Apple announces iTV – to be available in Q1 2007

Apple has announced a whole slew of new updates to their consumer electronics product line (including about 3 ‘one more things’), with the main focus on anodized aluminium body iPod Nano and Shuffle. But there was another one that has interested me a lot more – iTV. Apparently, it is a sort of set-top box with wireless capabilities that would let you watch your videos purchased from iTunes store on your TV – and it seems like in a whole 640×480 ‘goodness’.

While it is a good bump in resolution from the movie store v.1, it is still the good ol’ SD goodness. What the picture description doesn’t mention though is that iTV has an HDMI connection to the right of the Ethernet cable slot. This means one and several things at the same time: an updated movie store with HD content by the time the box hits the market, or still SD content that would be upscaled by the box and send to the TV using HDMI. Again, knowing Apple’s record of keeping secrets better than any other company, only time will tell.

There are several companies on the market with similar devices (like Roku HD1000), but it seems Apple stretches the idea even further. Apparently, it has been also mentioned that with a fast enough broadband connection you would be able to watch a movie while it is downloading. It seems that Apple is moving to a medialess, on-demand content delivery with their products building your future living room.

The only thing left to wonder about the device is what standard it is or will be using: 802.11g or the upcoming 802.11n. While 802.11n specifications haven’t been yet finalised (they exist in a draft mode only, although manufacturers have been pushing pre-n devices into the market for quite a long time already), it seems like a more viable solution in the case if iTV. The reason for my assumption is simply the fact that 802.11n allows speeds of up to 540 Mbit/s (compare this to 802.11g’s 54 Mbit/s), and bandwidth is vital for streaming videos. Plus to that, if iTV is going to hit the market in Q1 2007, 802.11 standard might as well be finalised by then and Apple will be rocking in your living room. Again, but now with video.