Apple TV, Take 2 Available for Download
Feb 12th, 2008 | By Elisabeth Lewin | Category: Internet TV, Video, Video Podcasts 
There’s no official announcement from Apple on this yet, but we learned via Twitter that the delayed update to Apple TV, Apple TV Take 2, is now available.
The update greatly expands the capabilities of the device, and repositions Apple TV from being just an iTunes peripheral to being an Internet peripheral for your TV.
New features include:
- HD/Standard Def movie rentals
- Purchase and download videos from the iTunes Store directly from your TV
- Flickr/.Mac photo browsing
- Browse and subscribe to podcasts from your TV
This update is free to all Apple TV owners.
Update: Here’s our Updated Apple TV Review.
I think I will stick with my D-link DSM 520 for now which plays Divx and Xvid encoded video files. I also would get an XBox before getting an Apple TV because it can do more.
If you don’t already have one, I would recommend against the xBox 360, at least for the time being. Yeah, it’s supposed to do some cool interaction with the Zune Marketplace and stuff, and that’s neat. But our xBox has completely died — twice — and had to be shipped back to the manufacturer for replacement.
And our experience isn’t that unusual. Among our kids’ closest xBox-owning friends, all but one have had to send back and replace their xBoxes.
That’s a failure rate that would be unacceptable under any other circumstances. But because it’s Microsoft, and they have especially deep pockets where the xBox platform is concerned, and the kids’ favorite games (Halo 3) are available on no other game system, we keep sending the machine back every time it tanks.
But I’m really glad to have an update to our AppleTV. As I type this, our six year old child is using it to browse content and choose new stuff to download. Pretty cool!
Coverage on the update to the Apple TV has been minimal at best, and even less attention has been paid to the podcasting aspect. Judging from Engadgets screenshots, only featured podcasts will be available for subscribing via the interface.