Gizmodo
Keep refreshing this post! We're live-updating as this announcement goes.
The new product: a box to connect to your TV to play all these iTunes Movies and iTunes TV shows on it.
This box supports wireless—no stringing cables—and is the missing piece.
iTV looks like a small Mac Mini. It's just an internal codename, and will be renamed later.
There's a power supply inside, USB, 802.11 wireless, Ethernet, HDMI, component, stereo audio, and optical audio out to your TV.
Whatever setup you've got, you can hook up to this iTV box. It can go out to your TV, stereo, whatever.
Steve's holdiing one. It's wider than a Mac Mini, but flatter.
iTV looks faster than Front Row. Looks similar to Front Row—has movie covers, TV covers.
When you're browsing your movies, it gives you the synopsis of the movie, stars, and the cover.
Demo of watching TV on the iTV. Steve's showing The Office clip. I would have preferred 24, but whatevs.
He's controlling everything with the little remote.
Steve's browsing music now. Browsing through artists, now albums, picking the songs. The album art is on the left, reflected, very pretty.
Podcasts, photos can also be viewed through iTV. Similar to how Front Row works. Browse through your photo album (iPhoto, no doubt), and view a slideshow with music.
iTV should be out sometime in Q1 2007. Works with iTunes on PCs OR Macs. Priced at $299.
"Apple's in your den", "Apple's in your living room", "Apple is in your car", "Apple is in your pocket".
Steve says this should give you an idea of where they're going. TAKING OVER YOUR LIFE!
Wha? One more thing?
Comments
802.11*
So what are the chances that it's Q1 2007 because they're waiting for 802.11n to be standardized?
It's a lot more data to push through the air.
Most important question that can make or break this thing: can I stream quicktime movies (non-itunes) to my tv?
so wait. i pay $15 for a new movie and then i have to pay $300 to watch it on my tv. tell me why i should even pay attention to this.
and no, i don't care about streaming music to my tv.
Why is this a big deal announcement? There are quite a few devices out there that already do this and for less than $300. I also would like to know how this will handle DVD's in my collection. Can I rip them and use this?
How about some timestamps?
HDMI and component to watch 640x480 purchases..? I don't think so. When this comes out, they'll have to boost the quality to HD, so that means no-one who is planning to buy this should buy anything until then.
As long as it can stream other QT content (and it looks like it can) then this could have a huge impact on my HD DVR decision. Tivo wants $800 for their box, plus a rumor of being able to tranfer lifetime sub for another $200... A Mac mini, iTV and EyeTV would run to about the same amount...
640x480 = 4:3 aspect ratio. And we're supposed to watch this on our big screens?
if i didn't have cable, i'd see this as a good thing.
Well i didn't get the iPod video i wanted but at least the iTV looks promising. 300 bucks isn't too bad either. It beats unplugging my mac mini and then carrying it all over my place.
Things like these are stepping stones to new uses for tech in the everyday home. Berating it without looking at the bigger picture is just short sighted. You don't have to buy it, but it's reckless to simply ignore it because we geeks "already knwo about this, nothing to see here."
A device like this has been rumored for so long (iHome anyone?), I wonder why they've gone public with it now. The new movies announced in the iTunes Store don't seem to fit with it, and if it's really not out until Q1, they'll miss the big Christmas shopping season and as others have said there are other ways to do this. The only advantage Apple has is their seamless user experience, and that's not ready yet, so why annonuce it..?
The only thing I can think (hope) is that it's really going to be ready much sooner than Q1
Can't you do all this already? Been doing it for years (not on a Mac tho).
So you're saying it has some of the functionality of my Tivo except it has Apple's higher than average cost.
Umkay. BBye.
Heck, my Series 2 TiVo will do a fair amount of it. Plus, it throughputs to my 10-year-old TV using coax or S-Video (yeah, I'm behind the times) so I don't have to upgrade the TV. That's going to be the biggest problem - people who aren't ready to replace the TV part just yet.
Well a rebrand is definitely necessary. I didn't realise the current cable for connecting the iPod to a TV is called an iTV cable but I'd imagine ITV (2nd main terestrial TV broadcaster in the UK) would be less than happy to share this 3 letter acronym with Apple!
On my mythtv box I can watch and listen to ALL my downloaded content*, record all my shows, watch youtube/google video, and do all this stuff that the iCrap offers.
Put your $300 iCash toward building a mythtv, or if you're not geeky enough, buy one.
(* = I vnc if its DRM'd and on my Windows machine, but I hear there are ways to remove the DRM ;-)
I won't be happy until the ENTIRE Rob Schneider movie collection is available on iTunes.
And if your windows oriented instead of linux try www.team-mediaportal.com.
Hahah, my old modded Xbox can do most of this stuff. Been enjoying it for almost 2 years!
This looked really good till I read the $300 price tag. I might be really out of touch, but it seems like an awful lot to pay for something that essentially streams media from iTunes and little else.
I thought this would be like a fifty buck add-on, until I came back and read it more carefully. At fifty bucks, I could see a few folks trying this out. Could be really convenient to download movies and watch them through this iTV (glad they are changing the name). But, at $300, plus $10 for each DRM laden, less than DVD quality movie -- it will be only Apple fan boys doing this.
Steve Jobs lives in a universe filled with rich people.
i want a i remote or what ever steve keeps using during all his key notes what ever it is its pretty cool
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