Free Republic

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- After two failed attempts to reinvent the set-top box and a go-nowhere monthly "best of TV" subscription plan, Apple(AAPL) is now hoping a buck-a-show rental service will be a winner. But so far, only Disney(DIS) seems willing to play along with Apple's idea to use iTunes to charge users 99 cents for two-day rentals of some TV shows, according to Bloomberg Businessweek and a number of follow-up reports. Kudos to Apple for repeatedly banging its head against the TV industry, but unlike the sweeping success that iTunes was for the record business, video programming is an...

Kevin Rose, founder of Digg, has heard from sources within Apple that the company will launch its all-new iTV set top box, powered by the iOS operating system, in September for $99. Rose posted on his blog that he believes the revamped and renamed Apple TV hardware will "change everything" for a number of reasons, including the addition of TV applications written for the iOS operating system. Like the iPhone and iPad, Apple's new iTV will have access to the App Store where users will be able to download software to run on their device, he said. With these applications,...

The sudden explosion in the popularity of netbooks -- portables with 10-inch or smaller screens that are often based around low-power processors and meant for basic Internet use -- has pushed the price of a notebook to as little as $300. Apple can't ignore this, Gottheil claims. But while the Mac maker's chief Steve Jobs has argued that the iPhone is netbook-like in fulfilling many of the same online roles, the researcher believes that the desire for a keyboard ultimately the usefulness of the iPhone for certain software and that something more is necessary. Instead, he and TBR are confident...

TWO WEEKS AFTER Apple released its Apple TV, hackers have turned it into something a bit more useful and created the cheapest PC that the Cappuccino outfit has built. Apple TV sells for $300, which is fairly expensive for what the gear does. Particularly as it is so limited and produces poor quality video content. However a couple of hackers have voided their warranties and managed to get the beast to run OS X. A site has been started as the various hacks are reported. The process is pretty laborious and there is no video acceleration, audio or ethernet support,...

Today, Apple officially kicked off its Apple TV publicity campaign, providing review hardware to friendly members of the press and enabling selected journalists to publish early reviews. The goal: to try and build enough positive buzz to sustain the newest member of the Apple family despite some mainstream skepticism about its prospects for success. To provide a bit of balance for all the hype you’re likely to hear over the next several days, we bring you this: a list of the top ten reasons you might not need Apple TV, at least yet. Some are obvious, others aren’t, and all...

The Great Apple Video Encoder Attack of 2007: Cupertino plans to add H.264 hardware support to its entire line. Maybe you have wondered, as I have, why it takes a pretty robust notebook computer to play DVD videos, while Wal-Mart will sell you a perfectly capable progressive-scan DVD player from Philips for $38? In general, the dedicated DVD player is not only a lot cheaper, it works better, too, and the simple reason is because it decodes the DVD's MPEG-2 video stream in hardware, rather than in software. They won't run a spreadsheet, true, but DVD players are brilliant at...