According to a new report, Apple is preparing a major upgrade to its Apple TV set-top box, possibly to be announced next week during Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote address.
In an article discussing Apple’s future music plans, BusinessWeek reports that Apple is “nearing deals with Warner Bros.
and Paramount, and has already secured deals with Disney and 20th Century Fox,” to offer the studios’ films for rental, and for sale, through iTunes, and that it is also “planning a major upgrade of the slow-selling Apple TV set-top box.” While the report suggests that Apple could add a tuner to a new version of Apple TV later in the year, Apple’s decision to use subscription-based accounting for the current Apple TV hardware suggests that any near-term upgrade would most likely come in the form of a software update, while the release of competing products with lower prices and greater hard disk storage capacity suggest that price cuts or capacity bumps could also be in the works.