Apple Television Set Prototypes Reportedly 'In the Works'

One of the major revelations pulled out of the new authorized Steve Jobs biography has been Jobs' disclosure that he "finally cracked" the problems standing in the way of an Apple television set.

apple tv favorite tv shows
Rumors of an Apple-branded television have been circulating for years, but have been gaining steam following the release of the iPad as observers look to Apple's "next big thing". One of the strongest proponents of an Apple television set has been Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, who has issued a number of reports about Apple's prospect for such a device.

With Jobs' comments once again fanning the flames of speculation regarding an Apple television, Munster has weighed in (via Fortune) to claim that all evidence is pointing to a launch as soon as next year. Among the newly presented evidence from Munster is a claim that prototypes of the Apple television set are now "in the works".

- Based on Jan-11 meetings in Asia (not with component suppliers), we believe Apple is investing in manufacturing facilities and securing supply for LCD displays. These displays could range from 3.5" mobile displays to 50" television displays.

- More recently, in Sept-11 we met with a contact close to an Asian component supplier who indicated that prototypes of an Apple television are in the works.

Munster also points to several patents and patent applications filed by Apple addressing the company's work into television-related technologies as further evidence of the company's interest. And while Apple routinely files for patents on technologies that never appear in its products, it is clear that the company has been thinking about how it could make a bigger impact in the television-related market if it elected to go down that route.

While any specifications on an Apple TV remain unknown beyond Jobs' suggestion that it would integrate iCloud presumably with iTunes Store video content, Munster believes that Apple could sell 1.4 million television sets at an average selling price of $1800 in 2012, ramping up to 4.3 million units by 2014 as costs drop to an average selling price of $1400. Munster's estimates, which are of course essentially guesses informed by current market trends, put Apple's share of the connected TV market at 3% in 2014, with the company bringing in $6 billion in revenue from the segment.

Popular Stories

iphone 16 pro ghost hand

5 Reasons to Skip This Year's iPhone 17 Pro

Thursday July 10, 2025 4:54 am PDT by
Apple will launch its new iPhone 17 series in two months, and the iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to get a new design for the rear casing and the camera area. But more significant changes to the lineup are not expected until next year, when the iPhone 18 models arrive. If you're thinking of trading in your iPhone for this year's latest, consider the following features rumored to be coming...
apple tv 4k new orange

New Apple TV Expected Later This Year With These New Features

Saturday July 12, 2025 3:09 pm PDT by
A new Apple TV is expected to be released later this year, and a handful of new features and changes have been rumored for the device. Below, we recap what to expect from the next Apple TV, according to rumors. Rumors Faster Wi-Fi Support The next Apple TV will be equipped with Apple's own combined Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. He said the chip supports ...
iPhone 17 Pro in Hand Feature Lowgo

iPhone 17 Pro Coming Soon With These 16 New Features

Friday July 11, 2025 12:40 pm PDT by
Apple's next-generation iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are only two months away, and there are plenty of rumors about the devices. Below, we recap key changes rumored for the iPhone 17 Pro models. Latest Rumors These rumors surfaced in June and July:A redesigned Dynamic Island: It has been rumored that all iPhone 17 models will have a redesigned Dynamic Island interface — it might ...
macbook pro blue green

M5 MacBook Pro No Longer Coming in 2025

Thursday July 10, 2025 12:38 pm PDT by
Apple does not plan to refresh any Macs with updated M5 chips in 2025, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models are now planned for the first half of 2026. Gurman previously said that Apple would debut the M5 MacBook Pro models in late 2025, but his newest report suggests that Apple is "considering" pushing them back to 2026. Apple is now said to be...
iphone 16 pro pro max

iPhone 17 Pro Models With BOE Displays Will Be Sold in China Only

Thursday July 10, 2025 11:59 pm PDT by
iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max models with displays made by BOE will be sold exclusively in China, according to a new report. Last week, it emerged that Chinese display manufacturer BOE was aggressively ramping up its OLED production capacity for future iPhone models as part of a plan to recapture a major role in Apple's supply chain. Now, tech news aggregator Jukan Choi reports...
Apple Watch Ultra 2 Complications

Apple Watch Ultra 3: What to Expect

Sunday July 13, 2025 10:30 am PDT by
The long wait for an Apple Watch Ultra 3 is nearly over, and a handful of new features and changes have been rumored for the device. Below, we recap what to expect from the Apple Watch Ultra 3:Satellite connectivity for sending and receiving text messages when Wi-Fi and cellular coverage is unavailable 5G support, up from LTE on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 Likely a wide-angle OLED display that ...
apple wallet drivers license feature iPhone 15 pro

