As of today ATVJ is officially an Amazon affiliate allowing us to sell products such as the Apple TV on our site, with us getting a small percentage, which helps support the site. So if you’ve considered purchasing a second Apple TV or you’ve been wanting to make the leap and grab your first one, or you know someone ready to buy, now you can purchase an Apple TV through Amazon and support ATVJ at the same time. Just direct them to the banner in the right hand column. Thanks!

The one question i’ve been getting a lot lately is what my opinion is on the future of the Apple TV and if I see streaming content in it’s future. The question usually stems from someone who had just discovered the combination of Boxee and of course Hulu on the Apple TV. Even I began to think that the natural progression for Apple would be to include some sort of streaming content, such as Hulu, or Hulu itself on the Apple TV. But it wasn’t until a few days ago when I read a blog post by Robert X. Cringely, and his thoughts on this very subject, that a new interesting point of view came to light.

To summarize Cringely’s blog post, he thought that all though Hulu is the popular choice right now, it’s ultimately not a money maker where the iTunes store is. He also makes the point that Hulu is under the tight grip of it’s content provides, which seem to be tightening more and more every day. Ultimately Cringely thinks that Apple, and it’s billions it’s been saving, will go after exclusive internet rights for new more recent broadcast or cable TV content.

I personally think he may actually be on to something, because until Hulu’s content providers allows Hulu’s content to be viewed on an HD TV, it won’t be adopted by the mainstream public. Even though you may not agree with this point of view, I suggest you head over to Robert Cringely’s blog and read his thoughts on this subject. It may open up a whole new point of view for you.

We’ve been at this now for a little over a year, and we have seen a lot of changes come to the Apple TV and iTunes. We do our best to cover all of the latest changes and additions but we want to hear from you, our ATVJ readers, about what you might like to see us cover on ATVJ. If you would like to see us do something differently, or something completely new which we don’t do already, please feel free to let us know. Maybe there’s a service you wished Apple would proved but doesn’t. We’re working on a few new tricks that we think, as Apple TV and iTunes Movie consumers, you all will like. We’re open to any and all comments and we thank you for your continued support.

As most of the visitors to ATVJ know, our goal here is to track all of the HD content available for the Apple TV wether it be Movies or TV, along with tracking some SD content like the daily new additions or $.99 rentals. With the addition of HD rentals through iTunes, we have run into the problem where the HD rental titles available for the Apple TV far outnumber the HD rental titles available from iTunes. Until Apple or the studios brings the HD rentals for both sources into sync, we will do our best to label everything either Apple TV HD or iTunes HD. Hopefully this will keep everything clear for everyone.

This announcement is for all of our site visitors who look forward to the listing of the SD movies on a daily basis. We’ve had a slight delay since Monday of this week, but we should be able to post the new additions from 4-7-09 to 4-10-09 later today. We are sorry for the delay.

Update 2 – So much for HD rentals, it looks like we’re still waiting.

Update – Apple today released an update to iTunes, 8.1.1, which enables HD movie rentals.

As the original press release says, “Starting today, movie fans can purchase box office blockbusters for download in HD for $19.99 from iTunes, and films will be available as iTunes Movie Rentals in HD for $4.99 within 30 days after release”, but has anyone even noticed that the HD rentals through the iTunes Store are no where to be found? Other then the original press release, I can find no mention of iTunes Store HD rentals anywhere, not even the iTunes feature page on Apple’s website. Any mention of renting in HD is through the Apple TV.

My ultimate questions would be, does anyone even care about HD Rentals through the iTunes Store? I know I don’t. I own an Apple TV, so thats where my HD Rentals happen. I would think users who use MacMini’s or Apple laptops as media centers might. It seems as though most of the attention was paid to HD purchases titles anyway. Looking through various iTunes forums, I see no real discussions happening.

So as Apple media consumers, I want to know, do you even care? Do you want your HD Rentals through the iTunes Store?