The drumbeat is growing: a lot of people think Apple is going to introduce a TV set in 2012.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster reiterated his call for a 2012 Apple TV, and technology grandee Jean-Louis Gassée takes a stab at figuring out what it'll be like:
Imagine a true plug-and-play experience. One set with only two wires: power and the cable TV coax. Turn it on, assert your Apple ID credentials and you’re in business. The program guide looks good and is easy to navigate; pay channels are just a click and a password away. The TV runs apps, from games to FaceTime and Skype, it “just works’’ with your other iDevices and also acts as a Wi-Fi base station using the cable provider’s Internet service.
One problem is that the Apple TV would have to support the many cable systems. The TV would have to either only support a few operators, or be complex and prone to bugs. Cable operators killed the CableCARD, which was supposed to plug into your TV and replace your set-top box, because it would be too complex to service. Apple would have to either rely on the cable guys to play nice and support it or, Gassée speculates, create its own "Apple Geek Squad" that would come to your house and fix it.
The other problem is that people don't upgrade their TVs as often as they do their other consumer electronics. Moore's Law ensures that computers and phones quickly become obsolete, and you have a reason to spring for a new computer and phone every year or every two years. Once a family springs for a big, great TV, they won't renew so often.
But you could have made the same argument with phones: carriers have different systems, have competing requirements, and Apple worked that out over time. The phone business is commoditized, with wafer-thin margins, and Apple came up with must-have devices that allowed it to get carriers to play nice and (thanks to subsidies) sell incredibly powerful phones.
As Munster says, "Apple will do to TV manufacturers what it did to phone makers with the iPhone."
Let's just hope they don't call it an iTV →
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Here's What The Apple TV Will Be Like (AAPL)
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