Apple Says iPhone Driver's Licenses Will Expand to These 8 U.S. States

Tuesday July 8, 2025 11:26 am PDT by
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, providing a convenient and contactless way to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps. Unfortunately, this feature continues to roll out very slowly since it was announced in 2021, with only nine U.S. states, Puerto Rico,...
iPhone 17 Air Colors Thumb 2

iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air Rumored to Come in These 9 Colors

Friday July 11, 2025 12:30 am PDT by
The iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air will be available in a total of nine color options, according to new information coming out of Asia. The iPhone 17 Air's expected color options. According to the leaker going by the account name "yeux1122" on the Korean blog Naver, accessory manufacturers are now producing camera protector rings for the iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air in colors to match their...

Top Rated Comments

troop231 Avatar
179 months ago
I think it would be a great business model if you could just buy individual channels. I mean, there's only a handful of channels I like, why must the consumer be forced to buy all of the garbage channels.
Score: 25 Votes (Like | Disagree)
SilianRail Avatar
179 months ago
The problem is that TVs are already simple and easy to use. Nobody is going to pay $2999 for a 50" Apple TV.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
BuddyTronic Avatar
179 months ago
Many of the kids on this forum probably don't remember the old way of surfing channels where you flip through channels at high speed and watch each channel for about 0.2 seconds along the way and then flip back if you see something you like.

These days with all the goodness of digital TV, you cannot do that anymore. It's really a drag now, you have to know what you want to watch first, and then find it on a blue screen, and put up with endless scrolling, and TV shouldn't have to be that way. (Granted, the PVR is awesome though, but still....)

In the old days you flip on the boob tube and start flicking through channels until you saw something you liked. The process of flipping through is something I miss a lot.

These days, you click and wait 1.5 long seconds for the stupid channel to tune in on digital, and then it's still going to be a repeat of the same show that was on 12 hours ago.

This might have nothing to do with how an Apple TV might function, but I just thought I'd throw this comment about TV Devolution in hopes that it inspires someone to improve how TV's work these days.
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
pewra Avatar
179 months ago
That's a lot of random numbers from an "analyst".

Especially for a device that probably doesn't exist, and most certainly doesn't have a price or audience yet.
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
LimeiBook86 Avatar
179 months ago
Awesome :D I would love a hi-tech TV with built-in Wifi and a channel subscription service from Apple. It would be wonderful if Apple could set us free from channel packages and cable TV services. An 'a la carte' TV channel service or even something like Netflix with more channels / shows would be amazing. :)
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
ArcaneDevice Avatar
179 months ago
It says a lot about the users on this forum when all everyone is concerned about are the number of apps and AppleTV integration and nobody has mentioned the display technology or image quality. Will it be a full-array LED or just another edge-lit with crappy uniformity? If they make a full-array 50+ inch that has excellent image quality then they could easily price it at $4K and it would be perfectly acceptable. I paid $5K for my screen four years ago.

But there is no chance that Apple could make a television that also works with subscription cable without requiring an external box. No chance at all. CableCARD is dead weight to all cable operators, Tru2Way is non-existent, if you live in an SDV area you need a box that doesn't work a lot of the time, most technicians have no clue how to deal with anything other than cable-issued boxes, cablecos all use different software, firmware and APIs that need constant updating to be compliant with their systems ... and even ClearQAM is problematic when providers keep changing the channels.

But to say that television is difficult to use now is idiocy. The only thing that makes a television difficult to use is the complexity and number of devices you have plugged in but on their own you change the channel and volume. A lot of people don't even bother changing the picture settings from supernova store level.

And new models are not lacking for online content either. Every manufacturer now has online streaming and Web apps built in, and they are not hard to use either. No more so than anything on an Apple device.

If Apple made an iOS TV it would benefit Apple junkies but in the US where for the majority digital TV means a box or nothing, the only way they could sell it to the masses is by doing what everyone else does. And that means a cable box or putting up an antenna, because no matter what you may have heard the are plenty of people left who want to watch television using cable or OTA.

Unless Apple has some fantastic streaming option allowing all the major OTA networks for free and then improves the crappy state of US broadband before it becomes more expensive than gold, any television they create has to perform the same tasks as all the others or it's just a big monitor with built-in AppleTV.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)