Ok then, since the
TV is really not a storage solution for media in the sense that it can double as a backup, there's really no point in getting the bigger hard drive from my point of view. It would seem the 40 GB is plenty big enough to store the rentals for 24 hours and even be able to store a copy of favorite videos/photos/music. I'm still looking for a definitive answer on why I should pay the $100 premium for getting the 160GB. I realize that the "geek" could finagle the
TV to be a storage solution, but even at 160GB, I'd hardly consider that much of a storage solution for video.
I think Apple dropped the ball again on this. They should have combined
TV with Time Capsule and made an all in one solution for wireless networking/storage/iTunes. Price-wise they could have bundled all this for $499 for a 500GB solution. Every Leopard user would jump on this due to time machine and so many people sitting on the fence about
TV. Hell, even the average windows user would gobble that up. IMO, Apple could have surely cornered the market on movie rentals because everyone looking for a better and more convenient storage solution just got an
TV thrown in to try out as well.
I figure wireless storage should be more than Firewire, which is more than USB, so $499 would be a great deal for all of this. Apple is all about being minimalist and simple, why do I have to buy so many devices from them to enjoy the total Apple experience now? I think this is why people were underwhelmed about this year's Macworld...They introduced a lot of cool things but they are all so disconnected and costly.
The problem is that some people want just the opposite. They already have a NAS and don't want to be forced to spend $500 as entry to the AppleTV user interface. Basically, this is a modular system... you buy the pieces you need, don't buy the pieces you don't. The thing is, the ultimate goal is to have the modular system include communication between many types of devices. In order to make AppleTV useful in that regard, it has to be as basic a bridge and user interface as possible... capable of being whatever the given application needs it to be, rather than being a router with a hard disk that plays movies.
Time Capsule makes sense as it is because network storage should be centralized with the network itself.
Look at it this way...
You've got a living room and a computer room...
In the computer room you've got a Time Capsule to be central storage for your entire LAN.
In your living room you've got an AppleTV to be the central access interface bridging your computer room with your home theater.
Why is this smart? Well, aside from centering storage at the network router, there's all the added noise generated by such components which is a nuisance in a home theater. Stick too much crap in an AppleTV and you're going to need a fan sooner or later that interferes with the practically inaudible noise floor of optical audio in a home theater.
In fact, I can see AppleTV getting a 64GB SSD in the immediate future for one purpose and one purpose only... to buffer 720p HD and possibly larger formats. SD doesn't need it, music doesn't need it... these stream just fine over a g network.
You forget that one big convenience of the AppleTV is the UI itself that gives you single point of contact with your entire media library regardless of where it sits on your LAN. Say you have two kids and each has a computer... do you really want to spend all day reorganizing media and centralizing it to the AppleTV? Why when you can stream it from wherever it is? Let's say I *just* took some pictures and I connect my camera to one computer... I want to see the images immediately without resizing them and bumping them over to another machine... AppleTV allows me access to that library, wherever it is.
In the future, the communication will likely include iPhone and other digital devices, all wirelessly... use iPhone as a "remote" to browse your NAS library and stream it to the AppleTV.
I'm not saying you don't have some valid points but look at it from these angles. Also, consider that any time you stick more specific things in AppleTV, someone is going to complain they already have a DVD player, or a NAS, or a something... and why should they repurchase it and why cant they just buy the bare bones AppleTV... Well, here's what I am pretty certain Apple is aiming at... Instead of jamming all that crap into AppleTV, encouraging the industry to make all the OTHER peripherals speak IP over wifi so they can all communicate with AppleTV and vice-versa.
That's the ultimate in backward and forward compatibility.
