I love my apple tv, but god damn is it a sloppy mess. Airplay with MacBook is still a laggy piece of crap no matter what the speed your internet and the ui is something that seems like an unfinished product. Not something apple would ever proudly sell.
And on that, apple DOESNT proudly sell the Apple TV. While they call it a hobby, there's no advertising for it and unless you go into a store already knowing what it is, you would probably pass by it assuming it was a Mac mini or something. Apple released this little box to sell more iTunes content. That's it. With every other product they do, they go full on. They actually work to make other things like Mac and iPhone and iPad a real finished product that represents apple in a good way.
The Apple TV? When was the last time it was even updated? A couple years ago? It's the strangest thing to see how much apple doesn't talk about it. It's like they put minimal effort behind it just to placate those that have iTunes libraries worth of stuff but they kinda set it aside in importance so they can work on the things that make them the real money. Like iPhone.
I'm purely talking out of my butt here, but I'm thinking that apple released this little Apple TV box to test market interest and gather data. Over the years, they developed a vision for how they WOULD like tv, but like jobs said on all things d, there isn't a viable "go to market solution for tv". It's not a problem of vision. It's how to bring it to market and it's a problem that still exists today. BUT. The market is changing. This is the internet age and I think apple already has a working fully developed prototype of a slick tv interface that would change everything. They are literally sitting on an amazing product and not releasing it until the market is ready. Again...talking out of my butt here, but I'm pretty sure apple already has a new product that would change everything and this piece of crap Apple TV box is not it.
Apple will string this little box out for a few more years and add little features here and there in minor update. Maybe even a little App Store and advanced gaming support. But it will always be the same general product. Until the full on Apple TV set happens
Watch this one of Steve jobs talking about tv
http://youtu.be/-pSfOKMEbG0