One interesting note about the iTV that hasn't received all that much analysis as one would expect in the general media is the fact that the iTV has a small hard drive in it. Disney's Bob Iger let this little aside drop during a Goldman Sachs conference where the big announcement was how many Disney movies had been sold through iTunes in the first week.

The implication of the iTV device having a hard drive is interesting, because it beefs up the iTV's media capability. This isn't just an iTunes streaming device, but a competitor to digital video recorders like TiVo. Add to that this Roughly Drafted article that points out that the iTV has a HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) and you can see that Apple is going after a rich multimedia experience and that this is not a simple wireless settop box.

Mr. Iger even makes such a reference when he says at the same conference that "...it may be an opportunity to actually charge people for a TVR experience. In that if they've forgotten to set their TiVo device or their TVR or they just have no plan to do it but they want to watch an episode that they missed, they can go to iTunes, buy it for $1.99..."

Now, the iTV doesn't show signs of being able to snag cable content like your average DVR, which makes it not quite the universal replacement device. But it will be interesting to see how large the hard drive will be, and whether iTV will be able to be modified to work as a DVR by 3rd party programs or even Apple itself thanks to the hard drive. All this makes for iTV being a very interesting salvo in Apple's battle to become a media company with media solutions, and certainly an exciting development in Apple's quest to become the center of the digital entertainment arena, linking both the traditional entertainment area and the new.

Will iTV be able to solidly compete with DVRs, or will it just be an addition for the iTunes faithful? And will you be buying one?

Tobias Buckell is a freelancer, author, professional blogger, and owns shares in Apple stock.