Apple Updates its Apple TV, Releases it for $99

A couple of weeks ago, I took a look at ASUS’ O!Play media player, and it’s going to be the first of many such products that pass through our labs. Though they’re simple in overall design, they serve an important purpose, by helping to make our media-viewing lives even easier. While it’s tough to find one that’s “perfect”, there are certainly many to choose from.

For a couple of years, Apple has produced its own version of such a device, called the Apple TV. The launch version included a hard drive and catered to those who didn’t plan much on streaming their content, but today, the company has followed-up with its latest version that’s smaller, but offers more support than ever.

At 0.9″ x 3.9″ x 3.9″, the latest Apple TV might be the smallest media player yet, able to fit in the palm of your hand. Still, it offers an HDMI interface and full optical audio support, along with both wireless and wired connectivity. And as you’d expect, it’s designed to perfectly stream with online services such as iTunes, Netflix, YouTube, Flickr and others.

The upsides to the latest Apple TV is that it’s designed to work seamlessly with media you already own, but primarily if you happen to be an iTunes buff, but the downside is that the media support isn’t quite as good as with other competing devices. There is no 1080p video support, but rather only 720p, and it seems to only support H.264 in .m4v, .mp4 and .mov file formats.

For audio, there’s support for common formats, like MP3 and AAC, but no support for FLAC. There is support for lossless audio in both the WAV and Dolby Digital 5.1 formats, however. For picture support, you can expect to see JPG, GIF and TIFF all supported, but it about ends there.

As a whole, the latest Apple TV is quite restrictive in terms of support compared to the multitude of other devices on the market, but for those who use iTunes heavily, it’s hard to beat. Plus, at $99, it doesn’t exactly empty your wallet, either. Even so, given the lack of 1080p support and no external storage options… it hurts. We have one of these Apple TV’s en route, so expect our full review in the weeks ahead.

Apple TV has been redesigned to be small in size but big on entertainment. Rent from the largest selection of HD movies – many available the same day they come out on DVD. Watch Netflix titles instantly. Rent TV shows, commercial free in HD. And stream photos and music from your computer to your widescreen TV. Best of all, Apple TV is just $99.