Television

UPDATE: Updated the title to be more representative of the content of the piece, will leave the link so previous links aren’t broken.

I’ve written previously that the current television market is antiquated and that no progress on the Apple TV (whether literally a television set or just a new set top box with far advanced capabilities) can be made until that changes. I strongly believe this to be the case and, if I had to guess, is the only reason we haven’t seen a new Apple TV that goes from being “just a hobby” to another leg on the Apple product “stool”.

News broke this morning, as reported in Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs, about Steve Jobs proclaiming confidently that Apple would not be making a television set. Specifically, when asked about Apple making a television set the conversation went like this:

Yukari says “Jobs didn’t hesitate.” He said, “No.” 

“TV is a terrible business. They don’t turn over and the margins suck,” said Jobs. (Unlike iPhones which are wildly profitable and replaced every two years, a TV gets replaced every 8 years, and isn’t all that profitable.)