Just because a product takes the world by storm doesn't mean it's a
good product. Probably means it's a
cheap product! Since when do B&O folks follow the crowds?
Apple TV is a different device from BeoMedia 1, made for somewhat different purposes; it's unfair to compare the two. ATV's main point is to play video/TV information on a different screen from one's computer, hence the "TV" in the product's name. BeoMedia 1 doesn't offer video. (Unless the US version is different from other countries??) We can wish that a future BeoMedia would offer video, but I highly doubt that feature will be offered any time soon. Copyright lawsuits would be too high of a possibility.
Look what happened to Kaleidescape. They spent 3 years fighting a lawsuit from the DVDCCA, finally winning, but I'm sure there was a lot of expense!
I'm not saying BeoMedia 1 is my favorite B&O product. But I would buy it in a heartbeat if I could! It is really a nice unit, and it does what it does with finesse. My only complaint would be that they used a Windows platform for the OS, and I don't trust Microsoft. But anyway, BeoMedia is easy to use, stores and plays back music and photos, and has a huge database of internet radio stations. And really, ATV isn't that great of a product anyway, from the things I've read about it.
Maybe I'm the wrong person to make such comments, since I'm more of a music person and not really a TV/movie person. If I do watch a movie, I want it to be really good quality, not a silly compressed file...
I don't have any gossip about future products, but if I could dream, I'd want the next generation of BeoMedia to have a terrabyte of storage and a disk slot, so I could import full-quality CDs into it, instead of having to go through the computer and use compression.
Cheers!
Aj