Apple TV is fundamentally misunderstood. It’s a computer-to-TV conduit. That’s all. It makes trivial what was once fraught with complexity and pitfalls. This is what Apple does, and they achieve it with their laserlike focus on what was wrong with the previous picture — not by duplicating things that are already working just fine on their own. Apple does not make “kitchen sink” devices, and why should they? Let’s root for Apple TV to do accomplish its specific purpose as well as possible (and all your points about video quality and internet connectivity are well taken in that regard) instead of asking it to darn our socks while it’s at it so we can throw away the knitting needle.

Heck, if you want to Apple to bundle in your DVD player and your satellite receiver, why not just demand that they bundle in a video camera, and an actual TV? That way nothing would ever have to connect to anything, there would just be one $10,000 device.

Right now in its current incarnation this is a fanboy device and that’s all.

- You can’t rent, only buy, from iTunes. How many times do you really want to watch a typical movie or the last season of Survivor?

- iTunes doesn’t store your purchase history “in the sky” so if you lose your HDD, or accidentally delete a movie or something, you’re outta luck. Can’t just re-download – have to re-buy.

http://brentevans.blogspot.com/2007/03/apple-tv-i-dont-get-it.html

For everything you are wanting: home video, photos and music streaming, an XBox 360 core system costs exactly the same amount as an Apple TV and can do all of that, plus more. You don’t even need MCE to display photos, video or music.

I find it odd though that Apple has released a product that is rather… underwhelming. While I’m not always the biggest fan of the “cult of Apple” I’ll easily admit that their hardware is usually very well designed with a strong focus on the consumer’s needs. Just the lack of volume makes me wonder if Steve was out of town the day that got approved.

While digital downloads may be the future of television I don’t see that happening until the digital selection has 100% parity with what you can record off the air, along with the ability to browse new content. There are so many shows on the History channel I never would have seen if I had to conciously purchase them before hand.

I actually see a great future/hope in Microsoft’s IPTV + XBox 360 stratagy. Of course Microsoft will be hindered by what it’s always hindered by, it’s OEMs. It’s up to the providers in your area to offer IPTV and so Microsoft won’t be able to control the stream, hence won’t be able to deliever a consistant experience, thus leading to mixed or lukewarm reviews. Another place that Apple shines, they know if you want something done right you need to do it yourself.

Randy, possibly, and if I could get all the premium HDTV content that I wanted for less money and it were just me I might consider it.

On the other hand my wife and kids consume a lot of TV in our household as well and then there is just the occasional browsing type TV that goes on (for instance, I watched 30 minutes of Adam Sandler hosting Letterman last night on a whim). Add to this the live sort of televised stuff, occasional news shows, etc. And I’m not sure that at least for my family that Apple’s solution would be easier or cheaper than my HDTV DirecTV TiVo.