When Apple previewed the Apple TV (then code-named the iTV) in October 2006, and released it five months later, a number of people noticed that Apple TV’s interface looked quite a bit better than that of Front Row, which had been introduced on the iMac exactly one year prior. Well, that claim has now vanished, as Front Row 2, in Leopard, is the exact same interface as the Apple TV. Front Row doesn’t have very many other new perks, however, in fact, three of the five “new features” listed under the Front Row category existed in the last version of Front Row, so who knows why Apple considered them “new.” Nevertheless, let’s take a look at the new Front Row in Leopard.
One very significant thing about Front Row is that it is now built-into Leopard. Previously, the older version of Front Row was only available on iMacs, Mac minis, MacBooks, and MacBook Pros, and only the models that were new enough to include an Apple Remote. However, the fact that Front Row is now available to all Leopard installs means that anyone can use it. You can open Front Row either by pressing MENU on the Apple Remote, by doing the keyboard shortcut Command-Escape, or now you can just mosy on into the Applications folder and double-click on that Front Row icon. If you don’t have an Apple Remote, you can surf the Front Row menus using the arrow keys (navigation, plus the left/right arrows as previous/next buttons and the up/down arrows as volume buttons), the escape key (acts as the MENU button for going backwards through menus), and the space bar or return key (acts as the select button or else the play/pause button). Though using your keyboard to surf Front Row may not be as convenient as having that small, cute, easy-to-lose remote in your hand, it still works well. And if you have a Bluetooth keyboard, you can still control Front Row from across the room on the couch.
One nice thing about the new Front Row is that it appears to be better organized. Rather than giving you four icons for Music/Photos/Movies/DVD, Front Row better organizes these into more logical setups with Movies/TV Shows/Music/Podcasts/Photos/Settings/Sources. (A DVD menu also pops up if you insert a DVD in.) It’s also nice that Apple now uses different, special icons for Front Row, rather than the previous version which used standard application icons. Before, it could be misleading if you wanted to play a movie that you knew was in iTunes, but you had to go to the option with the iMovie icon instead to open it. This new layout really makes much more sense.
Just like Apple TV, Front Row now has a bunch of iTunes promos available above your own media. Under the Movies section, you can see the list of Theatrical Trailers from Apple.com, or check out the current iTunes Top Movies. Under TV Shows, see the iTunes Top TV Shows. And under Music, see the iTunes Top Songs or iTunes Top Music Videos. (Yes, Apple did put Music Videos under the Music section, which does kind of make sense.)
Apple’s website claims that Front Row gives you an “Apple TV-style Interface.” It literally gives you the Apple TV interface. I looked hard, trying to find any differences between the new Front Row and Apple TV. The only ones that I could find were the fact that the main screen now says “Front Row” on top, and that a DVD menu will pop up when you insert a DVD while Front Row is open. I notice NO other differences between Apple TV and this new Front Row.
And that means that there’s a lot of stuff here to like. The menus are now very nicely illuminated, and they now move in such a way that the list always fills the screen. The Music Now Playing screen is a bit more minimalist, but actually can usually show the full titles of songs now without cutting off like in the previous Front Row. And yes, just like on Apple TV, the album art rotates across the screen every 30 seconds, and you get the cool scaling transitions as music progresses from one song to the next. The menus give you the same appearance of the album cover art flying along next to the menu item that you see on Apple TV, and highlighting one will, just like Apple TV, show you a short preview of information about your selected item.
The Settings menu in Front Row doesn’t give you very many settings. The only settings let you see your computer’s name, the version of the Front Row software, let you turn the Screen Saver off/on (although for me, I never saw any screen saver come up, even though I waited for it), and let you turn the subtle Sound Effects off/on.
And, of course, just like Apple TV, the Sources menu lets you connect to another computer on your network to stream media from there. I don’t know if Front Row has you enter an authorization code into that computer like you do on Apple TV, but I will say that by giving Sources its own menu, it’s a lot easier to navigate to shared media than it was in the previous version of Front Row.
The one significant downside that I saw to this Front Row is that it’s really optimized for widescreen displays, like the displays of the most recent Macs that Apple is currently shipping. However, the display hooked up to our Mac mini is not a widescreen display, and Front Row looked a bit weird on there with so much black space above and below the menus.
However, all in all, Front Row looks so much better and is so much better organized with this new roots borrowed from the Apple TV, its standalone companion. Front Row blows away any Media Center edition of Windows and has to be, hands down, the best way for viewing all of the media on your computer in its full-screen glory.
Feature Satisfaction Rating: 
Be sure to check out the other articles in the Leopard Feature Presentation, occurring throughout the month of November here on Webmacster87.info.
Tags: Apple Remote, Apple TV, features, Front Row, Leopard Feature Presentation, Mac OS X Leopard, media, menus, review
