Next Apple TV to be renamed iTV, drop 1080p, gain apps - rumor

I don't know. If apple were to market this iTV device as just "HD" without talking resolution at all, probably using adjectives like "magic", I believe that people would buy it for that HD aspect and not care about resolution.

Aside of that, I agree. There's no visible difference between 1080p and 720p, even on my installation with a 3m screen and 5m projection distance.

Interestingly enough, 3D rendered movies might look a tad bit better in 1080p, but only ever so slightly.

720p moves into the realm of instant download / gratification vs. making consumers wait - I think Apple's hitting the mark.

I'd prefer 1080p but my experience downloading 1080p movies on the PS3 has been frustrating - an 8gb+ file takes a really long time vs. a well compressed 2.5 - 3gig file for 720p resolution which is quite a bit faster on standard cable modem / download.

If anyone can pull off the consumer education necessary to make 720p seem okay, Apple can. There's plenty of angles: storage constraints (show number of videos that can be stored at each resolution), download speed (esp. considering the sorry state of "broadband" in the US), watch-as-you-download vs. watch it tomorrow, and perceived quality at normal viewing distances.

A highly compressed 1080P movie encoded in H264 must be something like 10GB or so? For the average US broadband connection (4Mbit/sec) that's going to take at least 54 minutes. No one wants to experience buffering in the middle of a movie so that would probably be a 10-15 minute buffering period before you started watching. That might be a little too much. They could do something like play locally cached movie trailers while the movie did its first 10-15m of buffering for a movie theater-ish experience. Steve Jobs singing "Let's all go to the lobby" Monty Burns style would work too.

Knowing Apple, they will just say "HD" and keep the tech specs off the main product page. Only us techies will complain.

Not that it's a bad thing. Apple has convinced consumers that they will provide a quality product (and they will), so they don't need to stoop to number wars.

You haven't heard of the Magic Trackpad?

http://www.apple.com/magictrackpad/

An iPod touch or an iPad would suffice as well.

My guess is they would include a basic remote bundled with the device that was not a full blown iPod Touch but instead a half-sized Magic TrackPad with a gyroscope and accelerometer. Maybe a headphone jack too. Text input could be done on the TV screen using a pointer since you don't really need to type often when watching video or playing games. I'm not sure it makes any sense to include an LCD on the remote since you would want to be looking at the TV screen most of the time. You could probably use an iPod Touch or iPhone as a remote or pair a bluetooth keyboard for better text input.

I think it's partially about the hardware. iPhone OS is a lightweight, stable embedded OS that runs well on cheap, low-power hardware. The old Apple TV is expensive in part because it's a low-spec Mac desktop with a custom UI (read: expensive Intel + Nvidia hardware). An iPad logic board without a screen or battery is probably pretty darn cheap, and more than powerful enough for video and music.

Touch is just part of the UI layer. A D-pad for navigation and two buttons (Go + Cancel) are enough for a set-top box. I don't buy any of the "touch remote" theories, and I don't think games are going to be a part of the picture. In the casual games world, iTV doesn't have the same advantages over Wii that iPhone has over the Nintendo DS.

What's Google's plan for Android apps on Google TV?

There are many features that one would presume the iTV would be missing. These include an accelerometer, touch screen, GPS, camera* and 3G connection. It will be interesting to see if there is any truth to it.

*I could imagine a camera as it could be used as an input device for FaceTime or even gesture tracking.