Earlier today, investor Carl Icahn published an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook in which he predicted that Apple would enter the television market with 55-inch and 65-inch UHD TVs. This evening, however, The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple currently has no plans to enter the highly competitive TV market.
The report claims that Apple has began researching the possibility of entering the television market nearly 10 years ago, but has never been able to find a “breakthrough” feature that would set its offerings apart. Apple reportedly considered adding cameras to its TVs for FaceTime functionality. The company also looked into a variety of different display types, but ultimately decided that nothing it could create would be compelling enough to convince consumers to switch.
Apple, according to the report, dropped its plans to create a TV set more than a year ago. Apple, however, didn’t totally “kill” the television project. Instead, it disbanded the team and sent its members to various other product areas. Should someone at Apple have an idea on a breakthrough feature, there’s no inhibiting factor that would prevent it from rejuvenating its TV team.
Apple is still expected to introduce a new Apple TV set-top box in June with deeper Siri integration, third-party application support, a new TV streaming service, and a “fancier” remote control.
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This is obvious, impossible to reach profit margins in an industry that has favors ONLY razor thin profit margins. That and the fact that you can sell an updated Apple TV to a much larger pool of buyers then a pool full of expensive TV’s shoppers / buyers.
We don’t need another TV. Now a universal remote that works like an iPhone (soft “keys” vs dedicated buttons). One remote that controls my Apple TV AND my 42″ Vizio. Buy the TV then download the app that controls THAT particular TV (manufacturer and model). That’s my dream.
Yeah that’s called an iPhone.
This has been tried numerous times (most notably by Steve Wozniak) and even existed (briefly) in a couple of different iterations by other companies and inventors. It’s never been popular, and has never taken off as an idea.
Even the Remote App by Apple, which is very close to what you’re asking for, has serious drawbacks as a remote, the most obvious being the fact that at it’s best it’s slower and more cumbersome than any “normal” remote due to the fact that it has to sleep/wake and communicate across a network.
I have a Logitech Harmony Hub in my Theater Room. It has everything you asked for and a lot more. Dedicated remote, plus iPhone and iPad apps.
There is no money for Aplle to make by selling televisions.
Aplle will use the set too Aplle TV box as an Airport base station, HomeKit hub, add games and right Siri integration and have a higher cost Aplle TV they will make more money on.
Do you know, what “Apple” means? Since you misspelled it every single time…
This is bad news if true. The worst part of it being the suggestion that “(Apple) executives agreed the company could do little to innovate in an already competitive television hardware market.”
It shows they are not only passing up a good opportunity, but that they can’t “see” the problems with TV sets as they currently exist. So it’s not just a business decision type of mistake, it’s a “failure of vision” type mistake.
I think this is the kind of thing we can expect from Apple moving forward now however. I suppose everything has to end sometime.
Pray tell what the problem is with current TV sets?
Lots and lots of things are actually “wrong” with current TV sets, and if you don’t see anything yourself, it would be hard to explain.
That being said, one way of looking at it is that the Television is currently in the exact same state as the desktop PC was just before the introduction of the first iMac. Another way of looking at it, is to think of what the real difference is between a TV, a radio, a stereo, a video recorder and a game machine.
It’s pretty obvious if you think along those lines.
The only thing a TV should be is a large display, as thin as possible, with as small a bezel as possible, and most importantly the best picture possible. Nothing more. You don’t want to update your TVs yearly (no one would). This is why an Apple TV box is where Apple can make a difference. They can change the TV experience, which doesn’t need to be changed very much hardware wise. Granted I was hoping they’d release large cinema displays as I described them being above, in addition to the new Apple TV. The Apple TV is where they can make a great difference though. It’s not hard to imagine how it could be amazing.
What they sport the three colors of the iPhone on the bezel? And have a back like the iPhone 5… One can only dream.
There’s not really much wrong with TV’s. It’s the content that’s the problem and that has absolutely nothing to do with the TV.
