iTunes Extras offer extra content to movie fans, such as interviews, interactive galleries, and deleted scenes. iTunes LP, which Apple describes as "the next evolution of the music album," combines live performance videos, lyrics, artwork, liner notes, interviews, photos and album credits.

Free for Current Owners

Genius Mixes offers up to 12 "endless mixes" of songs that the application decides fit together automatically from the user's iTunes collection. Internet radio gives access to thousands of streaming, Internet-based radio stations, which can be marked as favorites.

The 3.0 release is free to current owners of the Apple TV box, and Apple is hoping the new interface and features will help spur sales of the product, which CEO Steve Jobs once reportedly described as "a hobby."

Released in 2007, the Apple TV box is struggling to remain relevant as Internet-based video content starts to show up on a variety of consumer electronic devices. Some industry observers, for instance, have noted that the new software only supports a maximum resolution of 720p at 24 frames per second, and the box remains primarily focused on delivering iTunes content.

Meanwhile, a stream of new announcements show that Internet-based video delivered to the TV is booming. Roku's $99 player streams Netflix and Amazon videos, and Sony announced this week that Netflix is now available via the PlayStation 3 video-game console. Netflix is also available at the gold level from Microsoft 's Xbox Live, and there are reports that it will appear on Nintendo's Wii in the next year.

'True to Apple's Goals'

Netflix and Sony have also announced that the popular movie service is included with certain Internet-connected TV models from Sony. The VUDU movie service announced in September that it would be embedded in new, Internet-connected TVs from Mitsubishi and LG. And Samsung has a similar deal with Blockbuster.

Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis for consumer technology at NPD Group, said the Apple TV update offers a more visually attractive interface than the earlier, "plain" versions.

The 3.0 release, he said, "stays true to Apple's goals" of being primarily a front end for iTunes. Rubin added that the new version "won't have much of an impact on the success of this product or of the category."

Michael Gartenberg, a vice president at Interpret, said Apple is "playing in the same space" as Netflix and others, but has decided to stay with its own business model of concentrating on iTunes.

But, he noted, Apple is making sure it has a presence on TV as well as on mobile and computer screens, while Netflix, as an example, is not yet in mobile. "Apple," he said, "is committed to the TV."