Here's What Those Apple-Samsung TV Rumors Might Be About (AAPL)

One of this week's wackier Apple rumors is that the company is supposedly working with Samsung on some sort of television project.

What's that all about?

We do NOT expect some sort of Samsung-Apple co-branded TV any time soon, or any sort of Samsung TV running an Apple operating system.

If Apple's going to make a TV, it's probably going to do everything itself. That's how Apple makes money.

The most likely answer we can think of -- if there's any element of truth to the rumors -- is that Samsung could potentially be building TVs that support Apple's AirPlay technology built-in. This would allow you to stream video, music, photos, and apps straight from your iPad or iPhone to your TV.

AirPlay is already available for licensing through a company called Bridgeco, and has already been announced for audio gadgets. It's only a matter of time until it's available for video gadgets, too. (Beyond the Apple TV set-top box, that is.)

The AirPlay chip adds about $100 to the cost of the device, we've heard, which is the same price as an Apple TV box, which does a lot more than AirPlay. But there are still probably some people out there who would spend an extra $100 on their Samsung TV for it to be built-in AirPlay-compatible, without needing to hook up an extra device. (And maybe Samsung has figured out a way to reduce the cost.)

How would Apple gain from this? By selling more iPhones, iPod touches, and iPads.

Beyond that, there's also the potential that Apple and Samsung are just teaming up for TV components for an Apple television that could launch sometime in the future. Apple has a big display contract with LG, but it still works with Samsung for a lot of other components, so maybe it's sourcing TV stuff from Samsung.

Either way, we expect to hear more about the next steps for Apple TV sometime by the end of September.

Related: The Next 5 Apple Gadgets To Waste Time Obsessing About

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See Also:

• Apple's YEAR-OLD iPhone 4 Is Still The Top-Selling Smartphone
• CHART OF THE DAY: The iPad Is Still The Only Tablet That Matters
• MUNSTER: An Apple Television Is Coming In 2012

Here's What Those Apple-Samsung TV Rumors Might Be About (AAPL)

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Comment on MacBook Pro Rumors Point to Imminent Refresh by Jason

I would agree, proprietary for data transfer seems a bit hard to pull off, even for apple. They'll really have to get everyone to jump in on it.

Comment on MacBook Pro Rumors Point to Imminent Refresh by Jason

Backlink: http://gigaom.com/apple/macbook-pro-rumors-point-to-imminent-refresh/#comment-598176

Comment on MacBook Pro Rumors Point to Imminent Refresh by Cold Water

Light Peak sounds neat as a system interconnect, but who's got any direct or networked storage that can come close to saturating it?

Comment on MacBook Pro Rumors Point to Imminent Refresh by Cold Water

Backlink: http://gigaom.com/apple/macbook-pro-rumors-point-to-imminent-refresh/#comment-598137

Comment on MacBook Pro Rumors Point to Imminent Refresh by Brett

Proprietary ports are annoying.

Comment on MacBook Pro Rumors Point to Imminent Refresh by Brett

Backlink: http://gigaom.com/apple/macbook-pro-rumors-point-to-imminent-refresh/#comment-598087

Why The Windows-ARM Rumors Make No Sense (MSFT, AAPL, GOOG, RIMM, MOT)

Peter Bright from Ars Technica has an excellent rundown of the recent rumors that Microsoft is porting desktop Windows to the low-powered ARM processor for tablets.

His conclusion: the rumors just don't make sense.

Here's why.

• The main advantage of ARM is better battery life. But the main problem with Windows on tablets isn't battery life, it's lack of a usable touch interface and compatible touch applications.

• Porting the full desktop version of Windows to ARM would be both incredibly expensive and useless: it wouldn't solve the touch interface problems, and it wouldn't have the main advantage of Windows on Intel, which is compatibility with hundreds of thousands of existing apps and hardware peripherals.

• Creating a special embedded version of desktop Windows and letting hardware makers pick and choose the pieces they want to use (as Microsoft did with Windows CE) would be even worse: every "Windows" tablet would potentially have a different user interface, different features, and work with a different set of programs.

• Building a new tablet OS for ARM processors based on desktop Windows might solve the touch interface problems, but still wouldn't run traditional Windows desktop apps. So why bother? It would make much more sense to build the tablet OS based on Windows CE, which has run on ARM processors forever. In addition, Microsoft has already built a great touch interface and development platform on top of Windows CE--Windows Phone 7.

This is probably why Microsoft wasn't even thinking of porting desktop Windows to ARM a year ago.

The logical conclusion: Microsoft isn't announcing a version of desktop Windows that supports ARM. Instead, it'll announce a new platform based on Windows CE--now called Windows Embedded Compact--with some new user interface elements for tablets. This is exactly what ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley speculated on Tuesday.

The company will probably come up with a neat new name like Windows Embedded for Tablets, and folks who don't follow Microsoft closely will assume it's a completely new OS.

But this initiative will fail unless Microsoft does the same thing it did with Windows Phone 7 and places restrictions on hardware makers so that all Windows tablets look and work approximately the same way. If Microsoft lets hardware makers run wild with the tablet OS, like they can (and do) with Windows Embedded Compact on tablets today, then the entire project becomes meaningless.

Even if Microsoft follows the Phone 7 route for tablets, the company has to get this puppy to market fast, or the iPad and onslaught of Android and other tablets will bury it.

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See Also:

• Windows 8 For Tablets? Too Late
• A Year Ago, Microsoft Wouldn't Even Consider Windows On ARM
• Microsoft To Miss Tablet Surge Just Like It Missed Smartphones

Why The Windows-ARM Rumors Make No Sense (MSFT, AAPL, GOOG, RIMM, MOT)

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Getting To The Bottom Of The Crazy Yahoo-Groupon Rumors

I've had an interesting few days trying to track down exactly what is and isn't going on with Yahoo and Groupon. One source earlier this week said that a $1.7 billion acquisition was all but done, but Groupon's management team balked and killed the deal. That's certainly juicy and consistent with Yahoo's failure to acquire Yelp and Foursquare. Another source close to Yahoo said much the same thing, but suggested the price was higher, north of $2 billion.

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