Apple TV, which requires me to ruin my media-collection with iTunes and only get content from the iStore: It was no thanks before. It's certainly no thanks now.
I'm now worried that Apple will update the AirPort Express to require FairPlay for audio as well. The precedent has been set. (The Express + Airfoil makes for a really nice multiroom audio setup.)
Of course they will. Everyone was worried that they'd turn on the whole 'only run apps signed with an Apple ID' in Mac OS X, too. They did. Sure, you can manually turn it off if you're an advanced user, but most users won't (and won't know how), so you need to pay the 'Apple tax' as a software publisher on Mac OS X now, too. The walled garden's walls keep getting higher.
You seem to be engaging in some revisionist history of Gatekeeper. The original concern was that it would be turned to MAS apps only by default, which it wasn't (and still isn't in Mavericks). By default the only thing you need is a free developer certificate to distribute apps outside the MAS (or to tell your users to right click to open, which bypasses the restriction).
Whether or not Apple does something in the future is a separate question, but accusing them of something they haven't done (despite several opportunities) appears more than a little biased.
Update: I am 100% incorrect about the developer certificate being free. You must be a member of the $99/yr Mac dev program to get one. So score one for "raising the walled garden" and I will gladly eat this humble pie.
It’s not free actually, you have to sign up to the Mac Developer Program which costs $99 / year. I think it used to be free in the past (the certificate, not the membership) but now it isn’t.
I didn't believe you so I just checked and now it's time to eat crow! You are absolutely right. I will update the original to note that my statement is completely wrong.
And beyond the fee; I would love Gatekeeper if I could manage the certificates myself! I don't want the choice to be "Apple's feudal system" or "wild fucking west" exclusively.
IMO they are being complete shitbirds about app signing and I am actually surprised to hear Mavericks is not more restrictive. I fully expect them to lock it down at some point. (I've resolved to use only FOSS in the future and not buy Apple.)
Also I want really fine-grained permissions that I can disable to make system calls return fake information a la Cyanogen Mod.
If that happens, someone will simply dump the keys out of the update and update the third party software, the same way we got third party AirPlay streaming the first time.
I use plexconnect with mine and it works well. But it is a bit of a hack. I'm getting more and more convinced that switching to the roku would be better.
It's a little crazy that Roku has no YouTube and no AirPlay equivalent. Twonky Beam sort of bridges the gap, but the experience is terrible. I really wanted to replace ATV with Roku3, but I ended up switching back.
I've got a MacBook, iPad, and iPhone, and I still love my Roku more than my old AppleTV. The only issue is that the AppleTV has better options for watching sports, but Plex alone more than makes up for that.
Just don't forget to turn off itunes file organization or it will relocate every file in your library (assuming you store it album artist -> album like most rippers default to creating).
Still recovering from this one, b/c I didn't know that it would do that...
Unless they've changed it, it splits it out by performing artist, then album. This is really bad for soundtracks, but even a lot of albums with fine-grained ID3 tag accuracy gets screwed by it - you'll see things like "X Feat. Y"/"Album 1", "X Feat. Z"/"Album 1", etc.
It doesn't require that at all. I keep all of my movies and tv shows on my mac and use AirVideo to stream them to my Apple TV using my iPhone or iPad (with no hacks, jail breaks, etc)
