Jobs on Apple TV: “I Finally Cracked It”

Apple may drop a full-fledged television, according to the new biography on Steve Jobs, which is published today in the US. “I finally cracked it,” said Jobs to author Walter Isaacson. According to the Washington Post, the new book, “Steve Jobs”, has a major product reveal: a proper connected TV set from Apple.

Rumours about a TV set from Apple have been circulating for months. It seems logical that after cracking the music market, Jobs had set its sights on also cracking movies and television. But so far, Apple did not succeed in producing a similar solution for the TV screen.

At the moment, the company sells a set-top box that company officials have called a “hobby.” “He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant,” Isaacson wrote.

Isaacson continued: “‘I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,’ he told me. ‘It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.’ No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. ‘It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.’”

So far, other connected TV ventures from software companies have failed to take off, such as those from Microsoft and Google. However, Apple has a very powerful tool in its hands with the iTunes ecosytem, which could be adopted for television.

During the past few months, Apple has registered a number of patents related to its TV product. The Patently Apple blog from watcher Jack Purcher has opened an archive on all posts about Apple patents related to the Apple TV.

By Robert Briel, Broadband TV News