We’re sure that both fans and critics of Apple are eagerly waiting to see what sort of iTV the company could launch, especially after Steve Jobs famously claimed in his biography to have cracked the TV market. While we wait and see if rumors of such a device actually plays out, it looks like the TV market could have another player and this time in the form of Intel, a move which we’re sure some of you guys would not have thought of. This is according to sources in the video distribution industry who shared Intel’s supposed plans with the folks at TechCrunch.
According to the source, it seems that Intel has been eyeing an opportunity to get their chips into living room, and after failing to get smart TV manufacturers to use their chips, they have decided the best way to go about it would be to launch a TV themselves. Intel’s plan is to not only create a set-top box, but launch a subscription TV service of their own, which could involve streaming service such as Redbox’s. Apparently this isn’t the first time that it has been suggested that Intel could be looking to make a leap into the TV industry as earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Intel could be interested in creating a pay-TV service of their own.
In any case assuming TechCrunch’s source is accurate, Intel is set to debut their new hardware at CES 2013 and could begin rolling out their service further down the road. The rollout is expected to be conducted on a city-by-city basis which will encourage content providers to try something new. We’ll take this with a grain of salt for now, but with CES only a week away, we guess we won’t have to wait too long to see if this rumor pans out.