Apple TV, A Bird In a Cage.

Hardware-wise the Apple TV is super-fly. 802.11n, component and HDMI or even DVI (with an adaptor) video output, Toslink digital audio, and USB 2.0. It utilizes a 1.0GHz Pentium M-based chip , which has been under-clocked to run on a 350MHz bus and includes 2MB of L2 cache. The Graphics Chip is a nVidia G72M with 64MB DDR2 video memory and it has 256MB of 400MHz DDR2 main system memory soldered to the logic board. The $229 version has a 2.5-inch PATA 40GB hard disk drive. All this adds up to a Pretty powerful little computer that outputs video to your TV.
Now we get to the Software. Steve Jobs actually stated in the 2008 Mac World Keynote that Apple TV version 1 software was “not what people wanted.” And Apple brought us the Apple TV Take Two software revision. So this is what I imagine is taking place in some conference room in Cupertino. A bunch of engineers are saying “Hey just let us Un-cripple this thing,” and the lawyers and marketeers are going “Can we just Un-cripple it a little bit more and make everybody happy?” Okay so now we can access the iTunes Store directly and we can rent movies (but have to watch them in less than 24 hours) and we get basic access to Flickr and some more (but not all of) YouTube. Lame, Lame, Lame.
All right, here’s the secret that Apple doesn’t want you to know. The Apple TV is perhaps the most hacked Apple computer ever. Hackers have got full Safari Web browsing, GPS interfaces, RSS readers and all kinds of other goodies out there for the Apple TV. Can you say Mac Nano?
So if you’ve got a hacker mentality and $229, buy an Apple TV and set it free. Trade in that voided warranty for hours of great low cost internet entertainment on your big screen.