Sony Seeking to Beat Apple in Revolutionizing Television
Much has been made of Steve Jobs' revelation in his authorized biography about having "cracked" how to develop a revolutionary interface for an integrated television set, a disclosure that has led to claims of Apple working to launch a Siri-enabled television set by 2013.
The Wall Street Journal takes a look at how seriously Sony is taking the Apple threat, sharing comments from Sony CEO Howard Stringer about the strategies the company is seeking to employ, beginning with a "platform" spanning all the way from mobile devices to television sets.
Sony has a "four screen" strategy of offering network services on mobile phones, tablet computers, personal computers and TV sets. "I spent the last five years building a platform so I can compete against Steve Jobs," Mr. Stringer said. "It's finished, and it's launching now."
Stringer also claims that Sony has some ideas about a "different kind of TV set" that it has been working on as it seeks to beat Apple to the punch.
Mr. Stringer declined to discuss details of what Sony has on the drawing board, but said, "There's a tremendous amount of R&D going into a different kind of TV set." He added that he has "no doubt" Apple's late leader Steve Jobs also was working on changing the traditional TV set.
"That's what we're all looking for," said Mr. Stringer. "We can't continue selling TV sets [the way we have been]. Every TV set we all make loses money."
Stringer touches on several other topics in his interview, including an admission that Sony failed to realize how difficult it would be to get content providers to sign on to provide 3-D programming, a reluctance that has significantly slowed adoption of the technology. Stringer also briefly mentions the iPhone and his belief that other platforms will match the iOS experience, but that those platforms will need to adopt the seamless experience Apple has championed for its "well organized" devices and ecosystem.
Popular Stories
2026 could be a bumper year for Apple's Mac lineup, with the company expected to announce as many as four separate MacBook launches. Rumors suggest Apple will court both ends of the consumer spectrum, with more affordable options for students and feature-rich premium lines for users that seek the highest specifications from a laptop.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
...
Apple's iPhone development roadmap runs several years into the future and the company is continually working with suppliers on several successive iPhone models at the same time, which is why we often get rumored features months ahead of launch. The iPhone 18 series is no different, and we already have a good idea of what to expect for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max.
One thing worth...
In a statement shared with CNBC today, Apple confirmed that Google Gemini will power the next-generation version of Siri that is slated to launch later this year.
"After careful evaluation, we determined that Google's technology provides the most capable foundation for Apple Foundation Models and we're excited about the innovative new experiences it will unlock for our users," the statement...
Elon Musk today expressed concern about Apple and Google partnering on a more personalized version of Siri powered by Google's generative AI platform Gemini.
"This seems like an unreasonable concentration of power for Google, given that [they] also have Android and Chrome," wrote Musk, in a post on X.
Musk serves as CEO of xAI, the company behind Gemini competitor Grok.
It is unlikely...
Apple today seeded the second beta of iOS 26.3, nearly a month after the first beta. So far, the update includes a couple of new features for iPhones.
iOS 15.3 through iOS 18.3 were all released in late January over the years, so it is thereby likely that iOS 26.3 will be released towards the end of this month as well. The update is compatible with the iPhone 11 series and newer.
Below,...
The Unicode Consortium has published a draft list of emoji that could come to smartphones and other devices in the future. The list shared by Emojipedia outlines 19 emoji candidates under consideration for Emoji 18.0, which is expected to be finalized in September 2026.
Among the proposed additions are a squinting face emoji, left- and right-pointing thumb gestures, a pickle, a lighthouse, a ...
Apple and Google today announced that Google Gemini will help power not only a more personalized version of Siri, but a range of future Apple Intelligence features.
"Apple and Google have entered into a multi-year collaboration under which the next generation of Apple Foundation Models will be based on Google's Gemini models and cloud technology," the companies said, in a statement. "These...
Back in late 2022 and early 2023, Apple rolled out a new architecture for its Apple Home platform to deliver improved performance and compatibility, although the rollout came with some hiccups that forced Apple to pull and later re-release the upgrade.
Three years later, Apple is now on the verge of ending support for the old version of the Home architecture, which may result in access to...
