Fueled in part by revelations in Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography that Jobs had finally figured out how the TV market, rumors of the long-awaited
Apple TV have swirled often. According to
China Business News’ confidential sources, the devices are coming soon; Apple TVs will be rolling off of assembly lines at
Foxconn, as the company has reportedly received orders for a trial production run.
Although there are smart TVs here and there, access to plenty of Internet-connected content, and promising software such as Google TV in development, the industry is ripe for a TV that serves as a family’s computing and entertainment hub. Apple has certainly created and collected all the right pieces: Siri, display technology, a cloud-based (versus device-based) hub for files and services, a unified ecosystem of operating systems and devices, and an app and content store with a delivery system.
Whether or not Apple is about to revolutionize the TV market remains to be seen, but--like ‘em or hate ‘em--the company has been known to release products that shake up their respective market segments. There’s a good chance this will be one of them.