New Apple TV 2010 Launches, Pre-Order Starts Today

Apple has launched the refreshed version of Apple TV which you can hold it in the palm of your hand! It supports HDMI port, 802.11 WiFi-N and optical audio. Don’t you worry about the storage as there is no local storage here, the new Apple TV which is built on Rental Model now completely depends on the cloud for streaming media content. Steve provided pragmatic examples of why Apple changed its strategy and rolled out completely new Apple TV -

“We’ve talked to people who have Apple TVs, and they love them, a lot! What have we learned? The number one, two, and three things they want: Hollywood movies and TV shows whenever they want them. They don’t want amateur hour, they want professional content. And they want HD.”

“The HD revolution is over, HD won. They want lower prices for content. They don’t want a computer. This is hard for people in the computer industry to understand, but it’s very easy for consumers to understand. They don’t want to manage storage.”

“People don’t want to think about managing storage, they just want to watch their shows. They don’t want to sync to a computer, most don’t even know what that is. And they want whatever the hardware is to be silent, cool, and small. This is what we’ve learned, and it’s quite a bit different than a lot of other companies think.”

“And so we’ve made something new for them. We’re introducing the second generation of Apple TV today, and this is what it looks like.” Damn that’s small!

It’s got a great remote, and it’s really easy. It’s all HD (when the content’s available. Apple has adopted the rental model, there are no purchases anymore. There’s no storage, because it’s all rental. It’s so affordable you can rent something several times for less than buying it. And you can stream from your computer. Huzzah!

So what about content? We have the largest library of movies in the world. You can rent first-run HD movies for $4.99 day and date they come out on DVD!  TV show rentals, commercial-free: 99 cents.

Currently ABC and Fox are piloting and the rest of the studios will get onboard very soon. If you’re a Netflix subscriber, you can stream content from Netflix’s library. You can also watch YouTube in HD, photos off of Flickr, and video and photos from MobileMe. Again, you can stream content off your Mac or PC.

The UI of new Apple TV is impressive with outstanding quality and seems to be far best than the Netflix. You can also stream content from an iOS 4.2 device to an Apple TV with AirPlay (previously AirTunes). AirPlay feature allow you to control Apple TV from all over your house from your mobile device. Apart from it, you can even stream all kinds of media anywhere in your house. Amazing feature! Isn’t?

You’re going to be able to watching a movie, walk into your living room, and push a button and watch the rest of it on your Apple TV. Walk into your home with photos on your iPhone, push a button and share a slideshow on your TV. It’s going to be pretty cool.

On pricing upfront, Apple TV will be available only for $99. You can pre-order your Apple TV now which would be shipping in 4 weeks.