Apple TV

Apple TV: Did Steve Jobs crack the code?

Word that Steve Jobs cracked the code to creating a simple television before he died set off a new round of speculation that an Apple TV set was coming sooner than later.

In Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs, the Apple co-founder was quoted talking about TV. Jobs said:

I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synched with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.

Piper Jaffray Gene Munster has been arguing for … Read more

Via files patent suit against Apple, iPhone

Via Technologies has sued Apple for patent infringement in regard to Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Apple TV products and associated software, Via said today in a statement.

The patents involved cover microprocessor functionality in the above mentioned products, Via said, singling out U.S. Patent No. 6253312, "method and apparatus for double operand load," and U.S. Patents Nos. 6253311 and 6754810, "instruction set for bi-directional conversion and transfer of integer and floating point data."

Taiwan-based Via bills itself as "a leading innovator of power efficient x86 processor platforms." Today's patent … Read more

Apple working on a TV set for 2012?

The latest Apple TV rumor may seem like a rerun, but this one has been updated.

The newest iteration of the longstanding rumor is that Apple will get in to the business of selling TVs by building a digital TV based on iOS. That's according to multiple Silicon Valley sources cited by Venture Beat. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster told Venture Beat that he predicted Apple would produce a TV set by the end of 2012 or early 2013.

Munster, who has long been trumpeting the possibility of an Apple-made TV set, first floated the notion in 2009 that Apple would take a bite out of the TV market in 2011 by introducing its first television. Munster wrote in June that Apple's recently announced iCloud infrastructure makes it all the more plausible.

The rumor mill gathered steam again earlier this week when the concept garnered a brief note in a Wall Street Journal report on the challenges faced by Tim Cook, the man named to replace Steve Jobs as Apple's CEO:

An immediate challenge for Mr. Cook will be to advance Apple's plans in what is expected to be a key market for growth: digital video. Apple is working on new technology to deliver video to televisions, and has been discussing whether to try to launch a subscription TV service, according to people familiar with the matter.

AppleTV update adds TV show buying, Vimeo

A new software update for Apple's Apple TV streaming box has added a feature that makes up for the lack of built-in storage by making purchased video content available whenever viewers want to watch it. The company's $99 box can now stream purchased TV shows on demand directly from Apple's servers, and also lets users buy content directly from the box.

The move to serve up purchased videos is no minor addition. One the Apple TV's biggest losses in the move to a rental-only model (besides no longer storing content locally) was that you ended up … Read more

Analyst: Apple ripe for HDTV and 'Genius Squad'

Could Apple be at work on a TV set? That's a theory Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster has been trumpeting for years now. Joining him is UBS Investment Research analyst Maynard Um with a report today about how the gadget maker could expand its market cap by delving into new services in the coming years, notably the TV set business and an expanded version of its tech support offerings.

Um suggests that Apple's in a good position to boost its market cap by anywhere from $50 billion to $100 billion by getting into the business of making and … Read more

Analyst: iCloud linked to Apple's TV ambitions

The longstanding rumor that Apple intends to jump into the business of selling televisions could be coming closer to reality thanks to iCloud, a new analyst report suggests.

Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster, who has long been trumpeting the possibility--or as he calls it, the firm's "thesis"--of an Apple-made TV set, says Apple's recently-announced iCloud infrastructure makes it all the more plausible.

"Apple's iCloud service for media storage makes it simpler to own multiple Apple devices and share content among them," Munster wrote in a note to investors this morning. "At … Read more

Report: Apple TV set could be coming this year

Apple continues to make headway into the living room with its Apple TV set-top boxes, HDMI-sporting Mac Minis, and the latest iPad, which can be hooked up to TV sets using a $39 AV adapter. But the prediction that keeps surfacing is that Apple plans to take a step out of the process of getting content to the TV by offering a TV set of its own.

In a note to investors, picked up by AppleInsider, Ticonderoga Securities analyst Brian White said that Apple was moving towards offering a TV set of its own "at a faster pace than … Read more

Report: Apple mulling video license for AirPlay

Apple's AirPlay video streaming technology could be making the leap from the Apple TV set-top box to non-Apple living room hardware.

A report by Bloomberg, which cites anonymous sources, says Apple is weighing a licensing program for the video component of its AirPlay technology that would let gadget makers incorporate the wireless streaming into televisions and set-top boxes.

Apple introduced AirPlay late last year as the successor to its AirTunes wireless audio streaming technology. The renaming was also meant to explain to consumers that, with the incorporation of video streaming, the technology was no longer just for audio. With … Read more

New sports channels signal shift in Apple TV

It's becoming obvious that Apple TV is not a hobby anymore.

The company had famously referred to its set-top device that way when it premiered four years ago as a way of keeping expectations low. But with today's software update, Apple is being more aggressive about making Apple TV competitive with its set-top rivals.

As part of the iOS 4.3 update released today, Apple TV owners will now have access to MLB.TV and NBA League Pass. Both are subscription services for streaming live games over the Web, and like Netflix, which is already on Apple TV, … Read more

Vevo in, Netflix out on iOS 4.3 AirPlay update

Starting March 11, when iOS 4.3 launches, users will be able to stream content from third-party apps on the iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch to an Apple TV. But so far, the scope of support for the functionality is very much up in the air.

Music-video site Vevo is one of the few companies to acknowledge that it's ready to take advantage of the new AirPlay functionality. The company added support for the feature on Wednesday to its iPad and iPhone apps.

But unlike Vevo, Netflix doesn't see the benefit of adding support for Apple's new … Read more