Apple is reportedly looking to skirt the cable companies and strike up deals with HBO, ESPN, Disney, and Viacom to offer their content on a new pay TV service. Rather than distributing content in channels, Apple’s strategy would emphasize apps over cable TV according to a report from QZ.

Sony, Google, and Intel are also trying to score similar deals and might even get their pay TV services up before Apple. However, Apple is also looking to release a TV set as well, in order to control the entire TV-watching experience.

The iTunes Festival is an annual, month-long music festival and concert series that Apple has thrown since 2007 at the Roundhouse Art Centre in London. Earlier this year, Apple revealed the lineup for the 2013 Festival, but now Cupertino is starting to get the ball rolling on the festivities, updating the Apple TV with a new channel and updating the iTunes Festival iOS app accordingly.

Been waiting around for a killer deal before jumping all over a new MacBook Pro with Retina display purchase? For the next three days Best Buy is giving away a free Apple TV to customers who buy one of two 15-inch MacBook Pro models that are $200 below MSRP.

Netflix has begun to officially roll out user profiles today, meaning you can now share an account with your family and friends without all their horrible movie choices clogging your Instant Queue. 

Buying a $35 dongle to magically stream all the video of the internet to your TV sounds pretty awesome, and based on early impressions Chromecast does a decent job, but how does its content stack up against the Apple TV and Roku?

Danny Sullivan created the chart above to break down the content you’ll find on Chromecast, Apple TV and Roku. If you only care about streaming video off Netflix and YouTube, then Chromecast is the best bang for your buck. But if you want to watch HBO Go, Hulu, or pull content from iTunes or Amazon, Apple TV or Roku have more content options.

Source: Marketingland

Via: Twitter

The people who believe Apple will sell a TV set are right. And the people who believe Apple won’t sell a TV set are also right. Here’s why.

Take it with a grain of salt, but Digitimes is reporting that Apple is looking to make a deal with either LG or Sharp to manufacture 55- and/or 65-inch Ultra HD TV panels for a future Apple TV set. “Apple is still testing the technology and has yet to finalize its orders with LG,” according to the report.

Source: Digitimes

Apple has been trying to get a TV streaming service off the ground for quite some time. Instead of requiring your expensive cable subscription, Apple’s approach would likely be internet-only and rely on individual deals with the networks.

In order to entice the networks, Apple has proposed an interesting business model for advertising. According to a new report, Apple wants to compensate networks by paying them for ads that viewers have skipped.

Despite “weaker” orders from Apple during the second quarter, Foxconn managed to post revenue that beat analyst estimates thanks to its increased focus on televisions. The company announced revenue of NT$897 billion ($30 million) over the three-month period, which is 0.6% higher than its second-quarter revenue for 2012, and better than the NT$829 billion expected by analysts.

Details are short on the ground, but The New York Times’ Brian X. Chen is reporting on Twitter that Samsung has purchaseds Boxee, maker of the Boxee Box, one of the Apple TV’s main competitors.