Originally Posted By: DWallach
AppleTV has a major advantage, solely for its $99 price point. Hell, they even reduced the physical size to the point that it can literally be a Christmas stocking stuffer. Given the surprising uptake of Netflix downloads, and the fact that the 2nd-gen AppleTV supports them out of the box, that makes for a killer combination.

I agree with everything you said, but everything you said also applies to Roku, and the model that corresponds to Apple TV's features is the $60 model. Plus:

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It's easy, all too easy, to see Apple enabling third-party apps, which will bring in Pandora and all the other missing stuff without people needing to hack the box.

I know it's not the same, but Roku already has a channel app ecosystem, and people are writing channels for it themselves.

I've already had people ask me about these kinds of products, and I've been giving the same advice to all of them: if you're a heavy iTunes user, I say go with the Apple TV. If not, you might as well go with Roku, which can do much more for less money. Seriously, $99 is great and all, but at $59, I can see people simply getting one for every TV in the house!
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Matt