The idea that Apple was going to manufacture their own brand of television harkens back to Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs biography. Even Apple-branded-television champion Gene Munster abandoned that idea sometime last year.

Robert X. Cringely rightly points out that TVs have long been commoditized. Instead of TVs themselves:

The technical area I think Apple wants to dominate is High Dynamic Range (HDR) video — technology for making displays of all types brighter and display more colors. Right now there are two major video advances entering the market — 4K and HDR — and tests show HDR is a much more obvious improvement than 4K for viewers.

And:

Apple could be preparing its own 4K HDR OLED TV for sale but I don’t think so. A better move for Apple would be to take command of the whole HDR video wave by acquiring a dominant position in HDR intellectual property. That way every new TV from any manufacturer would have to license IP from Apple in order to be attractive to buyers.

And:

By controlling HDR Apple could come to control the entire video ecosystem. And the best way for Apple to control HDR would be by acquiring Dolby Labs.

Cringely’s article walks you through the technology behind (perhaps) the next wave of consumer TV purchases. There’s both futurism and history, lot’s of interesting bits to chew on. Definitely interesting, all the way through.