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• Reviewed with: Intel Pentium D dual-core 3.46 GHz with 4GB DDR2 SDRAM (Corsair), ATI Radeon x1300 All-In-Wonder, all running both Windows XP and Vista, with a U.S. Robotics Wireless MAXg ADSL gateway (802.11g). Also on: Apple MacBook Pro, 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, with internal 802.11n wireless Ethernet.

Steve Jobs has given little indication that he regards Canada as more than an extension of the U.S. market for Apple — I can't even recall when he last set foot on Canadian soil, if ever — but still it's hard to understand his strategy of releasing the Apple TV here.

Apple TV's most important features — the ability to buy and download television programs and movies — are simply not available in Canada. Apple has cut deals with Hollywood and Tellywood for content, but these deals are made only for the U.S. market.

So what good does it do for the Canadian buyer? It's like selling the Internet without the Web and e-mail.

In Canada, all we can get on Apple TV are movie trailers; there are about 40 of them available, all very recent Hollywood releases, a selection manifestly chosen for maximum marketing potential (heavy on the latest silly comedies, horror and special effects). Not necessarily the kind of movies everyone wants to see. Some have already been released but have not seen the inside of a Canadian theatre and, in fact, might never. Not all U.S. movies receive theatrical release in Canada.

Apple TV is not a revolutionary product. Other companies, notably Hewlett Packard and JVC, have similar devices that take photos, podcasts, music files, TV shows and movies from a computer on the home network and stream them to your large-screen TV, should you be lucky enough to own one.

But Apple takes this a step further by tying its product to its iTunes and QuickTime software packages. You cannot stream your MP3 files or your YouTube clips to Apple TV without organizing them first through iTunes. It's not that big a deal on the surface, because iTunes and the QuickTime player are free products.

But because it's bundled with iTunes, Apple TV becomes a closed system. Put another way, you can't stream much through Apple TV unless iTunes declares it to be legal, whatever that means in the context of the Canadian legislative jurisdiction. Put still another way, Apple TV will convert most files to formats it prefers, but there are files it will not play — such as a WMA file that has been protected by copyright, purchased legally using another system (say, Puretracks) and residing in the same directory of the same computer it was downloaded to.

Now the lack of content for Canadians might be the fault of an insufficiently internationalized copyright system, but it still amounts to coercing people to use iTunes to buy all their entertainment products.

Even then, there is another problem. Although iTunes and QuickTime are available for computers running Microsoft Windows, potential buyers will also be out of luck trying to run their collection of still photos through Apple TV — for that you need iPhoto, and Apple has not made a Windows version of iPhoto.

With no buying of TV shows or movies, and without a Mac computer for slide shows, Apple TV is limited to running only your own video clips, or music videos you buy, which largely limits Canadians to using it as an MP3 player. Or a giant iPod, if you will.

Moreover, you can't buy iTunes content through the TV; you have to do that through the computer where the iTunes program resides. And even if you could buy iTunes video, there's no HD content for sale — Apple sells stuff it calls "near-DVD quality," which runs a maximum of 640 by 480 pixels, a resolution even lower than analog TV.

As a source of entertainment, iTunes is not very practical — at least not yet anyway. What's currently available on iTunes is pretty bad, in terms of quality, and you can judge that in Canada only by the quality of the music videos, although U.S. reviewers have complained that Apple TV's TV and movie content are no better.

This is odd because Apple has always seen itself as catering to a visually discriminating market; its display screens have been second to none. And it's also odd because Apple TV comes with an HDMI hookup, which is the best connection for digital video components, and is mightily capable of handling content far superior to what customers can buy. At least if you buy the high-definition package from your local cable company you can record your TV in HD on a personal video recorder, and the disks in the PVRs run at about 80 gigabytes, which are much larger than the 40 GB drive you get with Apple TV.

And if you've gone whole hog and set up a 5.1-surround-sound stereo system with your home theatre setup, Apple TV will not support it. If all you have is an analog TV, forget it too — Apple TV will not connect to non-wide-screen TVs.

Similarly, Apple TV comes with a remote, which can control the Apple TV and another Mac computer within range of its infrared signal. Counting that one, I now have five remotes (with TV, PVR, DVD and VCR), which is four too many. Apple TV's connecting cables are sold separately, which is like selling a car's wheels as extras, and the prices on HDMI cables are a crime against humanity. And moreover, although iTunes supports Internet radio, you can't get Internet radio through your Apple TV.

All this is a little vertiginous. It smacks of anti-competitive practice, which if it had been done by Microsoft would have incurred the wrath of the awesome Apple PR machine. Of course Apple can argue that it is merely complying with U.S. law, but that's a weak argument when asking customers to fork over close to $400 (taxes and cable included) for a machine with so many limitations.

But let's leave brand loyalty wars for the zealots of blood sport to fight out; we consumers have to be practical about what we buy, and the Apple brand, for all its vaunted reputation, fails with Apple TV.

Still, there are things to admire in Apple TV. It is, as usual, a gorgeously designed box, all white and brushed titanium (or whatever metal it is), and about the size of a small box of bonbons, a concept I'm sure its designers entertained. It is operated by a remote control reminiscent of a prepubescent iPod, and perhaps as easily lost as a toddler at a summer picnic. (If you have a recent iMac machine, you'd recognize it right away; it's the same remote.)

The actual Apple TV unit does, however, turn hot when it runs for a short while. Very hot — it's wise to find a well-ventilated place for it. And it's designed to be left on all the time: There is no off switch.

The Apple TV connects to the home network either by Ethernet or wireless Ethernet (802.11g or earlier), and to the TV set by either component or HDMI cable (there is no S-video connector, which is a relief).

As we have come to expect of Apple products, connecting everything is very easy. The unit found my (non-Apple) home wireless network right away (as well as five or six others nearby), asked for my password, and then connected to the Internet. I then had to run into the other room, where the computer lives, download the latest iTunes/QuickTime package, enter my Apple TV's randomly selected code, and sync it with the 40-gigabyte hard disk inside the Apple TV.

Well, I confess to having been stumped by one thing: There are two places in iTunes that offer control over Apple TV selection, and I was unaware of the one that asks for the code that Apple TV had given me. And I felt mortified when a nice man from Apple pointed out the obvious to me, and was very grateful that the process went so quickly anyway.

Other than that, it is possible to set the unit up without even reading the manual; the only annoyance is entering your wireless networks' 128-bit hexadecimal WEP key using the oversimplified Apple remote and an on-screen keyboard. Once that is done, however, iTunes will start synchronizing its library with the Apple TV.

So, Apple TV is technologically a lovely little machine, and it offers the ability to stream content to your TV, including MP3 music files, rock videos and movie trailers.

But if it will not play content protected by copyright purchased on another system, if it will not sell you TV shows and if it will not sell you movies, as it is designed to do, is it really worth considering? Apple TV remains quite overpriced for what Canadians can use it for.

Perhaps no one mentioned this to Mr. Jobs. Pity.