“On top of that iOS is touch based, how many people have touch screen TVs? its completely implausible for there to be the same OS, or run the same Apps / Games as iPad/iPod/iPhone. “

but how many people control the tv from their tv.. it's all about a remote.i.e ipad, iphone

Logically Apple will have to put some storage in place to hold the iOS and I would assume they would leave enough room for system updates. Taking into account that the current iOS takes around 300MB I would assume they would at least match their smallest iPod size for storage (2GB) that would still leave plenty of room for hacks.

Plus… there are some great hackers out there… someone will find a way… someone always does…

If you are going to follow the rumor that everything will be stored on a cloud-based system you should also follow the rumor that there will be an option to “utilize a Time Capsule as an external storage component” and in turn should be able to boot up and load information from that device for when the internet is down.

As for Touch screen TVs: think more along the lines of the recently released magic trackpad or the iPhone remote. Since the remote recently disappeared from the store I would assume they are working on something like it for the new appleTV.

One last note. Apple has seriously disrupted the mobile games market with the iTouch and iPod. With all of the current apps and games, I would love to see them do the same to the set top box market. I have developed games for 20 years and now I develop iOS games for a living. I will love to see what happens with the iOS on the TV.

So have you really thought this through to a logical conclusion? All the hacking that makes the AppleTV even remotely useful goes straight out the window. WIthout a hard drive you aren't going to be able to do any useful hacks. Where are all those extra system files going to go if there is no hard drive? Nowhere. Where is the AppleTV going to store its applications? in a cloud? You think ram or a small amount of flash memory is going to be sufficient? No

On top of that iOS is touch based, how many people have touch screen TVs? its completely implausible for there to be the same OS, or run the same Apps / Games as iPad/iPod/iPhone.

thank you NitoTV and others for allowing us to open up our box and we even have a copy of EyeTV running on it (a wee bit flaky sometimes, but it's not too bad). It's only there for file playback (some recordings refuse to play in Nito/XBMC/Boxee, but others are fine) and i have to keep typing the admin password everytime i start it…pain in the backside that that is LOL

so at the mo, we won't be rushing to buy the updated version, we can get much more use and value from our current ATV. sorry Apple, but you're not getting monery out of this long term user this time and you're not helping the situation by what might be crippling changes to the device.

maybe their contract with Intel is up soon? always fancied giving AMD a shot at some hardware, let's see how it goes, but unless thare's a major compelling reason to update the ATV, we're happy where we are.

keep up the good work guys on updating and improving our experience and enjoyment of our ATV