I have to disagree with John Sircusa on the new AppleTV – I think it is a device that fits my needs perfectly right now, apart from one small flaw. It probably fits a lot of other people’s media needs as well. Right now, I have a laptop hooked up to our television. We use a web browser to get to Netflix, we use iTunes to listen to music and podcasts, and we use VLC or XBMC (depending on our mood) to watch movies and TV shows we’ve ripped from our DVD collection, and finally we use DVD player to watch the Netflix discs that come in the mail.

The AppleTV solves all those use cases, other than the DVDs that come in the mail, and puts a simple remote in our hands. I’m honestly not sure what we’ll do with the physical disks once I get an AppleTV (which, at some point, I will), but everything else gets easy. And it’s not a laptop or a Mac Mini or a linux box to patch, update or mess with. It’s really a device. And it’s small, and it’s quiet. So it gets the wife’s nod of approval.

I think Apple could have a real winner on their hands.