Question about ATV

Your mini could use airplay to mirror to the apple tv wirelessly. I believe 4s and above only works for iphone. Also if your MBP is 2010 as stated in your sig then it will not be able to airplay mirror, you could use a third party app like airParrot.

There is no subscription cost to use the apple tv out of the box, unless of course you plan on subscribing to netflix, etc.

There is a youtube app included with the apple tv. Also you can stream content that is in your itunes library on you MBP to the apple tv.

Just a brief overview.

Beyond mirroring, though, you can Airplay a lot of video content from an iPhone 4 to an ATV. I'll do this a lot with different website content or even podcasts or that type of thing that I have on my iPhone or iPad that I don't have in iTunes on my server.

There isn't a subscription unless you go with some of the other premium services offered on the ATV like Netflix or Hulu Plus.

A basic idea of an Apple TV is that it lets you stream from iTunes and iDevices to your TV through direct playback from iTunes through Home Sharing, streaming purchased content from Apple, Airplaying content or mirroring from iDevices. That's the main push of what it does that nothing else does. The ATV also has a builtin youtube app, so that would even free up your iPad while watching content on youtube.

That's not a comprehensive list, but it should help you see what the general idea of an ATV is.

Namji said:

Thanks so much for your replies!

I have no experience in airplay is that something like bluetooth?
Also as long as I have wifi, apple tv application should work? or do I need some other source of internet services?

Click to expand...

Yes wifi or the apple tv can be hard wired as well. You do not need any special internet service.

Namji said:

I have no experience in airplay is that something like bluetooth?
Also as long as I have wifi, apple tv application should work? or do I need some other source of internet services?

Click to expand...

"Airplay" is just Apple's brand name for the process of streaming photos, music, or video from an Apple device (iphone, ipod touch, ipad or mac) to your Apple TV. The actual medium used is your WiFi wireless network (802.11n). It is unrelated to bluetooth, which is a different frequency of wireless signal. Airplay is not an "app", but rather it is built into the iOS operating system. You activate it by bringing up the content of interest on your idevice (so, start watching a video, looking at a photo, or playing a song on your ipad mini) and, if you are on a wireless network that has an Apple TV connected to it, a little button with the airplay button will appear in one of the corners of your ipad mini's screen (looks like a TV with a triangle going into it). Just tap that button, select the apple tv, and the content will begin playing on your TV.
http://www.apple.com/airplay/

Yes it should work as long as you have your idevice (iPad) on your wireless network. The Apple TV can be connected to the network via WiFi or directly connected to your router via an ethernet cable.

An aside: Note that Airplay can also be used to send whatever is on your computer's screen to your Apple TV as well. If you have a mac running mountain lion, the mac has Airplay Mirroring built in. If you have an older mac or a Windows PC, you can use Air Parrot to do the same thing.
http://www.airparrot.com