Apple rumor mills have been churning and they have been speaking of one thing, the $100 billion TV industry and how Apple may be planning to make a move. If you thought Apple had conquered the world already, think twice.
In a move seen to try and gain ownership of his new position, new Apple boss Tim Cook may be working on one of the big projects the late Steve Jobs had been working on before his death October 5th.
In an interview with Walter Isaacson for the new biography “Steve Jobs”, Jobs was quoted as saying; “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synched with all of your devices and … will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”
This seems like the next logical step in Apples assult on the digital media space. With Apple TV being the natural complement to the other Apple gadgets, the iPhone, iPad, iPod and iMac, it would be the perfect option to having all your digital media synced across all your devices. Apple have already laid down a significant portion of the foundation needed to make this work and this is in the form of a massively expanded iTunes store that now sells on-demand music, videos, movies and TV shows.
Apple has also been making massive investments in the HD screen technology that is used in the iPad and iPhone and this is seen as also laying the ground for the next big thing.
It will be interesting to see how Apple would be able to pull off Apple TV especially now that the visionary behind all the other technological coup de ta’s is gone. With Google also rearing to go having launched Android TV, the race for the television space is just heating up. The one thing that is sure is that whoever wins this race or at least if off the starting block the fastest, will have large TV manufacturers like Samsung and LG as well as traditional TV giants such as Comcast Corp eating out of their hands.
But with Apples knack of initiating disruptive innovations and approaches to traditional markets, I think we are probably going to see them take an angle no one quite expected. If their past and current successes are anything to go by, I’m sure the legacy Steve Jobs left behind is not only going to live on but is set to enter a whole new dimension.
