The iPhone applications for controlling the Mac were another stumbling block. Air Mouse is certainly the most complete controller, but it's not as good for simple Arrow, Return, and Escape presses as Rowmote and the Boxee application. And if all you want to do is deal with content in your iTunes library, Apple's Remote makes more sense. But using these tools effectively requires knowing which is best for what and I could sense the frustration when I told my wife she'd be better off switching applications to perform particular tasks.

Given these experiences I'll suggest that a Mac mini media center isn't something you should just spring on the family unless your family is wholly enamored of technology. Keep your current components, bring as much media as possible into iTunes so that it can be accessed via Front Row, and show your family how to use it. Getting content from Netflix, Hulu, or one of the other many sources available from Boxee, Plex, or XBMC is, in most cases, going to be the family geek's job for awhile.

What does a Mac mini configured as a media server have that an doesn't? The ability to reach out beyond Apple's grasp. Easy-to-use as the Apple TV may be, it's designed almost entirely as an adjunct to iTunes and the iTunes Store--bringing the contents of each to your television.

And that's fine, but it's also limiting. Unless you to allow Boxee and XBMC to run on it, you get only the content Apple wants you to have--no Netflix, no Hulu, no Comedy Central, no PBS, no Pandora, no Radio Time... you get the idea. In a time when people are increasingly interested in streaming Web-based media, the Apple TV is deaf to this desire. And, in a way, that reflects Apple's approach to the iTunes Store: "People want to own their media."