• If you have an Apple TV, you’ll love this: Now you can project whatever is on your Mac to your TV, wirelessly. Yes, the iOS feature called AirPlay has now come to the Mac. Think slide shows, classroom demos, YouTube videos, Netflix movies — with one click, it’s all on your TV, at 720p hi-def resolution, instead of only on your little Mac screen.

Loving this idea of bringing Apple TV into the fold, especially considering how many silly little dongles I have to buy every time we upgrade MacBooks and think of playing a movie or show from iTunes... but it makes me think: I'm really surprised that Apple TV isn't a bigger deal than it is.

Of course, I also DON'T HAVE an Apple TV (Roku instead), so maybe it hasn't been compelling enough even for me. The idea of the Apple TV being a hub for all your other digital stuff seems smart though, so maybe that will sway me. (Hint, it won't be tough.)

The rest of it... by which I mean making the Mac more iOS like? Sure, why not. Now that I've got my iPhone, I'm on board for the switch. (Doh... except that InDesign CS2 won't run on Lion or later, so I'm still stuck at 10.6.8. Oh well...)

Anyone else see some some iOS laptops coming in Apple's future? If they're converging one way, I wouldn't be surprised if they converge the other way, too.

Wow. So no wonder Roku slashed its prices the other day. Apple TV is basically a rip-off of surprisingly similar to Roku, right down to (this being the part that kinda surprised me) the streaming Netflix. No Amazon rentals here, but you do get YouTube (which Roku can't do), and, of course, iTunes rentals of TV shows and movies. No more movies for sale unless Apple is going to let you download movies to your Mac or iOS device first and then stream them to the Apple TV. (That part wasn't totally clear.) Contrast that with Amazon, where you can buy movies and leave them in the cloud.

Of course, Apple put its own twist on the Apple TV by making it work together with iPhones for control and, apparently, making it a wired or wireless stream-receiver for Macs, iPads (eventually), and other iOS devices enabling you to send music, movies, photos (man Steve loves photos, doesn't he?) to your tube.

Speaking of which, no actual tube need apply; it's still HD only. (There's an HDMI port and a separate digital audio port in case you want to send audio to a different sound-making device.)

It'll be interesting to see if and how Apple grows this... NFL games? Live events? Will they eventually sell movies again and store them in the cloud (once their cloud is ready?)

Oh, and will this end up being the solution for displaying presentations wirelessly from an iPad? ;-)

While it's slightly amusing to note the companies forced to "slash" prices in reaction to Apple (:cough: Kindle), it's also worth noting that (a.) this is a heck of a deal on the Roku, which was already cheap, and (b.) Apple is unlikely to announce anything tomorrow or in the near future that puts me off the Roku anyway.

The Roku (which I call, lovingly, the magic box) offers Netflix streaming, Amazon rentals and a host of other channels I don't really watch. (Occasionally I watch some TwiT and Leo Laporte, although it's been a while. Sorry Leo!) And, it connects to a standard-def TV, which is important stuff that the iTV likely won't do.

What doesn't it do? It doesn't connect to YouTube, which would be handy occasionally and it doesn't download or record anything, which could also be useful if I could actually find something on TV. Other than that, unless Apple ends up with considerably more TV shows for subscription OR some sort of major NFL access, I doubt I'm switching.

(And the joke's on us if Apple doesn't actually announce anything aside from a sweet new iPod Touch, which, OTOH, I would want.)