The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg got his hands on the Apple TV streaming media device a little early, and he thinks it's a hit. "Our verdict is that it's a beautifully designed, easy-to-use product that should be very attractive to people with widescreen TV sets and lots of music, videos, and photos stored on computers," he said. "It has some notable limitations, but we really liked it. It is classic Apple: simple and elegant."

During Mr. Mossberg's tests, Apple TV performed perfectly with both Intel and PowerPC Macs, as well as Windows XP and Vista PCs. Setup was "stunningly simple," and he had no issues with the Pioneer plasma TV, or the standard 802.11g wireless network he connected it to. Audio and video quality was very good, and he didn't experience and stuttering or hesitation in playback.

Apple TV does, however, have a few limitations. Access to streaming playback content from the Internet is slim, iPhoto libraries must be synced with Apple TV instead of streamed (an issue that Apple plans to fix), and it requires a widescreen TV with modern connectors like HDMI or "component."

The focus of Apple TV is not the niche users that want to connect a computer to their TV, or gamers that want a console that also plays movies. Instead, Mr. Mossberg said, "it's for the much larger group of people who want to keep their home computers where they are and yet enjoy their downloaded media on their widescreen TVs."

Much like the Mac was originally touted as the computer for the rest of us, Apple TV is the streaming media center for the rest of us.