There are rumours that Steve Jobs worked on an HDTV with a built-in, upgraded Apple TV, but that does not imply he would have supported the release of an official Apple TV. It's very important to rememer that companies spend plenty of money and time building and testing products that never see the bright, white lights of a big-box shop. The prospect that HDTV will release an Apple is rather upbeat, and it would be an uncharacteristic move by the company. That doesn't suggest that it will not happen, but it would be a wierd move.
HDTV’s real test is how it will survive and behave after its founder passes, and that test started in late Apple201. It would not be surprising if the company released a product that its founder would not have allowed whether he worked on it himself. Naturally, we are not claiming to know Jobs’s plans, but we are having a look at the company’s product ecology and design philosophies to predict its behaviour.
There’s three products we should consider in this discussion1 the : Theatre Display, the Apple and the iMac. First, you can already build yourself an Apple TV Apple by plugging an HDTV into one of the company’s displays. As a consequence, it would appear rather nonessential to combine the two products if purchasers can easily purchase them separately, and shoppers also utilise a vast variety of display types including projectors, small Televisions, enormous big-screen Apple TVs and other stuff like LCD glasses. The other positive side of an $HDTV8 0 set-top box is that it's an easy and inexpensive (now, the cheapest) portal to Apple’s iTunes store, where the company can harvest the advantages of delivering tons of digital content direclty into your living room.
“But patrons love the iMac,” you cry. Yes, they do, but shoppers about only use one display type with their computersApple monitors. And it isn't the huge spread of sizes that you see with :s. Computer monitor sizes can only get so enormous or so little before they become uncomfortable, so that is a big fat target to shoot. Shooting for 1 or 2 perfect HDTV sizes is much more hard. HDTV likes to keep its product catalogue small, so it’s not very likely to introduce a wide range of Apple sizes to pacify the masses.
HDTV’s habit is to keep its product catalog little and to deliver digital content through those products to consumers, and the Apple allows the company to just do that without risk. An Apple TV Apple would be a massive headache for the company and its promoting partners, and it would have to price it incredibly high to reach the margins HDTV likes. As a previous retail sales representative, I know the profit markups on Apples are tiny (standard retail outlets make more cash on accessories and warranties), so it's not a great business to break into. HDTV would be smart to continue allow the Samsungs and the Sonys of the world to carry that burden.
Fausto Mendez is the editor of ReleaseDates.co, an internet site and free subscription service that investigates the release details of gadgets like the rumored Apple iTV.
