Sadly Apple TV didn’t get much attention because most of us focused on the lovely iPhone. Steve Jobs is not planning to give up Apple TV as he said in the MacWorld that the new and improved Apple TV software will be available in about two weeks as a free update to existing Apple TV devices.

The entry-level 40GB model had its price dropped to $229, while the 160GB version now costs $329, a $70 price reduction for both.

It’s not an easy job being one of the first to bring digital download to the living room and Steve Jobs admitted it. It’s worth to try to do this because the entertainment market is a GOLD MINE. As Steve stated “Apple TV was designed to be an accessory for iTunes and your computer. It’s not what people wanted. We learned what people really wanted was movies, movies movies. And we weren’t delivering that. So we’re back with Apple TV, take two.”

Improvements:

Streaming is extremely quick. While users of Amazon’s Unbox know that streaming delays can be a pain and frustrated, ruining the experience of a spontaneous rental, Apple TV SD and HD clips were both ready to stream after between 5 to 10 seconds. Very impressive…

Remember to check out the Macworld: iTunes $3.99 movie rental per 24hr period!

Apple are about to announce movie rentals via their iTunes download service for only $3.99 per 24hr period, according to “people familiar” with the company’s media plans. The service includes content from existing partner such as Walt Disney Co., Paramount and Lions Gate Entertainment Corp, as well as new additions Warner Bros. and Fox. New and old movie titles will be available for rental with further emphasis placed on the Apple TV as a conduit between Mac and TV. This sounds like a Super Deal for movie fans out there! How many movies can you watch in 24 hour time frame?

Macworld 2008 is right around the corner, and these pre-Macworld photos already circulating the Internet. Enjoy!

More Pictures

During my Christmas shopping I browsed a lot of MP3 players and searched for the one that offered the most for the least amount of money that I had to drain from my bank account – which already suffered collateral damage from the pre-holiday shopping. Not surprisingly, I passed by several iPod look alike (why manufacturers aren’t confident enough to manufacturer their own style and design is a different story).

What caught my attention was a $23.95CAD lime green, 1 Gig, iPod Shuffle. Instinctively I said to myself, “what a bargain!” If you live in Toronto, you would know that a 1 Gig iPod shuffle sells for at least $84CAD in stores. But my excitement died when I realized it wasn’t a genuine iPod anything, just an imitation made in China. Nonetheless, I was stuck with the temptation to purchase an unknown brand that claims to perform all iPod functions at only ¼ the cost (without the warranty or guarantee that it’ll work and it wasn’t compatible with iTunes).

When I was living in South Korea, I was introduced to the imitation products that floated around Asia and guilty of buying shoes, socks, radios, and clothes. On average, I found that they weren’t durable, reliable, or in the case of electronics – bug free. However, I only needed to fork out change that I had after a meal and it didn’t interfere with my budget. And on that note it gave more satisfaction to make the purchase.

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I have a 50 Gallon Fish Tank myself and I just love to see those fishes swimming around and hunting for food. I also like Mac computers. Can you merge Fish Tank and Mac together? Yes! Don’t go tossing out your old iMacs just yet, especially if you have fish companions. Your old iMac can be adapted to a fantastic abode for your water-bound fish-geeks. Haha.

iMacquarium Picture Gallery (Click on thumbnail to enlarge)

Source: Hometone

AT&T has confirmed that a 3G version of the Apple iPhone will be hitting stores in 2008, but with no set month for release as of yet.

In the past, Jobs has announced that 3G was “highly sought-after” but that the iPhone would not have it included until the battery life was not as severely affected. “So as you know, the handset battery life used to be 5-6 hours for GSM,” Jobs explained. “but when we got to 3G they got cut in half. Most 3G phones have battery lives of 2-3 hours [of talk time].” Jobs has said he would like to have a minimum of five hours of 3G before releasing an iPhone with the technology.

We’ve been hearing vague rumblings about potentially flawed MacBook hard drives for a day or two now, but a report from UK data-recovery firm Retrodata finally backs up all the noise with some hard data — according to the company, revision 7.0.1 Seagate drives manufactured in China have defective read / write heads that can become detached and slide across the surface of the platters, making recovery impossible. Apple says it’s only received “a few reports” of the problem, but Retrodata says the issue is severe enough to warrant a recall. MacBook users will want to fire up Apple System Profiler ASAP and check under the Serial-ATA listing to see what kind of drive they have — and probably start backing things up, just to be safe.