Apple's new box will bring iTV to the living room

Yesterday's big excitement was captured live here by bloggers attending the Showtime event held by Apple. The surprise announcement that caught my eye had to do with a product code-named iTV that will allow both Mac and PC users to watch movies or television shows purchased from the iTunes store on their living room entertainment systems.

The iTV box won't be available until the first quarter of 2007, making it the first time in a while the famously secretive company pre-announced a product. The cost will be $299 and it is a wireless router with ports for video connections to televisions, including an HDMI port for high-definition digital televisions. The concept behind a product like iTV has been around for years, but the DVD industry -- as pumped up by outfits like Blockbuster and Netflix -- has hindered its inevitable adoption.

Mr. Jobs & company are betting that they can successfully develop the iTunes movie store, like he did with the music store, and by so doing, mainstream iTV into homes. Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray is quoted, "The approach that worked for them in music was to have content in a device and have it seamlessly integrated, that's what they are trying to do with the living room now."

We'll have to wait and see.