Steve Jobs ‘Cracked’ The Integrated TV Before He Died, Thanks To iCloud

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apple-tv (1)

Gene Munster must be having an orgasm right now: in an interview for his upcoming bio with Walter Isaacson, Steve Jobs said he had finally ‘cracked’ the ‘integrated’ TV problem.

Don’t read too much into this, though. Jobs may not be talking about the iTV, and just the plain AppleTV.

According to the Washington Post:

“He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant,” Isaacson wrote.

Isaacson continued: “‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”

Personally, as long rumored as the iTV is, I’ve always really doubted it: the margins in the TV business are notoriously lousy, you can’t get people to upgrade their HDTVs every year like a phone, computer or tablet, and why go through all the trouble of making a TV when you can create a $99 set-top box like the AppleTV that gives any set the same capabilities?
So my guess is that Steve is talking about an update to the AppleTV here, complete with iCloud integration. That said, I’d hate to underestimate Steve Jobs, so I may well have to eat that guess sometime soon. What do you think?

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