Apple TV Now Shipping, If You Can Find One

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When Apple introduced and opened for pre-orders of the Apple TV, it was roughly a three week wait until now. Those little black boxes are now shipping to those who pre-ordered. Unfortunately, due to demand, those of us who didn’t pre-order are now facing another wait.

It was huge minor news last week when it was discovered that Apple had begun charging credit cards that were used to pre-order the Apple TV. Since Apple usually doesn’t charge your payment option until they’re near shipping it on its way, that meant that the Apple TVs were close to leaving, and they were.

Multiple people who had pre-ordered the devices are now reporting to various tech blogs that they’re getting shipping confirmation and tracking numbers from Apple. But, what about the people who didn’t pre-order the device as soon as it was released?

Those people, will have to wait. Apple.com is now showing a “2-3 week wait” for the shipping date on new orders for the Apple TV. Better order one now, if you want one.

What do these little $99 black boxes do? They’ve got an Ethernet port, HDMI port and optical audio port. You can stream media from them or rent movies. Unlike earlier versions of the Apple TV, there is no hard drive or any type of storage in the little box, it’s all streaming for this version. Apple has also removed the ability to buy movies from this box (although you can still buy them if you own the older white box).

Interestingly, it was discovered that, although it isn’t advertised, the Apple TV is running a heavily modified version of iOS. Although Apple hasn’t enabled apps on the TV, some are already dreaming of hackers who will be jailbreaking and adding apps to the device.