Engadget: Apple TV gets apps, new name in iTV

OK, let's get real folks. Like your HD TV? What gets to you is 720p, whatever your TV says it is doing! Like to be able to watch movies and listen to music without the computer being on - then forget about a cloud based box. Ever walked into a room and correctly identified whether the TV was showing HD, Blu-ray or "ordinary" (without a side by side display to compare)? Want to watch your home movies or digital photo albums on the big screen TV without having to switch the computer on and hook it up? Sure the Apple TV could stand a tweak or three, but there is some unreal stuff on display in the comments here.

I'm quite happy with my ATV running 720p and XBMC, next time around I may go for the new Mac Mini with plenty of memory. Otherwise there are plenty of good 1080p capable media players out there to consider (unless you simply love iTunes for syncing content that is)

It will be interesting to see what happens if they do use that name iTV on launch as there is a major television network in the UK called ITV. I'm against companies suing each other for stupid reasons (SKY suing Skype for instance) and am aware that obviously the acronyms are for different words, but as the two will be in the same market, television and going after audience figures, then they may have a problem. It's not just the UK though, ITV has programmes in the US under their ITV Studios arm (Granada America) as well as imports shown on channels such as BBC America made by ITV.

This looks stupid. They already dropped the ball on Apple TV, and they're going to drop it again on this. Give people quality products that stand on their own. iPod mostly accomplishes this. I can have whatever computer I want and not be tied down. I can rip my own MP3's LEGALLY and use whatever digital music stores I want. With this, you're just paying them to access your wallet. It's sad because there's so much potential, but they keep wasting it.

Just dont leave current Apple TV supporters (I have x3) in the dust.

iRelevant. IOS and permanently chained to the app store? DOA for me.

completely utterly useless in europe.

Apple clearly focusses on the US market only. in Europe there is no itunes content available in most countries, so the limit of 720P does not make sense. people who do buy an apple TV here will be using it for ripped or downloaded content.

even a simple networked blu-ray player has better functionality than the apple tv has, it will stream 1080P content from various sources and any networked storage without a running computer or itunes..

common apple, the usability of devices like this is close to zero like this..

I believe the current Apple TV runs a 1 GHz Pentium and should be a good match for an upgrade to the iOS software.

As has been previously mentioned, this could be the touchscreen remote http://www.engadget.com/2010/07/09/what-is-this-tiny-apple-touchscreen-that-just-leaked-in-taiwan/ and the iTV device as well as third party apps could allow the iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone as input devices. The iTV hardware could play 1080p but Apple would need to only advertise 720p capability due to the limitations of iTunes Store content (the 3GS had the horsepower for 1080p but was artificially capped). Apple's facility in NC is likely a major part of the backend to an iTV media streaming solution for customers. All of this is conjecture of course, unfortunately that's what passes for Apple news these days.

Any word on the Tivo partnership integration in the upcoming iTV?