Apple’s much-anticipated television set has entered its initial testing phase at Hon Hai Precision Industry, a company source has revealed. It’s expected to feature a display between 46 inches and 55 inches in size, and shipments are likely to be “huge.” Don’t expect to have one in your living room anytime soon, however; it doesn’t look like it’s going to get its grand unveiling during 2013.
After months of steady growth, Apple stock hit an all-time high of $705.07 in late September, and it seemed there was no sign of stopping it from breaking through the $1,000 barrier and making Apple the world’s first trillion dollar company. Take a look at the market today, however, and it paints a very different picture.
Apple stock fell a whopping 25% in November, and on Friday, it hit a ten-month low. Today, shares dipped below the $400 mark. This is despite the recent launch of the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini, both of which appear to be selling incredible well. Can the Cupertino company put an end to this nasty slide? Analysts don’t think so.
I hope it looks like this. Apple has begun testing high-resolution television set designs with manufacturing partners in Asia, according to a new report from The Wall Street Journal that cites unnamed sources within Foxconn. Both Foxconn and display manufacturer Sharp are said to be involved in the process, which is still in its early stages.
If you have faith in the supernatural deity named Gene Munster, and believe with all your heart that Apple is going to release the iTV in 2013, then you’ve probably got all your pennies saved so you can drop some fat stacks on Apple’s flatscreen next year.
Apple products usually aren’t cheap, and we figure the iTV will be no different if Apple ever releases one, but according to a new survey, over 46% of Americans are totally fine with having to pay over $1,000 for an iTV.
Google is gearing up to offload Motorola’s set-top box business as it looks to concentrate its efforts on competing with Apple’s iPhone. The company has been trying to sell Motorola Home Business, which supplies set-top boxes to cable television providers, for around $2 billion, and it has reportedly received multiple offers already. Once it’s gone, Google will focus on high-end smartphones.
If you’re an Apple TV owner, you’ve likely been looking forward to the day when Apple finally announces support for apps and games. We don’t know why it’s taking so long, but it looks as though the new feature could be just around the corner. Visit the store on your Apple TV, and you’ll notice Apple has added a number of banners advertising apps and games for the holiday season.
Either Apple’s trying to tell us a big feature is on its way, or someone inside Cupertino has gotten their graphics all mixed up.
Still fantasizing about replacing your aging plasma with a new Apple television? According to recent speculation, the Cupertino company is going to announce the revolutionary new set any day now. But according to former Apple executive and current Apple watcher Jean-Louis Gassee, we’re kidding ourselves.
Gassee says that the rumors surrounding the device are nothing but an “enduring fantasy,” and that the only thing Apple will release that’s close to a television is a new Apple TV set-top box.
Speaking to NBC talking head Brian Williams this week, Apple CEO Tim Cook said: “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.”
Cook went on to upgrade Apple’s efforts in television from a “hobby” to “an area of intense interest.”
These cryptic comments support what Steve Jobs’s biographer, Walter Isaacson, told an interviewer, which is that Jobs said off the record that he wanted to “reinvent” TV, that Apple had “licked” the problems associated with said reinvention, and that Apple’s solution would liberate TV viewers once and for all from “all these complicated remote controls.”
If you want to tease predictive meaning out of these two Apple CEO statements, the key is in what each of them said and to whom and why.
On Tuesday I went to a party at San Francisco’s Cafe Du Nord to celebrate the launch of Fuze For Mac, a nifty cloud-based videoconferencing tool from FuzeBox.
I heard several interesting things about Steve Jobs and some intriguing Apple TV rumors. One of the rumors made me think that Tim Cook’s new Mac — the one that is going to be made in the U.S.A. — might actually be a big-screen Apple TV.
Here’s what I heard:
Now, I’m the first to admit that not all of this adds up. I got it from Jeff Cavins, FuzeBox’s CEO, who told a good tale, especially after I’d had a couple of pints. While I was fascinated and entertained, it didn’t get to pin him down on details. The party was loud and crowded, and we were constantly interrupted. So mostly for entertainment purposes, this is what he said:
Apple CEO Tim Cook practically never grants interviews, and rarer still, one where he talks with such candor about the future of Apple, the legacy of Steve Jobs, and why Apple products aren’t currently made here in the USA, but soon will be.
Join us on our newest CultCast as we discuss Mr. Cook’s recent interviews, his frank comments about Apple’s “intense interest” in TV, and why that new Apple-stamped mystery set could be built right here in the U.S. of A.
All that and more on our newest CultCast! Subscribe now on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.
Remember those goofy VHS interactive video board games they had back in the early 90s? I had one, based on Star Trek: The Next Generation. It came out in 1993, so you can pick one up from eBay for about $24 these days. I remember being just super excited that I could play a board game and fake-interact with klingons on the television set, remote in hand to pause, fast forward, and rewind as the board game told me what to do.
Imagine my surprise now when I can have a party at my house with up to 15 iOS device owners, playing a drawing charades game on a huge flat screen TV with nothing but a tiny computer that everyone brought into the house with them, their fingers, and a tiny hockey-puck sized device connected to the television. Now that would feel like science-fiction.
Draw-It, Push-It, a new game for iOS devices, purports to do just that.
Apple CEO Tim Cook just didn’t talk with Businessweek today in an unpredecented interview, he’s also going to be on NBC’s “Rock Center” tonight talking to Brian Williams… and in a new preview of the upcoming episode, Tim Cook has hinted strongly that Apple will be entering the HDTV market sooner rather than later.
