Having dominated the smartphone, tablet, PMP, laptop and all-in-one markets Apple looks set to turn its attentions to the TV sector with numerous reports suggesting the Cupertino-based company is planning to update its current Apple TV offering later this year and launch its first full blown television sets dubbed Apple iTV.
Far from confirmed, Apple iTV rumours have been circulating for a number of months kicking into overdrive following the publication of the official Steve Jobs biography in which the Apple co-founder and former CEO said he had “finally cracked” how to change the television market.
"I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,” Jobs reportedly said. “It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."
Apple iTV Release Date
Although far from confirmed the Apple iTV release date has become one of the most talked about upcoming announcements of the year with Apple CEO Tim Cook recently offering the closest indication yet that the iPhone and iPad maker is planning to out a full television service.
Speaking during his keynote speech at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference Cook described the current Apple TV offering as a ‘hobby’, whilst revealing the Cupertino based company shifted just shy of 3 million Apple TV units during 2011, 1 million of which came in the year’s final quarter.
Stating that Apple “doesn’t do hobbies as a general rule,” Cook revealed that the existing Apple TV unit was testing the waters of the television sector stating the company would need something “special” in order to make TV a “serious category” for Apple.
“The reason we call it a hobby is because we don’t want to send a message to you or our shareholders that we think the market for it is the size of our other businesses,“ Cook said of Apple TV. He added that he believed Apple could “find something that was larger” so that its ventures into the television industry “could go more main-market.”
Although Apple has offered no indication as to the validity of such claims it is widely believed that the Apple iTV hardware and accompanying software platform will land before the end of the year.
Late last year analyst Gene Munster suggested the Cupertino based company would follow the 2012 unveiling of the Apple iPad 3 and Apple iPhone 5 with an Apple iTV release of its own around October with the service to land ahead of the lucrative Christmas period.
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