Rumour: Apple TV re-emergence
Having shifted the portable music player market with the iPod, shook up the smart-phone with the iPhone and dominated the tablet PC market ever since the launch of the iPad in early 2010, Apple is now rumoured to be on the verge of starting commercial production of its own line of TVs for an estimated late-2012 launch, according to a report by analyst Peter Misek from US bank Jeffries.
Though the company's latest venture has understandably been shrouded in governmental levels of secrecy, the imaginatively-coined 'iTV' (hello lawsuit) is heavily alluded to by the late Steve Jobs in his posthumous biography released last month. He's quoted as saying, “I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine”, before concluding in typical Jobs exuberance, “I finally cracked it.”
Highly-regarded analyst Gene Munster from US firm Piper Jaffray has been building evidence in relation to such a device for quite some months now; pointing to Apple's recent filings of TV-related patents (including browsing and recording TV), the strength and positioning of the App Store and iCloud, and Apple's recent acquisition of manufacturing facilities and components that could accommodate large-scale production of big-screen LCD displays to build an argument for a late-2012/early-2013 launch.
Other recent patents filed by Apple are likely to indicate what we are likely to expect. In October, the US patent office described a filing for “real-time video process control using gestures” that may allow the user to literally “throw” content (e.g. a HD movie) from one iDevice to another or, like the iPhone-controlled Apple TV, allow users to rewind, fast-forward and play content through various gesticulations. There are also suggestions of facial recognition, voice control (seemingly a dead cert following the positive reception of Siri on the iPhone 4S) and seamless integration with all other Apple devices.
Source: Business Insider
