Apple TV costs only $99

Tech giant Apple is about to merge its business with second generation Apple TV. It’s lucrative design and attractive price may cause troubles to others companies.

Apple started TV shipping on March 21, 2007. They released a 160GB model on May 31; it discontinued the 40GB version on September 14, 2009. The TV was unveiled as a work in progress called “iTV”, 2006. Apple CEO Steve Jobs demoed a modified Front Row interface using the Apple Remote. Experts described the appliance as a “short Mac Mini”. Jobs announced that Apple would start taking pre-orders for iTV on January 9, 2007.

iTV allows consumers to use an HDTV set to view photos, play music and watch video that originates from internet media services or a local networks. Users can access the iTunes Store directly through Apple TV to rent movies and TV shows and stream audio and video podcasts. This can display photos from Flickr and MobileMe in a slide show, with automatic cross-dissolve transitions, and optionally with the Ken Burns effect. Netflix streaming integration was added in the September 2010 revision. YouTube videos can be viewed directly on the Apple TV. It does not support user-defined RSS audio, video and text feeds. Parental controls allow consumers to limit access to internet media service content. Internet media is split into four categories: “Internet Photos”, “YouTube”, “Podcasts”, and “Purchase and Rental”. Each of the categories is configured by a parental control of “Show”, “Hide” or “Ask” to prompt for a 4-digit preset code. Besides, movies, TV shows, music and podcasts can be restricted by rating. Although Apple TV has a “Closed Captioning” setting, subtitles are not available for most iTunes content. Apple Remote, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad (via Remote) use as input devices. Its connectivity extends to Wi-Fi, 10/100 Ethernet, Micro-USB, HDMI, Optical audio. 0.27 kg weighs iTV have a slim dimension of 23 mm (h), 98 mm (w) and 98 mm (d).

Not only does the new iTV have an amazingly small footprint, it’s also incredibly energy efficient. It stays cool without a fan, so it’s never noisy. And it uses less power than a night-light.