I am excited, however, about the prospect of a new Apple TV hardware release. This is pure rumor and I've been disappointed in the past. Here's a summary of all the rumors I've seen:
- Diskless Apple TV, to be renamed to iTV. Content will be streamed from your home PCs and/or Macs connected to the network.
- Price: $99
- 720p only
- Support for applications
- Price: Anything less than $200 is good. $99 is fantastic.
- OS: iOS (hopefully that will speed it up quite a lot)
- Ports/Connectivity:
- HDMI (I suspect this will be the smaller output version)
- Ethernet
- Wi-Fi (801.11n)
- USB (for external drive when you're on the go)
- Applications: Please make the Netflix app work on this. Ideally, any application from the App Store should work on this. Less than ideal, any iPad app should work. Worst case scenario: only special apps would work
- Remote: None (use your iPhone or iPod touch)
- Integration with iTunes: allow multiple iTunes libraries to connect to for streaming. While you're at it, make iTunes run as a service so we don't have to login to a PC to enable iTunes.