I wanted a small box to put under my TV and play video of all types from my NAS - somethign that would run XBMC.
At the time, the best I could find for that form factor and low price was the Apple TV.
And suddenly, there's going to be a glut of them, based on the NVidia ION platform, using an Intel Atom. Starting with
this box - which runs Linux from an 8GB SSD, has HDMI output, and is tiny. Oh, and would allow me to plug in a wireless USB keyboard/mouse.
Oh well, not going to upgrade _this_ fast - and I'm sure the line will only get better over time. So when next year's bonus comes in something like this will look very tempting.