Making an “Apple” TV was always something that stifled the brand. But also something Steve Jobs wanted to undertake almost as a personal challenge. It was his “hobby”. He spent years looking for a way to incorporate it into the Apple formula and enrich the rest of the products. Rather than launching a television, Apple instead cautiously chose an Apple TV – iTV for friends – a simple peripheral to bring apps together. A companion decoder. On January 9, 2007, this little box went on sale, which Jobs himself never convinced as it was just another “fish” in a big fishbowl.
“Television will lose until there is a better strategy, until there is a viable strategy.” And he got it right: Streaming reached traditional television and cinema as well. The AT&T earthquakes are still repeating themselves, and big corporations like Warner are scrambling to adapt their proposals without shooting themselves in the foot, with simultaneous film and television premieres, cable exclusives, controlled leaks, or a straight-forward return to the traditional model.
But that wasn’t the solution Jobs was looking for. Jobs wanted to bring the iPhone experience to the TV: good materials, good experience, and good margins. And “Television is a terrible business. It’s not evolving and the margins suck.”
The Apple TV, Steve Jobs’ last wish
Although Apple was going to make TVs, it probably never will. And it makes perfect sense. But we still don’t anticipate the event. Let’s go back a few years to the appointed day. “It’s going to have the simplest user interface imaginable. I finally figured it out'”. Apparently, Steve Jobs found the alchemical formula a few weeks before his death.
In his final days, Steve picked up the phone and called tech writer Walt Mossberg and invited him over to his home to talk about the play. “I think we’ve found a way to do it and it’s going to be fantastic.” It was the night of August 24, 2011, the same day he finally hung up his hat as CEO. He died five weeks later. After his death, even Walter Isaacson, his personal biographer, said so Steve had already developed the right strategyI had already managed to figure out how to make the Apple TV work.
Jobs stepped down as CEO but indicated he would stay on. This was the project he worked on until his last days. He never went into details about the hardware and software, but apparently found a hybrid model, an integrated set that would function as a console – with a system similar to Apple Arcade or the current Xbox Cloud Gaming – as a television and act as a transmitter -Streaming. In general, the strategy lay in Bypassing the cable companies by using iCloud as the main interface and container. Something that is still being worked on.
Apple acquired some platforms like Matcha but didn’t move on. Other rumors suggest Apple was about to order 55-inch and 65-inch UHD panels from Samsung Electronics Co. in the summer of 2014. When this hot potato got into Tim Cook’s hands, it became one of those zero priority projects. The Apple Car is definitely ahead. And the fact is that the Apple TV makes less sense today than ever: Manufacturers like LG are producing high-quality OLED panels 300% cheaper than five years ago. TCL ate Samsung’s toast for sale even cheaper.
If Apple’s best-selling device is the MacBook Air at its reasonable price, Where would a €6,000 or €8,000 TV with slow production and limited distribution fit? Technologies like QNED or Mini-LED are advancing at cruising speed while Apple maintains its reliance on third-party suppliers. No, it’s not your deal.
And that’s not because they’re now playing the game with their own “Ready Player One” bet: the reality pro glasses have decades of work behind them and the latest leaks are already making it clear that something really big is about to happen. Something that will add the usability of the iPad with the interactivity of haptic play, a clean user interface and a design and material quality “made in Apple”. A risky move? And necessary. We don’t know if Steve Jobs would be proud, but he would find it more appealing than the Apple TV, which he was never satisfied with.
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