Apple CEO Tim Cook talked about Apple TV during a recent keynote, but remained reluctant to share concrete news on future plans.
Apple CEO Tim Cook offered some hints about the direction of
Apple TV, as part of his much-circulated Feb. 14 keynote at the Goldman Sachs
Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco.
After cautioning that he wouldnt want to go into detail
about future stuff, Cook conceded that we need something that could go more
main market for it to be a serious category. In the past, hes referred to
Apple TV, whose latest iteration is a palm-sized device that facilitates
streaming content to the users television set, as a hobby.
Indeed, Apple apparently regards the initiative in its
current form as something less than its other devices. The reason we call it a
hobby is that we dont want to send a message to you or our shareholders that
we think that the market for it is the size of our other businesses, he said,
according to an edited
transcript published by Fortune. We dont want to send the signal that we
think the leg of that stool is of equal length as that of the Mac, iPad and
iPod businesses.
If you believe the rumors, though, Apple is prepping a device
that could elevate its television aspirations to a whole new level: an actual
television set, possibly for release in late 2012.
In April 2011, Jefferies & Co. analyst Peter Misek wrote
that Apple could launch a subscription-based video service, possibly in the
form of either a set-top box or a television set, which would inevitably go head-to-head
against Google TV. A few months later, in June, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene
Munster hypothesized that Apple was developing a full-fledged television.
Apple may add movies and TV shows purchased or rented in
iTunes to the iCloud service, which could be viewed on a TV, he wrote in a
June 23 research note. Apples strong iOS developer community would likely
jump at the chance to build apps for an Apple Television, and Apples iOS users
would likely jump at the chance to buy one.
But the biggest fuel-dump on that raging fire of speculation
came in October, when Walter Isaacsons bestselling biography of the late Steve
Jobs arrived on store shelves. In that book, the Apple co-founder told his chronicler
that he had finally cracked what he saw as the most fundamental issue with
televisions: making them simple and elegant along the lines of Apple
computers or media players.
It remains to be seen, however, whether those clues
eventually result in an actual product on store shelves. Based on his loquacious-yet-guarded
comments during his keynote, its likely that any verbal slip-ups about Apples
plans wont come from Cook.
Follow Nicholas Kolakowski on Twitter
Nicholas Kolakowski is a staff editor at eWEEK, covering Microsoft and other companies in the enterprise space, as well as evolving technology such as tablet PCs. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, Playboy, WebMD, AARP the Magazine, AutoWeek, Washington City Paper, Trader Monthly, and Private Air. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
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