Report: Next Apple TV Will Have No Screen, Cost $99

It turns out Gizmodo isn’t the only gadget blog that’s getting the inside dirt on Apple these days. Rival Engadget on Friday said “a source very close to Apple” has confirmed that the Cupertino, Calif.-based company is planning a cloud-based, screen-less update to its foundering Apple TV line that will cost just $99.

“The new architecture of the device will be based directly on the iPhone 4, meaning it will get the same internals, down to that A4 CPU and a limited amount of flash storage -- 16GB to be exact -- though it will be capable of full 1080p HD,” Engadget’s Joshua Topolsky wrote in a blog post Friday.

The limited local storage points to Apple moving in the direction of cloud-based storage and streaming 1080p video for the new Apple TV, according to Engadget. Still, users will reportedly also have the option to store data locally on an external storage unit, probably a wireless Time Capsule because ports on the new Apple TV are supposedly limited to the power socket and video out cable.

The current-generation Apple TV is based on a watered-down version of Apple’s PC operating system, OS X, but the “quite small” new device will run on the next iteration of the iPhone OS. That had Engadget wondering whether iPhone applications could plausibly scale to larger television displays.

Some have already speculated that reports of Apple’s renewed efforts with Apple TV may be a reaction to the recent partnership by Google, Intel, Sony and Logitech to produce Google TV. But the new Apple TV project “has been in the works long before Google announced its TV solution,” according to Engadget.

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