TVs as a concept are already very Apple. You turn it on and it “just works.” Adding bells and whistles to a TV would make it “just work” a lot less, which would be pretty un-Apple—in theory. What you get once the TV is on can be pretty unworkable (clunky service provider interfaces, etc.) and that part Apple is already working on with the Apple TV box.
they are very actively pursuing an overhaul in the way we think of tv and watch it. the ui, the live aspect, they are going to try to get people to “cut the cord” and subscribe to apples vision of how television is best consumed. maybe after powning that area for a while they’ll come out with an actual television.
A full Apple television will NEVER make sense. The panel is a commodity piece of hardware. Whatever television they COULD make, can just be put into a box (aka AppleTV) and sold to EVERY user to plug into televisions they already own. A full size television would significantly narrow their customer base. 55/65″ would not work for most bed rooms (too big), and many people can not afford 70″ televisions steering them away from anything Apple would provide (assuming they are looking at 55/65″ sizes). When it comes to televisions, size is still supreme in most consumers’ eyes.
Not only would they need a breakthrough feature to entice buyers, they’d have to keep it proprietary or Samsung would have a copy of it out in no time.
Like that’s stopped Scamsung before
A replacement for cable tv service is a pain point worth pursuing, a replacement for my TV, not so much. The best part from Apple’s perspective is that a tv service will end the talk of “Apple is doomed” for good. Wall Street loves a service model over a widget model.
Seems like Icahn, Icahn’t.
The problem is how we access and pay for content along with the user interface. That has nothing to do with the dumb monitor a.k.a. TV set.
There is more to a tv than the screen. …
Sat that to Kuro owners.
Say that to Kuro owners.
I’m surprised nobody has mentioned how Apple is making several luxury items now and more in the pipeline. some people would pay $5k for 55″ Apple television with great built in sound and other features.
Look at people paying $17k for a gold watch. With the regime iMac Apple went lux and went away from the average consumer. There is questions of if the rose gold iPhone 6s will be made of gold and other models have sapphire screens.
So it’s easy to see Apple releasing luxury television sets, they did bu a luxury TV maker the other year.
They never bought Loewe.
The 17k watch is a variation of a relatively affordable $400 product.
An Apple TV can’t have a “gold” version and the base version can’t be luxury unless they want to only have a niche market like Bang & Olufsen (and considering how they dropped pro users I doubt they do)
The TV is a $2000 variation of a $79 puck?
Good choice from Apple. Apple needs to focus more on Apple TV. Google tried this several times and they are about to succeed with Android TV. As a royal Apple customer, it impressed me. It doesn’t need to be connected with Android devices to operate. It has Play Store, Google Now and so on. Right now what does Apple have? Nothing really. If you count other countries that have Apple TV available, no tv apps are available. So mainly it’s just an AirPlay mirroring device. We know Apple is not trying make first one but tries to create the best one. But Apple is so late in the game, it will have to catch up. Also, I wish the new Apple TV will be able to run apps independently from iOS devices. That’s important for me. I don’t want to install apps on to my iPhone, iPad just for Apple TV.
FaceTime on a TV makes no sense.
It doesn’t do any less sense than on an iMac. I don’t see the problem with it.
You sit 2′ from an iMac and it’s a personal device. FaceTime is a personal communication not for rooms to talk with one another. And would sound awful room-wide. Many reasons why it’s a dumb idea.
It’ll be interesting to see if Apple adds a Facetime Camera to the Apple TV. Will it be in the box or an add on module that you clips onto your TV.
Considering there is zero demand for video conferencing on your TV….no, they won’t.
Hell you can AirPlay your iPad to the big screen, and set it up wherever you want. What good is a unmovable camera embedded in an AppleTV?
NO KIDDING. They can own the TV Market with box that everyone can afford. They just need the right model. TV displays do not need Apple’s touch. They are not the problem.