160GB Apple TV gets $100 price drop, 40GB model disappears

The largest-capacity Apple TV is now just $229, or 30 percent off, while the original 40GB has disappeared from Apple's online store. Is an even larger Apple TV in the works? Also: hints that Apple TV may soon support iTunes LP and Extras, among other goodies.

First up: Less than a week after Apple's "Rock and Roll" music event came and went with nary a mention of the two-year-old Apple TV set-top box, Apple has quietly chopped $100 off the 160GB model's price tag and (apparently, anyway) dumped the original 40GB version.

That's led to speculation that a higher-capacity Apple TV might be in the works—say, a 250GB box, as Electricpig guesses—although, per usual, Apple hasn't said a word about what might (or might not) be in store for its self-described living room "hobby."

Meanwhile, there's an interesting piece on RoughlyDrafted about iTunes LP and Extras—the new digital album format and video "special features" content that Apple announced at its event last week.

For now, you can only view iTunes LP content (such as album art, videos, lyrics, photos, and liner notes) and Extras (deleted scenes, featurettes, and other "special features," similar to what you might find on a DVD) in the iTunes desktop client, and not on an iPod or an iPhone.

But as RoughlyDrafted Daniel Eran Dilger writes (in exhaustive detail), the native resolution of iTunes LP and Extras content is 1280 by 720—meaning that "clearly, Apple targeted the bonus content to play natively at an HDTV resolution," perfect for Apple TV.

Dilger also found some telltale bits of code in iTunes LP and Extra files (developed using WebKit), such as "hdtv-fullscreen" and "hdtv-cursor-off," and asks: "What intersection of HTML and HDTV exist outside of Apple TV?" Good question.

In short, Dilger says that we should expect a hefty new Apple TV upgrade ("Take 3," perhaps) in the near future, complete with iTunes LP and Extras support, as well as HTML "Live Streaming" (which could, as Dilger notes, add live video streams to the Apple TV's static menus).

That would bode well for the Apple TV, a compelling home video device (I use mine almost every day) that's pretty much lived in the iPhone's shadow for the past couple of years.

Steve Jobs once dismissed Apple TV as a mere "hobby," and I even slammed it back in the day for its (then) limited features and (then) sketchy movie selection. But Apple TV got a big boost with last year's massive "Take Two" update, which added a music/podcast/video store and movie rentals to the box, and Apple TV sales have quietly gained momentum in the past several months.

Of course, even with iTunes LP and Extras support, Apple TV would still be missing something important: instant, in-the-cloud streaming for rented and/or purchased movies and TV shows, a la the streaming Roku Player (which streams videos from Netflix and Amazon) and the Xbox 360 (which will soon be able to stream 1080p video from the Zune Marketplace).

That said ... if Apple TV does end up getting HTML Live Streaming support (a feature included in the iPhone 3.0 software update), could that be a precursor to instant streaming for video rentals and purchases on Apple TV (and the iPhone, for that matter)? Hmmmm ...

Related:
Apple Drops 40GB Apple TV and Discounts 160GB Model to $229 [Macrumors]
New iTunes LP and Extras built using TuneKit Framework, aimed at Apple TV [RoughlyDrafted]