Report: Details On Apple’s TV Strategy

Steve Jobs’ already-famous comments to his biographer Walter Isaacson about his designs upon the TV market seem to have predicted Apple’s next great technological foray. According to a Wall Street Journal report, Apple has been meeting with media executives at large companies and discussing its TV future.

The most compelling possibility is the prospect of an Apple TV--that is, an actual TV set as opposed to the not-quite-a-blockbuster set-top box the company currently offers--that would wirelessly stream content and interface with iOS devices. The effect would be a seamless one wherein a user could control the TV with an iOS device and pause a program on the TV and pick it up on a phone or tablet while headed out the door.


Underlying technologies could include what’s inside the current Apple TV device, AirPlay, integrated DVR capabilities, and iCloud integration.

A much larger hurdle pertains to content; getting traditional content providers on board with an Apple TV and what the company might design it to do would likely be at odds with current ways of making money in the TV business. Further, if Apple tries to go rogue and pipe in its own content or try to offer everything but cable/satellite and broadcast TV, the whole venture could fall apart.

We’ve learned over the years, however, that Apple--or Jobs, at least--usually has an ace up its sleeve. Perhaps this problem with content is in part what Jobs was alluding to when he said, regarding TV, he’d “finally cracked it”.