Will Apple Launch an Apple Television?

Pretty much ever since Apple released Apple TV in 2007, analysts and Apple watchers have predicted the tech giant will release an actual television. After all, Apple have never been content to sit back and provide the accessories to others’ main electrical devices: they want to be the brand behind all your computers, music players, phones and more. The Apple TV box simply brought the internet to the television you already own, and that just did not seem like the end of Apple’s television ambitions. Still, Apple has consistently denied that they were moving into the television market.

Rumours of Apple’s entry into the world of televisions have gathered apace, however, sparked by a quote from Steve Jobs that his biographer released after his death. He is quoted as saying, “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.” It is hardly surprising, then, that speculation would be revived, regardless of Apple’s official line.

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What the Apple television will be

So what is everyone saying an Apple television will look like? TechRadar has an especially thorough round-up of all the most recent, most credible rumours. In it, there is some broad consensus. The television will come in three sizes, including 32 and 55-inch models. It will clearly be sleek and modern in design, as it is an Apple product, so most commentators are speculating instead about what it will do.

Most think that Siri and iSight will be integral features. That suggests that the television will incorporate voice and face recognition into its functions. Most people think that while the Apple television will undoubtedly have a regular remote, it will encourage its owners to use their voice to control it.

It may also have a games console of sorts incorporated, an idea generated when Apple CEO Tim Cook was seen at Valve Software, the parent company of gaming platform Steam. In that way, iSight could be used as the controller for a Kinect-style games platform that is built into the TV itself.

Finally, rumours have circulated that Apple execs have been in talks with major television companies including HBO, Viacom and ESPN, so that the owner of an Apple television could watch popular channels (at least the American ones right now, anyway) without having to sign up to a cable or satellite contract. How this will work with channels that are accessed through things like Freeview is anyone’s guess, but some think a DVB-T compatible unit might be part of a second-generation TV.

How realistic is Apple television?

The release of an Apple television looks pretty much inevitable at this point. At the end of 2012, Tim Cook said in an interview with American network NBC, “when I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years. It’s an area of intense interest. I can’t say more than that.” And that sort of quote just makes it clear that television is the next thing Apple is thinking about revolutionising.

Moreover, Foxconn, the often-notorious manufacturer of Apple products, has had to address rumours that the company was moving in to the manufacture of televisions. First, there was a story that Foxconn CEO Terry Gua said they were “making preparations for iTV [the predicted name of the Apple television].” Then, in May of 2013, it was reported that Foxconn were going to start producing televisions, though they did try to insist it was to diversify their manufacturing portfolio and to move away from producing almost exclusively for Apple. Still, not many Apple analysts are convinced that Foxconn are not in the process of producing an Apple television.

What an Apple television will mean for us

So more and more reporters, bloggers and industry insiders are sure that an Apple television will be released in the next year or two, so what does that mean for us regular people?

Well, TechRadar points out that Apple analyst Gene Munster thinks the Apple television will be at least twice as expensive as similarly sized televisions. The article adds that some think certain partners will subsidise the cost, so it can be more affordable.

Ultimately, however, we can safely assume that the Apple television will have the same impact on TVs that the Mac, the iPod and the iPad had on computers, MP3 players and tablets. The Apple television may not have anything particularly new in its technology, but because no one has ever put the technology together in that way in that kind of device and because the usability will be so intuitive and fun, Apple television will inevitably bring in a revolution in how people use their televisions.