ETC: Apple TV

There is no good way to photograph a TV.

I've hemmed and hawed about writing about Apple TV. I hate to suggest anything that provides, literally, unlimited time in front of the TV for anyone, let alone children. It's just been awesome though, even though we're not using most of the features. In fact, about all we do with it is use it as a Netflix streaming box. For that alone, it's worth it. 
We have had a Nexflix subscription for a few years. We get one movie a week in the mail and have used the streaming service off and on since it became available. The only hitch was that we could only stream to our computer, and as nice as it is, it's not as nice as the TV. We debated the pros and cons of getting a cable that would basically let us use the TV as an extra monitor so we could play movies on that, but in the end $100 for the Apple TV seemed like a good deal. It really has been. You can't stream everything on Netflix, but you can watch more than I ever would, including all of the seasons of Top Gear UK. For the kids, they have a separate area that allows them to pick from kids shows and movies. On Weekend mornings they each get to pick a show to watch and it's easy enough that they do it all themselves. They've been watching He-Man, She-Ra, Shaun the Sheep and Inspector Gadget lately. With the exception of Shaun, those are all shows that I watched as a kid which is pretty awesome. 
The best part of watching these old shows on Apple TV is that there's no commercialism. Sure, when I was a kid watching He-Man made you want to run out and buy He-Man action figures, but that's not possible now. They don't see commercials for things they can buy at the store, they don't see characters that are on the shelves. They don't have the constant barrage of commercialism that's designed to suck them into the toy aisle at the store. They still love the toy aisle, but they're able to judge the toys on what they see themselves, not on what they've been shown and told and sold on TV. I like that. 
Maybe I'm just trying to justify a box that makes it easy to entertain my children without much work on my part. I might be actually, but if you have an internet connection, and if you have Netflix, and if your kids watch even a smidge of TV, then Apple TV might make your world a bit easier.