Primarily a software update, the revamped AppleTV offers a host of new features. Chief among them is the ability to rent (but not purchase) movies from the iTunes Store –many of which are available in high definition. Additionally you can purchase television episodes and music. Also, you can now connect to your Flickr or .Mac gallery and browse those photos on your TV. Last but not least is the integration of YouTube.
Careful not to upset existing AppleTV owners, the newly-redesigned interface and feature set – including movie rentals – is available as a free, downloadable software update. It should get picked up automatically, but if it doesn’t, you can manually force the update from the “Settings” menu.
If you’re planning to purchase a new AppleTV, it’s available in two flavors with the only difference being capacity: 40GB or 160GB. The 40GB model runs $229 and holds up to 50 hours of video/TV. The big boy is $329 and holds up to 200 hours. The 160GB model makes a lot of sense if you have a large music or video collection in iTunes and you want to synch all of those files with your AppleTV. If you’re primarily interested in renting movies, go for the 40GB. Rentals last for 30 days, but once you push Play you only get 24 hours to finish watching it. I’d like to see that get bumped up to 48 or 72 hours because, well, life happens. After the 30 days, rentals get deleted automatically reclaiming that space on your hard drive.
On the subject of synching, it should be noted that the AppleTV doesn’t have to store your music, photos and videos on its own hard drive. You can configure it to do so from iTunes on your computer – similar to how you tell it what to synch with your iPod – but you can also let AppleTV stream that content over your home network thereby saving space on the AppleTV’s drive. The only negative with this scenario is that it requires your computer (and iTunes) to be running.
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I think the AppleTV is completely awesome! We take a lot of photographs and it's so great getting friends together and viewing on the big screen, as well as music, movies, etc. It's well worth the money!