Analyst Andy Hargreaves said this morning that he believes an “Apple Television would be ‘extremely unlikely’ in the near term.” Not that I disagree with his assertion, but the way he arrived at it is a bit sketchy to me.
He came to the conclusion after a meeting with Apple’s Eddy Cue. Basically Cue said Apple will enter a market when its damn good and ready and there are problems with the current television setup. These are the same things Steve Jobs said publicly about television, so there is really nothing new there.
We also don’t know what “near term” is. Next week, next month, two years from now. Hargreaves note just seemed odd to me and not based on anything factual.
An Apple HDTV isn’t happening. It makes absolutely no sense. Profit margins on TVs are pretty low, so there’s no incentive to jump into the industry. It’s much wiser to allow Samsung, Sony and others to provide the low profit margin TV sets while Apple reaps the rewards from VOD and music downloads.
based on no content deals that is amenable to Apple.
Apple is not going to get Ala-carte.
Apple is not going to get Live Sports.
Apple is not going to get Cable content without the cable prices.
Apple is not going to sell 50 inch TV in their little store, let alone come install it in your home.
I would argue that Apple has Ala-carte programming right now with iTunes.
And they also have live sports. You can watch MLB, NHL, and NBA live on an Apple TV right now, with the appropriate season pass package. They each have their own dedicated app. I imagine this is exactly the way Apple wants it to be. All they need is NFL.
They already sell 27″ screens, why not 50″. I wouldn’t expect Apple to do installs anyway.