The cost of Apple TV

How cool would it be to flip through your digital cable channels with CoverFlow?

does it seem strange to anyone else that the appleTV is posted in the ipod section? i don't really think of that thing as being portable. and did i miss the funeral for the ipod hi-fi?

perhaps we could see the love child - "hi-fi TV" - that way you could drop your ipod into somebody else's appleTV and watch your videos...

Sorry guys, but it's a loser.

We applaud iPhone because it's a symphony of convergence and at the same time we praise AppleTV for being a terminally narrow platform? I think AppleTV v.1.0 is a dud and unless they make a v.2 with more (already present everywhere although old fashioned) features, they (we) are stuck with a lemon...

webmacster87, it actually isn't anyone at TUAW who thinks the AppleTV will be discontinued, but a certain Philip Swann at TVpredictions.com.

I wish they'd introduce a new version of AppleTV that had the Airport Extreme BS and AirTunes built in. I'm in the market for a new router, but I really would like all of these features in one box:

1. 802.11n base station
2. AirTunes (I want to control music through the laptop without the tv on)
3. wireless hard drive & printer access
4. video streaming

I can't even get those features in two boxes at the moment... wish they'd've put AirTunes into the Airport Extreme Base Station.

The Steve has already positioned AppleTV as a "hobby business" for Apple, lowering expectations for it as a major Apple platform. This tells me that they will continue to develop it and see what happens along the way. Think of this as a Google beta for Apple hardware. It's shipping, but it is still an experiment.

Apple will continue to put money into this, but I don't expect them to plow a lot of resources into a big marketing push, at least not until it generates its own excitement.

So, it's not going to die any time soon, but I'd say that its horizons are limited until or unless something happens outside of AppleTV internal development (killer app by outside developer, magnitude increase in broadband speeds for majority of people, development of codecs that allow HD quality at very low bitrates, etc.).

I think you all are crazy to declare that the Apple TV will be killed--it only started shipping 3 months ago! Give it some time to gain some footing before you come to these ridiculously rash conclusions!