Tag Archives: AppleTV

A new report is today suggesting that Apple is closely collaborating with partners at Foxconn and Sharp with a view to preparing and testing some new designs for an Apple branded television. The report from the WSJ refers to the remarkably intuitive ‘people familiar with the matter’, who have said that the device is said to be a ‘large-screen high-resolution TV’ and that it is still in very early stages of testing. Notably, the source refers to the new device in a rather dismissive way, referring to it as not ‘a formal project yet’.

The report does however note that Apple does work with their suppliers to prototype and test new devices on a regular basis and many of these devices don’t make it to market. That said, Apple also has a large manufacturing and prototyping facility in-house, so for them to go outside their own walls can perhaps be read as a significant move.
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Over the past day or so there have been some rumors swirling regarding a brand new device that Apple is apparently considering launch. The rumors have suggested that the company is in the process of testing a television set with cable operators, and that the launch of the Apple TV was actually imminent. That report came from Jeffries & Co. analyst James Kisner and was followed up by AllThingsD who are today saying that while Apple has ‘indeed had talks with a few large cable operators about some new TV product’ it’s going to be some time before anything launches.

This second opinion seems a little more realistic as, being honest, the initial report only simply seemed to suggest that a major cable TV operator was attempting to estimate how much bandwidth would be required for a new Apple device. It certainly doesn’t mean that a launch of such a device is imminent and to jump to such a conclusion is a little quick.
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Following on from the WSJ report yesterday that Apple was in the process of engineering a brand new type of set top box that could be used by cable providers, another report has appeared, also by the WSJ (subscription required), which offers a few more details on the rumored device. The new report suggests that the new set top box would indeed have DVR functionality but that the killer feature would be that it would record TV shows to an online cloud storage center, rather than having extensive onboard storage, in the form of a hard drive.

In addition to the novel method by which the device would act as a DVR, the company is apparently looking to make the user interface navigation much like the icons on an iPad, to improve the user experience. What this more than likely refers to is that it may look like a tweaked version of the Apple TV interface. Apple is also reportedly looking to make it easy to share online content through social media by integrating it directly into the UI.
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Apple is reportedly in the process of engineering a brand new Apple TV device that functions as a set top box to allow users to watch live television from cable providers. The report comes from the WSJ (subscription required) who say that they have information from ‘people familiar with the matter’ and say that the new device is essentially Apple’s way of delivering live TV content to users, without having to go through the licensing issues directly with content providers. However, the report does also suggest that Apple has not yet reached a deal with cable operators citing a reluctance to give up control of the Cable TV market to Apple.

The report suggests that the new device will cost in the hundreds of dollars through an up front payment which is a little more than the existing Apple TV device, presumably due to the inclusion of extra technology such as onboard storage. Current cable boxes are normally paid through a monthly subscription and therefore, it’ll be interesting to see what the killer selling point of the new device is, other than being engineered by Apple.
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A new report is suggesting that Apple is preparing to release a television set that has motion detection functionality built in. That’s the suggestion according to Capital Markets analysts Brian White who apparently has first hand knowledge of the television from trips to Taiwan (via MacRumors). According to White, Apple will be releasing a television set that utilizes novel ways to enable user interaction, rather than just the traditional remote control, and one of these methods is by motion detection.

However, the analyst also notes that the television will also ship with a traditional remote control, but rather than being a push button device like the small aluminum remote that ships with the current generation Apple TV, it will be a touchscreen device like a mini iPad. The remote is also expected to be constructed of plastic, rather than utilizing an aluminum unibody. The analyst also suggests that the iPad mini is still a reality and that it will be released alongside the next generation iPhone 5 in September this year.
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