The Apple TV is off to a slow start, and some have called it an iFlop. Or, it could be that the the technology pieces of the Apple TV are coming together in ways we just haven’t understood yet, according to Blackfriars’ Marketing on Monday.

Sometimes, technology elements don’t come together all at the same time. Agreements for distribution, standards, and a new OS like Leopard all proceed at different paces. As a result, Apple elected to amortize its revenue from the Apple TV over 24 months because they knew they’d have to introduce changes to the Apple TV incrementally.

Three of the components Mr. Carl Howe believes Apple could be bringing together are: Movie Rentals, HD content, and a P2P system that solves the HD delivery problem with the aid of Leopard.

As a result, "...the 24-month amortization of the revenue indicates that Apple plans at least two years of enhancements and upgrades to the device. Judging the device to be a flop without knowing its targeted feature set seems at best premature," Mr. Howe observed.

This is not with out precedent. Apple has brought pieces of the iTunes product into play slowly in the past until the sum of the parts caught the industry by surprise.

"At Walt Mossberg’s D conference, Steve Jobs called Apple TV "a hobby." We think that was simple misdirection. Apple TV is a hobby when all the pieces of the product aren’t available. But when Apple actually fleshes out the full offer, Blackfriars projects that that hobby will pull in more than $1.8 billion in fiscal 2009. And that would make me call that hobby a business -- a big business," the marketing expert concluded.