreground is the new arrangement of menu selections. The original Apple TV user interface had a single column of menu items. The new version is split into two columns. You make a general selection on the left hand side which updates the right hand column with more specific menu items.

Here’s a quick look at the various “Movies” related screen shots:

“Top Movies”

When you select “Top Movies”, you get presented a thumbnail view of various movies available for rent via iTunes.

“Genres”

“All HD”

Here are all the HD titles available for rent via iTunes. Not a lot right now.

“Search”

“Trailers”

One nice update - you can view high definition trailers!

“My Movies”

This section lists the movies that are currently on your Apple TV.

Here’s the “TV Shows” menu:

And various snapshots for TV Shows:

“Favorites”

“Top TV Shows”

“Genres”

“TV Networks”

“Search”

“My TV Shows”

Now let’s say I’m interested in a TV Show on iTunes. Here’s the first episode of Family Guy from Season One. When I select the episode, I can view a preview of the episode or directly purchase the show for $1.99.

Here’s a snapshot of a preview:

Preview quality is OK though still not quite at SD quality.

OK.. I’ll go ahead and buy this episode. Since this is the first time I’m purchasing anything via iTunes on Apple TV, I need to inform the device of my user ID and password.

Then I need to agree to the terms of service…

And that’s it! The show is purchased and since my Internet connection is fairly quick, I can pretty much begin viewing the episode as it downloads:

Here’s a snapshot of the “Music” menu but note - I didn’t drill down into the lower sub menus here.

Here’s the “Podcasts” menu:

Here’s the “Photos” menu:

Here’s the “YouTube” menu:

And finally, here’s the “Settings” menu:

One thing I did discover while perusing through the “Settings” section. I can now set 1080p as an output setting via HDMI.

I showed you snapshots of what it was like buying a TV show. What would buying a movie be like? It’s pretty much the same thing.

Here’s a picture of me looking at Star Trek II : The Wrath of Khan. I have the option to preview the movie, rent it in regular format or rent it in HD format.

I opted to rent 300 in HD since it was newer and probably better looking in HD than Star Trek II.

Here’s a preview snapshot:

Let’s go ahead and rent the movie:

Within a minute or so, I was presented with this screen informing me that 300 was ready to watch.

I decided to NOT watch the movie yet - instead waiting till later on when I’m ready to do a more comprehensive look at Apple TV.

An interesting thing happened along the way. I ran out of disk space on my Apple TV and both of my downloads paused (Family Guy and 300).

There’s a “Downloads” section where you can view your current downloads.

To alleviate this problem, I went to my PC and told iTunes to remove some content from my Apple TV. Apple TV itself will not remove any content to make room for downloaded materials so you’ll need to remove content yourself. I removed about 3.3 GB of space and then went back to Apple TV to resume the downloads:

That’s it for now! I obviously have not played with the update enough as of yet but I do have a couple of early observations:

• I like the new user interface. Yes it’s text heavy but it’s also fairly easy to understand
• The thumbnail views of the Top Movies and Top TV Shows is pretty neat but I’m very glad that there is a way to search for content and of course a way to view content by genres and TV networks
• The user interface continues to be responsive
• 1080p output. Very nice.

Stay tuned for a more comprehensive review in the days to come.

Technorati Tags: Apple TV, Take 2, Update, Preview