IT is clear that Apple is not a company that will sit back and relax while the money is flowing in. They have become the masters for developing cool and funky gadgets.

The iPhone has not yet disappeared from the front pages of technology reviews and the Apple TV has already been announced.

But the questions I have are: Is the Apple TV really cool enough and will this gadget make you rush to the closest vendor to buy one? Is this a new and fresh idea?

The cool factor

What will make this a cool product to own?

It firstly looks good; it has the ability to stream video and music from another source within its built-in wireless range.

The Apple TV has a built-in 40GB hard drive to store your music, digital photos and downloaded movies or TV episodes (not that I think any of these movies would be legal) and enjoy it on your television at any time.

All this features come with a funky new user interface and remote control.

The un-cool factor

Unfortunately for the Apple TV the list of un-cool factors is longer.

So what does make the Apple TV un-cool?

The first thing I'd like to have seen built-in to the Apple TV is an input channel, thus giving it the capability to record from your television reception.

The second thing - and this is probably one of my biggest considerations before I will buy one - is: It can't play standard DivX files.

For those of you who don't know, DivX files is an encoding for video and sound mostly used in internet downloaded movies and television episodes. Converters are available from third party developers to convert DivX files to work on the Apple TV, but this is time consuming.

And even though Apple TV looks good, and comes with a cool logo, there are lots of other similar and even better products on the market. Some have bigger hard drives, are compatible with DivX and other formats, utilise 5.1 surround sound and some even have the ability to record.

There have been reports that Cisco - under their Linksys brand - is also developing a product similar to the Apple TV, but with more capabilities. Cisco has a score to settle for the iPhone name, the name they allege Apple stole from them.

Although I still like the idea that Apple keeps developing new gadgets and broadening their focus, I think they could have done more with the Apple TV. I will definitely be the first in line when they bring out an updated version.

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