RSSApple TV lineup shuffled, major updates expected
By Tim Conneally | Published September 14, 2009, 1:33 PM
Swirling amid the murky Apple rumor pit prior to last week's iPod refresh event was talk of an updated Apple TV, thanks to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster's observation that 40 GB Apple TVs were in low availability.
Today, the 40 GB Apple TV model has been removed from Apple's site entirely, and Munster's prediction of an Apple TV lineup change has come true. Now, there's only one Apple TV unit available: the 160 GB model, and that has dropped $100 in price.
Before this change, the 40 GB model was priced at $229, and the 160 GB model at $329. Now that there's only one model, the 160 GB unit has been knocked down in price to $229.
The reason for this change, Munster believes, is that Apple TV will be upgraded to coincide with an iTunes subscription service, or the new iTunes LP format (formerly known as "Cocktail"). The iTunes LP format and the new iTunes Extras bonus content feature use a new framework Apple is calling TuneKit.
Because TuneKit content is designed for 1280x720 resolution, the exact HDTV output of Apple TV, and there are references to "hdtv-fullscreen," and "hdtv-cursor-off" metatags within iTunes 9 content files, some believe an Apple TV update is now inevitable.
Apple TV rocks!
Score: -1
|Good topics, you can download any apple software from http://www.softwaredownload1.com/
Score: -4
|What's this garbage? 40 GB and 160 GB? Get serious. When 1TB+ drives are dirt cheap, Apple is still shoving this crap down all the fanboys' throats and they're just loving it. Apple is probably charging more for that 160 GB drive inside this polished turd than you would pay for a 1TB drive. Hey Apple, how about an Apple TV box that comes without a HD and let's us put whatever drive we want inside it? Oh wait, that would cut into your 90% profit margins. We certainly can't have that!
Pass.
Score: 0
|I have owned an AppleTV since its release. 40gb is all that was offered at the time and is perfect for me. The beauty of AppleTV is that it can do this magical thing called "streaming". When you are streaming data from a server the capacity of the end device isn't such a big deal.
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|Wrong attitude --- buy their stock!
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|The Apple TV uses a laptop hard drive. They don't even make a 1TB drive.
As for Apple creating one with no drive. That's not going to happen. That would be like buying a Blu-Ray enclosure and then having to buy the drive that goes in it separately. It makes no sense.
Score: -1
|Yet another high quality product from Apple that keeps getting better.
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|Any support for CableCard? Apparently it has now been approved for wider usage...at least, according to Ars Technica. Could make some of these HTPC kits much more useful.
Score: 0
|I doubt it. With a TV tuner an Apple TV wouldn't depend as much on the iTunes Store.
Score: 0
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