With the announcement of the AppleTV upgrade to allow for iTunes movie rentals also came some exciting news: a complete redesign of the user interface. Another issue some people are up-in-arms about is the fact that the HD movie rentals will only be available for the AppleTV. Which is fine with me – standard definition looks great on my widescreen LCD monitor.
The new user interface keeps all the major features on one screen without a lot of scrolling. Apple has made over 50 million YouTube videos available for viewing now. Overall, the new UI has the slick hotness of OS X Leopard’s Front Row program.
Oh, and as for the movie rentals: Apparently the deal is you get 30 days to begin watching your rental. Then, you will have 24 hours within that time period to watch it as many times as you’d like. Some sources are saying you won’t be able to copy these rentals to your iPod or iPhone, but I think they’re confusing that with just the HD rentals which, as I said earlier, are only available on the AppleTV. Also, the price on the AppleTV is dropping down to $229 – making it a very affordable network-connected media center.