Disagree with everything you have said. Having a camera in ATV will be useless. Think about location of the ATV box (is yours currently in a location ideal for doing FaceTime?), lighting in your viewing room...your proximity to camera...etc. FaceTime with an AppleTV would be a difficult proposition at best.
While I can buy much of what you say here, there are those who may position THEIR
TV in an appropriate spot (right above or right below the screen) to make this work reasonably well. This lone feature would compete against products like this:
http://www2.panasonic.com/consumer-...-CC10W.O_11002_7000000000000005702#tabsection which are often priced at or ABOVE
TV pricing, though the latter comes with all those other benefits.
Besides, if the circuit board is closely connected to the iDevice line, and the iDevice line is all going with a facetime camera, it might be a "might as well" feature to include. Would I use it? Probably not. But if someone else would enjoy the feature, my view of such stuff should not make their view useless/foolish/etc. They want what they want.
Myself, I hope for the same big 3 many have longed for for several years now:
- 1080p capability (with or without iTunes content to feed it). Apple can't defeat the "bag of hurt" if this falls short on the fundamentals of best picture (& sound). If it gets toe-to-toe with BD quality, those interested in maximizing what their HDTV's (and sound systems) can do will have a genuine option. And those happy with 720p can still get every bit of the 720p experience rendered on the hardware capable of a bit more than 720p. That's win:win for everyone, rather than trying to make the 1080p'ers like it as Apple wants to serve it up. I know, I know: bandwidth, "the chart", storage, higher prices, blah, blah, blah. This wish does not force anything on the usual cheerleaders happy with things "as is". It just makes the next generation device appeal to a market that wants a bit more than "as is" to at least be built in.
- app store (so that third parties can extend functionality without jailbreak requirements) If Apple wants to keep seeing this as a hobby- thus low priority- let the third parties invest the time & talent to lift it out of hobby status. No big loss to Apple, but huge win for consumers and third parties interested in making this thing go. Apple also wins by selling more units, which then drives more rentals of iTunes content. Who doesn't win with an app store?
- an open hardware option such as normalizing the USB port (so that third parties could fulfill other wishes that Apple seems to ignore; for example, some want DVR-like options which would be a natural for companies like Elgato to fulfill. Some want this to double as a BD player, so a third party could deliver an add on to let it do that for those individuals that want that particular feature. Etc). This doesn't force DVR or BD features- and related costs- on everyone, but does make this little box an interesting alternative to those who might be thinking they want to buy a DVR or BD player (get this thing from Apple and kill 2 birds with one stone). Apple wins (sells more units). Third parties win with some new ways to bring what they do to market. Consumers (with discrete needs) win. Don't do this, and DVR and BD, etc buyer's cash goes for other devices that can't rent/buy iTunes content, and further strengthens BD's hold as THE lone mainstream choice for best quality picture & sound.
Personally, I'd also like that third wish to include an Apple-endorsed option to attach whatever size USB hard drive one chooses, which could then act as local storage (reviving this particular benefit from generation 1 in an even better way). Those happy with streaming everything would be completely unaffected. But those who would like local storage could get what they want (too).
I also favored the last incarnation of gen 1 navigation to this new one's navigation. That last gen made our content prominent (first entry) in dedicated menus for movies, tv shows, music, podcasts, etc. IMO, it would have been much better to perfectly replicate THAT nav and add in the (new) Netflix option than to make the changes that were made, relegating the content we own to a lone menu. I know, I know: it's all about motivating the rental of iTunes store content, but I thought Apple was all about a "wow" user experience. IMO, the new "experience" is not as good as the old "experience" except for how the new hardware seems a bit faster than the old (ancient) hardware.
