lots of cool new stuff from apple. including an updated apple tv, which is the thing i’m most likely to buy, but i think the wallet is staying in the pocket for the short term. longer term, there’s a small possibility of an apple tv in my home.

» the apple tv can stream photos and music to your tv. i can do that with the wii and wii transfer.

» the apple tv can show me you tube videos on my tv. using the wii’s browser, i can watch you tube videos on my tv as well.

» the apple tv can feed me audio and video podcasts. i can’t do that on my tv, but i’m not sure i need to. i need to look at the video podcasts that are out there and see if they are compelling.

» the apple tv can let me buy tv shows and rent movies. the buy tv shows bit intrigues, but the rent movies part doesn’t. netflix is cheaper. you can rent hd movies using apple tv, but i’m not sure there’s enough of a visual difference between regular dvd quality and hd quality to make that a reason to shell out the apple tv bucks.

although the apple tv does make me pretty sure i’ll never buy a high definition/blu-ray dvd player. i would buy an apple tv first, i think, and just rent the hd movies if i for some reason just had to have high definition movies.

but i don’t think i do need them, especially since i’m viewing content on a 23″ lcd screen. and i know i can bittorrent shows and movies and encode them and transfer them and burn them and whatnot, but who the hell has time for that? and anyway, call me a nerd, but i like to keep it legal.

i am attracted by the slickness and the interface, though. although there’s much of the apple tv’s function that i can presently replicate, it has a cobbled-together feel and doesn’t work perfectly.

for a while, i thought i might like to get a mac mini to hook up to the tv, instead of the apple tv. but you can’t rent hd content using a computer, only the apple tv, because of the copy protection inherent in the hdmi connector which the computers don’t have. even though i don’t think i need hd content, i think you buy hardware looking forward, not back. i don’t want to lock myself into not being able to get hd content. so, it’s apple tv, or nothing.

with a caveat — my tv doesn’t have an hdmi connector, just a dvi connector. if i can’t rent hd content with the apple tv hooked up that way, it’s a non-starter. i’m not buying an apple tv and a new tv as well.

i’ll do the taxes (we might get a big hit this year), let the dust settle, let others be the guinea pigs, and then we’ll see.