Since Apple released iOS 5.1.1 for the Apple TV last week alongside iTunes 11, many users have reported problems updating to the new software over an ethernet connection. This appears to be the result of nasty bug in the latest Apple TV OS. Some Apple TVs even failed to boot back up after the update wouldn’t stick.
If you’ve been having problems updating to 5.1.1 on your Apple TV, then try updating over a Wi-Fi connection or manually restoring in iTunes.
Apple unleashed a slew of software updates this afternoon, including an iOS update for the second and third-gen Apple TV. Today’s 5.1.1 update brings full support for iTunes 11 and a number of stability improvements.
iTunes 11 has a music queuing feature called “Up Next,” and the Apple TV can now interface with Up Next to show what’s about to play. The new iOS Remote app also lets you manage your queue from an iPhone or iPad.
The Apple TV has become a mythical creature. Sustaining itself off the delicious nectar of Gene Munster’s wishful rumors, its remained hidden for years and who knows if it’ll ever make an appearance in the real world.
The latest rumor is that Apple will announce their TV set next year. If Apple does make a TV it’s likely to bring some huge changes to the cable television industry, and Time Warner’s CEO can’t wait.
If there’s anything more illusive than the iPhone 5 jailbreak, it’s the third-gen Apple TV jailbreak. While real progress is being made on cracking Apple’s latest smartphone, hackers are having a harder time jailbreaking everyone’s favorite living room hockey puck.
The current Apple TV set-top box just doesn’t cut it. We all want more from Apple, and hopefully we’ll get the perfect TV experience one day. Until then, there’s only the imagination.
Content distribution and management is a convoluted mess right now, especially in the living room. That’s why I’m floored by the beautiful simplicity of this Apple TV concept:
While you all were picking the choicest dark and white turkey meats for your plates and piling high glistening mountains of mashed potatoes, we here at Cult of Mac were stuck in our broadcasting dungeons recording another brand new CultCast, cause guess what? We’re just. That. Professional.
Ok so we actually recorded Wednesday. But with so much great Apple news and topics to cover this week, we just had to hop on the mics before the holiday gorging commenced.
Apple’s Black Friday sales; Oprah’s love for the iPad; Tim Cook’s favorite Thanksgiving accoutrements—it’s all that and more on this gravy-smothered over-stuffed CultCast! Subscribe now to The CultCast on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.
Read on for the show notes and to learn how you could promote your product or service on one of our future episodes.
Apple TV is just a hobby, but it’s still a pretty great product that beats most of the other low-cost entertainment service set-top boxes on the market. It turns out that Microsoft may want in on the action and is building there own Apple TV type of device to compete with Apple.
Sources at Microsoft have confirmed to The Verge that the Redmond company has plans to introduce a low-cost alternative to its Xbox console that will compete more directly with the Apple TV.
Priced at only $99, the Apple TV is a pretty awesome deal. But if you thinking streaming movies from you Mac to your LED Plasma 3D Ultra High-Definition TV isn’t worth that much, then maybe you just need a cheaper Chinese knockoff solution.
Xiaomi Box looks pretty similar to an Apple TV, it’s cheaper than an Apple TV, it even comes with the ability to use Apple’s AirPlay protocol like an Apple TV, but it only costs $64.
On Thursday, Jefferies analyst James Kisner revealed that the much-anticipated Apple television, the product we’ve been talking about for well over a year, is almost ready to make its big debut. In fact, Kisner said its launch was “imminent.”
According to sources for AllThingsD, however, it’s not quite as close as Kisner would have you believe. While Apple has indeed held talks with a number of large cable companies, it seems it hasn’t yet spoken to TV programmers. With that in mind, it seems the Apple television is some way off just yet.
Apple’s primed and ready to take over your entire world of media; Microsoft’s paid cavalcade of celebrity Windows Phone endorsements make us sad; and the big plans Apple has to fan the flames of employee innovation; as you’ll soon hear, no topic is safe from discussion on this week’s CultCast. We even dive deep into the ancient practice of platonic male hand holding.
You think I’m joking…
All that and a Faves and Raves controversy meltdown! Subscribe now to The CultCast on iTunes, or easily stream new and previous episodes via Apple’s free Podcasts App.
Read on for the show notes and to learn how you could promote your product or service on one of our future episodes.
Apple has been trying to get some sort of new TV product off the ground for quite some time. We’ve seen prototypes of an actual Apple iTV, and there’s also been speculation that Apple will introduce a TV set-top box that streams live broadcasts over the internet.
While licensing agreements still need to be reached with Hollywood studios and cable companies, Apple’s mythical TV device is gearing up for an “imminent” launch, according to a new report.
At a Techonomy conference today, two of the four panelists called out Apple as “most likely to succeed” at a session discussing how advertising could affect existing media companies.
While the session itself didn’t spend a lot of time on Apple, according to Techcrunch, the panel ended with an answer to moderator Dave Morgan’s question on predictiong the world’s most powerful media company in 2020. Digital agency AKQA’s Tom Bedecarre said that Apple would take the top spot, due to the several media delivery platforms that it owns or controls.
Another panelist and CEO of SocialFlow, Frank Speiser, agreed, adding that the time was ripe for a company like Facebook or Twitter to team up with Apple to help improve discovery, thus giving the partnering company a leg up in the media landscape.
Apple’s current “hobby” — also known as Apple TV — doesn’t tell us much about Apple’s future plans for the living room.
It’s a good product under the right circumstances. But five years from now, living rooms are going to be transformed by all-encompassing systems that turn TVs into video phones, gaming systems, home automation control centers and artificial intelligence assistants.
Does Apple have what it takes to compete in the living room?