Apple is one of many industry crossovers taking place lately (see Industry Crossovers chapter).  Yesterday the company announced its iTV, a device that enables you to display on your TV movies, TV shows and other video downloaded from the Internet.  This is a computer crossover into TV, playing off the company’s iPod/iTunes success and leveraging the Disney-Pixar merger (the first crop of downloadable movies are from Disney).  Watch as more players join in the downloadable movie phenomenon and consumer acceptance picks up, just as it did with downloadable songs.  Apple has been crossing over into personal entertainment for some time, and iTV puts Apple squarely in the living room, headquarters central for home entertainment.

See the Wall Street Journal on the iTV announcement (login required).

See commentary on the TNL.net blog, which speculates that, in the long term, Apple might be able to disaggregate programming content from TV channels, effectively enabling people to program their own channels and putting an end to traditional channels and to advertisting-based TV.