The Macworld expo is currently under way, and one of the several big announcements during the event was the update for Apple TV as well as its new, lowered price. Details await in the full article!

Researchers from investment firm Goldman Sachs have revealed that they believe Apple will be rolling out revisions for both the Apple iPhone and the Apple TV come next year. These include a second-generation iPhone as well as an Apple TV sporting a new LCD display. More at the full article.

It's been quite a while since we last heard about the Apple TV, but now we're hearing the growing rumble of beautiful rumors regarding the availability of downloadable HD content for the Apple TV. And we say that it's about time. The Apple TV does have 720p HD playback, after all, why not take advantage of the feature with actual HD content?

Even more promising are the rumors of new hard drive sizes and even optical drives in store for the Apple TV: word is out that the Apple TV line of products will be made more affordable, with a starting price of US$ 249 for an Apple TV with a 60 or 80GB hard drive. TVs with larger HD sizes (with sizes ranging from 120 GB to 250GB) were rumored to make an appearance as well, with pricetags worth US$ 299 to US$ 399 attached.

As for optical drives, there's no specific details available for this rumor, not even which format it will support. But an Apple TV with more features and more format options is indeed a better Apple TV, so we just have to cross our fingers for now and hope for more specific updates, and wish that they will come true.

A few months ago, there was a video in circulation of what appeared to be a successful hack for Apple TV. The video in question detailed what appeared to be Apple TV booting up from an external hard drive.

We'll be following up on that hack with this similarly reported attempt done by AppleTVHacks.net and FatWallet. This newly released patch will enable Apple TV to boot up from its internal hard drive, while using an external USB (hard) drive as its main storage unit.

We imagine owners trying to get more space out of their Apple TV will find this patch most useful. For the guys wondering how to pull this off, here's what you'll need:

• An ssh-enabled Apple TV.
• An Intel-Mac or Intel-based *nix.
• An installed version of Mac OS X 10.4 Intel. Or a full copy of the contents of the Â?/System/Library/ExtensionsÂ? folder from one.
• An original, unmodified copy of the Â?mach_kernel.prelinkÂ? file from the Apple TV.
• An external USB drive formatted using Â?Journaled HFS+Â?.
  

Full installation details are available at the read link. As a further backgrounder for this patch, the original creator was actually Patrick Walton of the University of Chicago. Patrick wrote the original patch, while AppleTVHacks further fine-tuned it after they encountered a syncing problem. Just be reminded that thus patch has been designed to work on Apple TV software v1.0 - it might not work on v1.1.

Apple is really jumping up the campaign for its newest baby the iPhone given that we are just a few days away from its official launch. The Cupertino-based company has just announced a previously unknown feature allowing consumers to enjoy YouTube content on the said mobile phone.

The application that will be used for wirelessly streaming these content was designed by Apple itself and will utilize Wi-Fi and EDGE networks. Prior to this, it was reported that user-generated video site YouTube has began encoding its videos in the advanced H.264 format to "achieve higher video quality and longer battery life".

Furthermore, Apple added that the same application is also available for the Apple TV. The good thing about this one is that the software update can be accessed via the TV's built-in software update feature for free.

Going back to YouTube on iPhone, Apple came up with a preview video for the feature on its official website. If you want to get a glimpse of how you can stream YouTube content on iPhone, click on our Read link below and it should take you to Apple's iPhone preview page.

Although it may not be apparent, Apple isn't reeling in major profits on any of the Apple TV units they sell. Literally. According to Business Week, research firm iSuppli purchased a unit for US$ 299 and took it apart piece by piece. What they found was that the seemingly pricey Apple TV tag wasn't a Benjamin apart from the total of its parts.

An Apple TV's parts, when broken down and arranged quite neatly, has been found to cost no more than US$ 237 all in all. That's just US$ 62 from the retail price tag (a 20% gross profit margin), although it doesn't include administrative, marketing and production costs.

