For the past few years now it has been consistently rumored that Apple is working on a full fledged HDTV set. As per recent rumors the project has been pushed back by two years, meaning that we shouldn’t expect it to drop until 2015. Apple itself has never commented on its alleged TV plans. The company’s late co-founder and CEO had apparently told top executives that the company won’t be releasing television set. Its mentioned in a new book called Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs, written by former Wall Street Journal Apple reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane.
It is well known that once a year Jobs took the company’s top 100 employees to a remote location for a meeting. They were only told about the meeting a month in advance and were not allowed to email anyone from there. It was apparently at this meeting back in 2010, when Jobs was believed to be quite sick, that he responded to a question about the company’s plans to release a TV with a stern “No.” He is quoted to have said that “TV is a terrible business. They don’t turn over and the margins suck.”
The question was asked by an executive present at that meeting, based on all of the rumors that had been flying around. Even though in Jobs’ lifetime that might not have happened, it should be kept in mind that there’s someone else at the helm now. There’s a difference between Jobs’ rule and Cook’s existing control over the company, so its quite possible that somewhere down the line when the company feels its the right time, it may jump into the business of television sets.
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