Apple TV, LP Format, and Yes the Tablet

With Steve back, all kinds of things are changing at Apple, to what end we can only speculate. On Sunday night, the company cut the price of its 160GB Apple TV to $229, and nixed the 40GB model.

Prince Mclean of the AppleInsider reports that, 

The iTunes LP album and iTunes Extras movie-enriching bonus materials introduced as a new feature of iTunes 9 are built using a new TuneKit JavaScript framework and appear aimed to deliver new big screen content to Apple TV.

The author also notes the following points to back up his point:

• The iTunes LP album and iTunes extras are designed for 1280 x 720 resolution, which is too big for a standard 13" monitor or to fit within the normal iTunes playback window.
• This native resolution is a perfect match for Apple TV's output even if scaled down to its standard definition 480p.
• And finally, the iTunes content files reference the HTML meta tags "hdtv-fullscreen" and "hdtv-cursor-off." While the content packages currently require iTunes 9 on a Mac or PC for playback, these discoveries not only indicate that support for Apple TV is in the works, but suggest that the content was created specifically for it.

Or for some other device that incorporates HDTV, perhaps an Apple version of something like Samsung's newly released touchscreen remote/tablet?

Perhaps Apple TV and the new iTunes are just parts of a greater whole that includes the (please let it be!) tablet.

Apple TV is pretty great, but it has yet to have the kind of success that say, Microsofts Xbox 360 has. And since Microsoft is about to stream "instant-on" 1080p movies using Zune video technology on its Xbox, Apple's price drop of its Apple TV and new iTunes products may well herald yet another trouncing of the Zune technology by our favorite company. One can hope.