Apple cofounder Steve Jobs reportedly made it clear before he died that Apple wouldn’t pursue its own television set, but the company may now be revisiting the idea over a decade later.
Although Apple hasn’t made any announcements about a TV set, Bloomberg reported that the tech giant is evaluating the concept. That comes as Apple is said to be exploring smart home devices like a wall-mounted tablet or an AI assistant attached to a robotic arm as it looks to expand its offerings.
It’s clear that the company is doing some soul-searching to find potential wins in multiple areas. Now that Apple Intelligence has launched, it can bring AI to new device lineups — including a home assistant or TV.
An Apple-branded TV set isn’t new territory. It’s an idea that its late founder and former CEO Jobs seemed to have a strong — and variable — opinion on.
Jobs reportedly told biographer Walter Isaacson that he’d “finally cracked” how to make TVs simpler to use. In his biography “Steve Jobs,” released in 2011, Isaacson wrote that the Apple founder wanted to make TVs more elegant and transform them the same way Apple had done for phones and computers.
Still, it’s reported that Jobs had qualms with the television until his last days at Apple. In 2014, writer and former Apple beat reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane wrote in her book, “Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs,” that Jobs told top Apple employees in 2010 that the company wouldn’t be making a TV set.
As it stands, the Apple TV we know now is a box and remote set that connects to a television to bring Apple apps and streaming services to a big screen.
Apple’s services business, which includes Apple TV+ subscriptions, has boomed in recent quarters. AppleTV+ has produced hit original shows like “Severance” and “Ted Lasso.”
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