Details Emerge on Apples New Plans for Apple TV

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about Apple's reported move to revamp Apple TV to bring streaming content to our living rooms. Well, yesterday the diligent reporters at Engadget dug up some new details.

Most prominent are the price point - reportedly now $99.00 and the revelation that it will only offer 720p HD not full 1080i or 1080p HD video.

(Personally, I've noticed little noticeable difference between the quality of the 2 reigning flavors of HD and people forget that other factors apart from 720 vs. 1080 pixels can greatly affect image quality, but that's another post/debate for another day.)

Here's the Engadget exclusive on the new Apple TV.

Apps Coming Soon to a TV Near You

I admit that I am a "Mac-head". I am Mac-ed out with an MacBookPro, iPhone and most recently iPad and I love and use all of them daily. I think Steve Jobs should be nominated for Sainthood for the technological innovations he's spearheaded that have changed so many people's lives and our industry.

My love of Apple is based purely on the simple fact that their products actually work as advertised and do what they are supposed to do consistently with simplicity and elegance. (Albeit, having a little Apple stock in the portfolio has also not hurt my love of the company - it's increased a whopping 5x since I first got it a prior to the release of the first video iPod.)

Those 3 traits- consistency, simplicity and elegance - have been sorely missing from many other tech products/software I've bought from other companies, most of which are gathering dust in my basement.

So with today's article in the New York Times touting a rumor that Apple appears be revamping it's Apple TV product and making a strong push into our living rooms, I see one of the final pieces in the puzzle of the evolving new media landscape I've been talking about on this blog for more than 3 years now...Digital convergence of our computers/tv/web into one unit which I believe will very shortly offer the ability for filmmakers to distribute their products direct to an audience with no middleman or gatekeepers and even charge $$$ for it.

Purportedly, the new Apple TV may run on the same OS as the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch which would allow you to run Apps on your TV (Think Netflix, Skype, iTunes, etc.). Similarly, several TV manufacturers are already shipping new TV's with web-connectivity and the ability to run apps (although I suspect Apples new effort will ultimately work better and be the most elegant, based on recent history).

So once again, I'm telling y'all to study these developments and really think about how we as filmmakers can be first-movers to take advantage of this shifting media landscape. Down and Dirty DV will most definitely be somewhere in the early fray.

Hollywood gatekeepers, dust off your resumes. Time's are a changing!