Apple is just now looking into display capabilities for an Apple television, according to the latest scuttlebutt, which means a product launch may not happen until the end of this year or early 2013.
Onward, tablets, smartphones and post-PC (yet still just as much “personal computing”) devices — call them whatever you like, 2012 will see a glut of me-too mobiles designed to untether us from stodgy office desktops and augment our everyday, ordinary activities by slipping into our everyday, ordinary surroundings.
Can anything measure up to what we want to see from Steve Jobs’ last Apple device? We may only be a few months away from an answer, after a new rumor that an Apple-branded television could be released as early as the second or third quarter of 2012.
We’ve reached another milestone in the Apple product rumor cycle, in which the Wall Street Journal drops a big story based on unnamed sources. The topic now is an Apple television set—not to be confused with the existing Apple TV set-top box—and the WSJ mentions several features we can expect if the product becomes real, based on talks Apple has held with unnamed media company executives.
An Apple TV set seems more likely than ever now that the late Steve Jobs is on record talking about it. And although details are non-existent, the inclusion of Siri would be a no-brainer if this mythical Apple television came into being.
Whispers of an Apple-branded television set have been popping up since the beginning of human history (yes, that long), with even the late Steve Jobs tipping his hand to his biographer, Walter Isaacson, informing him that he’d “finally cracked” the secret to an Apple television set:
Remember how underwhelmed (or confused) you were when Apple first announced Apple TV (formerly iTV) way back in, oh, 2006? If this latest batch of Apple rumors holds true, and Apple really is entering the HDTV market, we can expect shiny new (aluminum bodied?) flatscreens in consumer living rooms by the end of 2011.
Carbon fiber iPods! No iPad 3 this year! A cable killer! Yes, the smell of Apple rumors is in the air today. Let’s take a closer look at this lovely trio and guess at each rumor’s likelihood.
Throw this Apple rumor in the crazy pile: The company is reportedly working on a prototype television that does it all, from movies and games to DVR, apps and Facetime.
Time for Boxee and Roku to worry. Apple TV now streams live sports from MLB.TV and NBA League Pass. The new video sources are part of a software upgrade, released today alongside iOS 4.3.
A source has leaked to Engadget that new ecode in the iOS 4.3 beta 3 firmware suggests that Apple TV might be gearing up for online gaming capabilities. The system might be similar to OnLive gaming system works, although that’s pure speculation. Here’s a screenshot of what the Engadget insider saw:
