Why is the Apple TV so expensive in Europe?

This was by far the most annoying thread of posts I have read in a long time. Despite the occasional attempt by a few people who dont talk out of their backsides, the majority of posters are ignorant idiots with absolutely nothing to add to the debate. The worst posts are always the ones coming from septic tanks who always take the view of "if youre not a Merkan, youre lucky to get our products at all". Must be very embarrassing to anyone with half a brain coming from across the pond.
The increase we are discussing has nothing to do with tax or the extra cost of doing business in the UK. We're talking about how other $99 products dont have the same increase.
What a bunch of pillocks.

I live in the US part of the year and in France part of the year. My iTunes account is a US one. If I bought an Apple TV in the US, does that mean that I could use the Apple TV while in France with the same capability of Netflix and TV show rentals? If so, whoo hoo!!! If not, why not?

Take a look at the new Mac mini, it's ridiculously expensive here in the Middle-east. (like $900)

If I can view EyeTV recordings stored on my Mac to my TV via the new-style Apple TV I think it would be worth it. (Although I would prefer to spend around £80!)

It's even worse in Poland,
new Apple TV - 999 Polish zloty = 322 US$ !!!
WTF ???

Presumably Apple will try to make deals with TV networks and content producers in each country if they can; like how they've started with just 2 TV networks in the US and will try to build on that. In the meantime, I suppose it's basically a gizmo to stream your iTunes library to your big-screen TV and a few extras like YouTube and video podcasts etc. A bit of a toy to play with.

Obviously won't catch on big-time in the UK with Joe Bloggs until they make those deals for content, but people who have a lot of stuff sitting on their Mac or PC in iTunes might still buy it just to have a really easy way of watching it on a big screen in the living room....(I know you can do that with cables and whatnot, but the point is how easy this will be to use).

Glyndwr!

Screw how much it costs, I wanna know how long a jailbreak* will take and whether it can handle MKV, or even better 1080p.

*Gruber says it runs iOS - 'trust me' - which I take to be inside knowledge rather than well-founded speculation.

It'd be more useful if it had a Spotify app. And a last.fm app. I could imagine a nice full screen Twitter app. And an iPlayer app. And an ITV Player app. And a 4od app.

Yeah, Apple TV needs apps, badly. It would be the difference between a novelty device that it is (in the UK without Netflix) and something genuinely useful.

Also, I totally wanted to run something like the Plex-9 ipad client on it. Apps!

The ironic thing is, £99 on its own *is* a good price. I'd totally pay it even though it's barely a side-grade from my current 40GB AppleTV. In isolation it seems good.

But there's no such thing as "in isolation". I knew in the US it was $99 before I even discovered the UK pricing. So it just *feels* like I'd be knowingly getting ripped off if I bought it, which takes such a big hunk of shine off the product-buying experience that it's just putting me right off.

If it was £99 and $120 I wouldn't feel this way and my pre-order would be in already. :-)

Optics. The optics are bad, Apple. We don't like to *feel* ripped off.