That's interesting. I didn't know anyone was questioning this. So, you're thinking its running on an A4 ARM-based chip, but that its possible its running something other than iOS? Also... you think iOS is ONLY about "touch events" and isn't actually a whole lot more than the UI?
You are missing the point. If you strip away the Cocoa library (on Mac OS X ) and Cocoa Touch library ( on iOS ) there isn't much of a difference between the two. The notion that iOS is some huge complete rewrite of Mac OS X is way misguided (the actual OS not the fluff layer that end users interact with on top. Technically, that is not an OS. The Finder/Dock/Desktop are programs not an OS. ). They share the same kernel (minus a few tweaks). So if the apps on Apple TV are not leveraging the unique aspects of the Cocoa Touch library ... you won't see much of a difference if the code is a Cocoa port or a Cocoa Touch port.
I think it is a stretch to label the core "OS X" source tree that is ported to ARM always being iOS. Primarily because users very often confuse the interaction program layer with an OS.
The same issue was true when Apple TV was on Intel and whether all the Mac OS X functionality was there or not. They may use the iOS build as a starting point but that doesn't mean that was is in the Apple TV is *exactly* iOS. In order to save space they may strip off aspects that Apple TV doesn't need. One of those that is obvious is that don't need "touch" specific features. There is nothing to touch. If anything they are leveraging the keyboard and arrow key support that was ported over from Mac OS X in the first place.
Is some of iOS there. Probably so. That would ease the port of the Netflix stuff if Apple/Netflix collaborated on that functionality. Likewise there are utilities and do-dads to lift from the more general iOS market that are needed here also. However, that doesn't mean they need to port the whole thing. That would just lead to bloat.
That's your read on Gruber. I'm aligning with exactly what he said. That "iOS" is far more an implementation detail (a convenience more than a requirement.). Don't be surprised if it is not
all there because they don't need it.
Jobs explicitly said in the keynote that many of the Apple TV users said they didn't want a computer (they had computers when want to use one). They just wanted to watch TV. That's it. So they made Apple TV an even more single purpose device stripping away aspects of a computer (like storage management). It is meant to watch TV with, not run apps.
Why isn't Apple TV running apps yet? Lots of theories.
Those theories are dubious. Apple TV costs $99. Apple got the costs down by stripping Apple TV down to the bone. Some iPod Shuffles used to go that price point. They have stripped out the hard drive ( so there is no large amount of extra storage). If can't afford to put hard drive how can they afford to put lots of flash memory in ( at a dramatically
higher $/GB )? They can't. They probably have enough memory to run the OS, the embedded and highly tuned apps, extract/load/run upgrade packages, and cache buffer for the video streams. There isn't going to be gobs of RAM or storage space for apps to operate in. Stripped to the minimums, apps coming to Apple TV are as likely as apps coming to Airport Extreme or Time Capsule (**) . Doesn't make sense. It is a a single purpose device.
Will some hackers crack the box and put some small hack on it? Sure. Is that a viable platform application market? No.
** Will not be great surprise if later updates of AE (express at least ) and TC get A4 chips. It is at its core an ARM SoC chip. Lots of competing home routers and home NAS systems have ARM SoC in them also. It is being picked because it is a low cost , low power chip. Not because is speficially runs Apps Store apps. For Apple the A4 only gets cheaper the more they sell since they have to cover the R&D costs. So sticking them in these secondary devices and subsetting the core OS to provide web services is just a cost lowering move. The Airport Extreme might keep a 3rd party ARM implementation because there are some that intergrate the switching/routing functions onto the SoC also and that be cheaper just to buy.