Apple TV and iPhone

Apple TV is a box that you can sync with iTunes to play music, movies, TV shows, trailers, and podcasts wirelessly from the iTunes Store. This is very interesting. I've wondered why you would buy Pirates 2 for $9.99 on iTunes just so you could watch it on a computer or the small screen on iPod. Buy the DVD. But now, you can stream it to a TV making your digital media on demand. You don't need to find the disc, it's already on your TV. It's interesting, but not portable. You can take the disc with you if you need to. You won't want to drag the box. But it does validate purchasing videos, especially movies, on the iTunes Store if you now have a way of playing it in a neat fashion. Or you could buy the iPod Universal dock kit for $99, connect it to a TV, and watch it that way but that's no fun. Price: $299

iPhone is stylistically a very neat product. The whole thing is one big touch screen. It has a very clean and spiffy interface and has a 4GB to 8GB iPod built in. Apple's site has videos that show how well the interface works. It's got full Internet browsing as well as several neat phone features. It arranges texts well and will show you your voicemail. It can play videos like iPod and will rotate on its side for widesceen ones. But at 4GB and 8GB, how many videos will it hold? Not many. You won't be watching Pirates 2 on this bad boy unless you don't want much else on there. The price is staggering at $499 and $599, making it effectively like a PlayStation 3, but it is state-of-the-art. It's also exclusively under Cingular which is good for me if I wanted it, but I wonder how long it will remain exclusive (like how the RAZR was). This is a neat product and neat to look forward to.

Keep in mind I have never seen these devices, nor actually handled them, I am only responding to the information that has been presented so far so don't go thinking I'm an expert, people. I just thought they were cool announcements and wanted to share my two cents on them.