What can’t the iTV do?
Well, it can’t cluck like a chicken or bark like a dog. It also doesn’t seem to be able to record television broadcasts like a TiVo—although you could connect a recording device, such as the EyeTV products made by Elgato, to your Mac and have it add the resulting recordings to iTunes, where they’d be available for playback. The iTV doesn’t have a built-in optical drive, so it can’t play DVDs, and it doesn’t appear to have a built-in hard drive, so it probably can’t store movies itself—it will rely on computers in your home for media storage. It’s also not a Mac, so you shouldn’t expect to be able to plug a keyboard and mouse into it so that you can surf the Web. Apple’s demonstration last week also suggested that you won’t be able to actually buy videos or music directly from the iTV. We think that would be an interesting (and convenient) direction for the product to evolve toward, but it’s unlikely to be there when it’s first released.
