There’s been a lot of talk lately—mostly by people who won’t get fired if their opinion is wrong—about how the iPhone is going to go the way of the Mac. What they mean, though, is the alternate history of the ’90s favored by tech analysts where Apple went out of business. Because while in our reality, where not only Apple but the Macintosh itself is doing better than ever, for tech analysts the Mac/PC battle ended when Apple didn’t decide to make ultracheap licensed clone netbooks that still came with diskette drives.

In case you didn’t know – the Apple TV is not the first device to offer up movie rentals, neither is it the only current one available. Xbox Live users have been able to rent movies from their sofa for quite some time now. Joystiq, the gaming blog, gives an in-depth comparison of the two more »