Artist Guilherme M. Schasiepen took a stab at what he envisions the iTV to look like, and it actually looks pretty slick in his concept renderings.

The so-called “iTV” Apple TV was mentioned as a possibility in Steve Jobs’ recent biography, and rumors have surfaced from time-to-time of Apple trying to crack the living room more holistically than its current Apple TV set-top box.

Guilherme’s concept design melds the slim aluminum and glass industrial look of today’s iMac with the brains and UI found in the latest iOS devices like the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. You can also check out an animated 3D rendering of Guilherme’s design here.

The Apple iTV in these concepts has an interface very reminiscent of the current Apple TV, but with a full applications interface, a multi-touch screen, and Siri voice-activated remote control. Pretty much all technologies readily available, and within reach of Apple. About the only part of the concept design I’m not sold on yet is the idea of glasses-free 3D. Thus far, such displays are wildly expensive at large sizes, have poor viewing angles and bad artifacts. I’m unconvinced that Apple will dive into the 3D space until the technology has advanced more, and 3D glasses aren’t Apple’s style.

According to the Jobs bio, the Apple TV would “seamlessly sync with all of your devices and iCloud,” and would “have the simplest user interface you could imagine.” Frankly, I’d just be happy with a TV that looks this good, has a great picture and Apple TV built in. The rest of the features are a bonus. That said, I’m still not 100% convinced that Apple wants to play in the low-margin, slow-turnover business of HDTVs. It’s not like with phones where people want to upgrade every 2 years. Even with today’s advancements, most of us keep our TVs at least 5 years if not much longer.

[via 9to5Mac via SlashGear]

The thing is easy enough to open up and the first step is prying the rubber base off. That also gets the first surprise with the device as well. The thing has a large pink heat dispersion pad that moves that heat to the rubber base.

Those things generally move heat to a metal surface, but apparently Apple needed to save some money.

You need various other tools to rip the remainder of the Apple TV apart. One interesting find is some solder pads that are a perfect fit for the iPod and iPad sync cable. That leads to speculation that the board will be used in other devices, perhaps that long rumored smaller iPad. They also found a beefy 8GB of on-board storage, which is likely used for buffering HD content.

You can see all the lurid pics over at iFixit.

The first thing you’ll notice about the new Apple TV is just how tiny it is. The miniature black box measures in at just 3.9″ x 3.9″ x 0.9″ and has a black case which lets it hide nicely amongst most home theater gear. To go along with the hardware, Apple announced HD movie rentals for $3.99 and individual TV shows rentals for 99 cents an episode. You have 30 days from renting to press play, and another 48 hours to watch from when you start.

The new Apple TV has built-in 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and can stream shows from mulitple sources, including your PC, Mac, or even your Netflix account. Plus, Apple has added the abillity to wirelessly stream programs stored on your iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad. Plus, you’ll can remotely control the Apple TV from your iPhone or iPod Touch (The app should work on your iPad too, but it’s not specifically mentioned on the Apple website).

Thanks to a powerful A4 chip, the Apple TV can crank out 720p video at up to 30fps, and can connect to your TV using an HDMI cable for optimal display quality. While there’s no word on the operating system inside the Apple TV, the fact that it runs on an A4 chip means that it could someday run apps just like iOS devices.

So the best part about the latest Apple TV is the price. The device sells for just $99 (USD) and is available for pre-order now over at the Apple Store. Apple hasn’t specified an exact delivery date yet, but is listing it on the site a “Ships September” so you should be able to get one pretty quickly.

With Google and Boxee both coming out with their own low-cost TV media boxes in the coming months, it’ll be interesting to see how the set-top box war of 2010 shakes out.

Well after you clear away all the bragging about selling over 2 billion songs and 1.3 million movies on iTunes, and how the Zune only captured a 2% market share in November, here’s what really has been revealed today:

• New iTunes Movie Download Partner: Paramount Studios, should take iTunes to over 250 movies available for download

• Apple TV (formerly “iTV”)
• Design looks the same as original announcement
• USB 2.0, Ethernet, WiFi (802.11 b, g & n) Connectivity
• HDMI, component, RCA and optical outputs
• 40GB hard drive
• 720p widescreen high definition video (surprise!)
• Stream audio, video, photos from up to 5 computers
• Can automatically sync content in the background and store to hard drive for immediate playback
• Ships February 2007
• Price: $299

• iPhone, a gorgeous, unified device, featuring:
• Widescreen iPod
• Mobile phone (GSM, EDGE, Quad-Band)
• Internet communicator (seamlessly switches between EDGE and WiFi)
• WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity
• Easy to use touchscreen interface
• No stylus required, use your fingers!
• Multi-finger, gesture-based controls (truly amazing)
• On screen keyboard for chat, e-mail, dialing
• Runs OS X with desktop-class applications!
• Syncs using iTunes, including contacts, calendars, notes, e-mail accounts, web bookmarks, etc..
• Full-fledged Safari web browser, no crappy WAP browsing

• E-mail: any POP or IMAP account, rich HTML messages
• Free BlackBerry-esque “push IMAP” e-mail from Yahoo!
• 3.5-inch 160 pixel per inch (320 x 480) high resolution color display
• 2 Megapixel digital camera
• Only one button on the whole device
• Motion sensor and accelerometer automatically detect when you switch from portrait to landscape modes
• Music automatically fades out when a phone call comes in
• 4 GB or 8 GB flash memory
• Dimensions: A svelte 4.5″ x 2.4″ x 0.46″ (not much bigger than a 5G iPod)
• Battery Life: 5 hour talk/video/browsing, 16 hours music playback
• EXCLUSIVE service partner: Cingular
• Ships June 2007
• Price: $499 (4 GB), $599 (8 GB)
• 2-Year Cingular Contract Required

Now that’s some news! The iPhone sure packs a wallop, but it’s a bit expensive, considering the 2 year Cingular contract commitment. That said, it is really an entire Mac packed into a portable device, so you have to give ‘em some slack on pricing. Would I like more memory for my tunes and video? Sure. But overall, it’s a pretty impressive little piece of innovation.

Check back often to see if the Apple Store has been updated to showcase today’s latest wares.

Stay tuned for more details as they become available.