That's a big leap from most of Apple's 50% gross profit margins for products not related to its consumer computer solutions. Analyst Andrew Rassweiler of iSuppli remarked, "This is certainly a departure for Apple, or at least it's approaching a departure."

"We made some very aggressive assumptions with this device, and by that I mean we assumed low prices on the components," added Rassweiler. When Apple's Steve Jobs said that the Apple TV is a hobby, he probably wasn't joking at all. It may have been more convincing, though, if there were tears.

Earlier this week, it was announced by Apple that YouTube videos will be available on Apple TV after a software update that should be available this June. Of course, this mention of YouTube has lead to a surge of interest, so here's more on the software update.

Speaking to iLounge, Apple Vice President of Worldwide Mac Hardware Marketing David Moody said that YouTube will soon be encoding videos in the H.264 format that is preferred by Apple TV.

Moody also adds that because of YouTube's new encoding, all new videos submitted to YouTube after the Apple TV update arrives.

It was said that from the update's launch until Fall, YouTube will be encoding all of their videos into H.264 format until all of them are available on Apple TV.

Moody notes that at the moment they view Apple TV to be much like the iPod in it's early days. The company is supposedly still identifying the strengths of the product and they're still trying to add features that users will enjoy.

This adoption of YouTube is an move to capitalize on Apple TV's two strengths which is being connected to the internet, and having an extendable, upgradable, software platform.

In related news, Moody also revealed that the 160GB Apple TV can soon be acquired by users in retail Apple Store locations. No specific date yet, but pricing is said to be at US$ 399.

It's not far from happening. The buzz is that AT&T is working in close collaboration with Apple to install IPTV capabilities for the Apple TV.

If this pushes through, then we just might find Apple TV fully supporting IPTV come 2008. There are still no details on this (and in fact there is no confirmation yet from the involved parties), but speculations are running that it just might be something like AT&T's U-verse TV service.

But if ever that does happen, it's interesting to see just how much breadth Apple TV will soon have over your home entertainment. Will it be strong enough to replace your cable/satellite service. Hmmm... Apple TV just might be the next step in the ever evolving home entertainment, then. We shall all soon see.

Keep it posted here for more updates.

Fortune Magazine's Brent Schlender, editor-at-large, claims that "Steve Jobs might be promising more than he can deliver," referring to the Apple TV, Apple's pet project aside from the much-awaited iPhone.

Schlender, in particular, hits Apple TV's current design:

There are shortcomings that even Microsoft would not have overlooked: Apple TV doesn't have a DVD drive or a volume control on its minimalist remote or ... but enough. You get the feeling that Apple didn't create this thing because it was insanely great but in order to freeze competitors out of downloadable video.

The root of the problem? According to the Fortune editor, it is Apple's tendency to "pre-announcing products months in advance - the iPhone is just the latest - and even then has missed promised ship dates." He further explains that no matter how good a product is hyped up, it's bound to disappoint no matter how good it is.

With that aside, it should be noted that Apple TV is still testing the waters; we'll never know how it will turn out several months from now. Apple did promise to give out new software features and improvements for Apple TV free of charge, something worthwhile for Apple TV users to look forward to.

If you've gotten your hands on an Apple TV and want to customize it to fit your exact needs, then this will be good news for you. According to MacNN, an enterprising individual has released an Apple TV plug-in dev kit that could make things easier for all plug-in devs out there.

 

The BackRow Developers' Kit, which can be downloaded from alanquatermain.net, contains headers for BackRow framework, iPhotoAccess framework, and QuartzComposer frameworks. All of these are needed to run appliance plug-ins on the Apple TV as well as the BackRow Test application.

MacNN also notes that the SDK also includes an Xcode project template that has everything necessary to "start a custom appliance plug-in, creating the Info-plist with the required elements as well as Appliance and ApplianceController classes with links in the appropriate frameworks."

If you're new to all of this, a few BackRow programming tutorials can also be downloaded from the developer's website.