I'm wondering if anyone caught this today. Apple not only dropped the price on the iTV to a very reasonable $229 but also (among other things) appears to have added podcast directory browsing and subscribing right in the interface.
I watched the tour but apple glossed over the details on podcasting. This is important because it turns it into a stand alone device it no longer technically needs a seperate mac for anything (you can purchase movies and music on it as well). What i'm wondering is how the interface works really. Can you search for a podcast, or is it featured podcasts only? Does it really download and precache video podcasts or only allow you to stream them? What kind of subscription management interface does it have? I highly doubt you can do anything like importing OPML... nor adding RSS feeds that are not already in the directory. BTW, The iTV also supports Flickr pulling in your friends (this implies some sort of flickr login / handshake) and of course youtube. Apple is seemingly bridging the open standards vs. proprietary market leaders in the area of video, but there is only support for .mac and flickr in the photo arena. No other photo feeds are supported. -Mike mmeiser.com/blog
