RUMOR: Apple looking to ink global content deals for Apple-branded 55-inch OLED TV

“Apple, who is trying to cut global deals with Hollywood movie studios, has included Australia in a list of countries that the Company wants rights to first run movies for,” David Richards reports for Smarthouse. “They are also looking to launch a 55″ OLED TV.”

Among the rights Apple are after are current TV shows being aired in the USA, claims a Hollywood lawyer who believes that Apple will launch a new TV in 2012,” Richards reports. “There is also speculation that Apple has held discussions with LG Display the Company that makes display screens for MAC [sic] products, about the possibility of getting access to a new 55″ LG OLED panel that will be used in a new Apple TV that will be capable of delivering music, video & TV shows over an IP network.”

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Richards reports, “In other Apple news, the Company that has amassed a war chest of $80 Billion dollars in cash and securities was tipped as being interested in acquiring the rights to the Hulu online video service.”

Read more in the full article here.

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36 Comments

    1. I wouldn’t worry about it. There are no OLED panels that large. Sony–who developed the technology–can barely get 13″ panels to market. This is one of those rumors that just picks the latest tech available and attaches it to Apple. Which just proves it isn’t true.

    1. If Apple would release TV set, then the scale of this business would be considered as “hobby” — since Apple needs 40% margins (what is twice higher than in this industry) and comparatively little quantity of people would be able to buy such sets.

      So yes, I do not see much sense in that, too. It reminds me of early 2000s talks about how Apple “needs” to release a PDA.

  1. I still think there is a 0% chance this happens.

    If it did, does that mean the advent of the Genius Squad? People aren’t going to tote a 55″ TV into an Apple Store.

  2. Take it to the bank ,they will not do this ,as a industry insider ,there are no profits to be made on a high quality display .talk to pioneer or fujitsu
    Both dropped out of market and their sets were leading models.

    1. Lots of ‘industry insiders’ didn’t believe in tablets and then came the iPad. Not those insiders have their own Pad knock-offs. Not too well. An Apple ‘TV’ would fill a gaping hole that currently exists in the iEcosystem- or the entire digital environment for that matter. Just remember- almost everything Apple has done was doubted and not believed to be possible or sensible: Apple store, phone, tablet, cloud, video on an iPod (remember that?!). Take that to the bank.

  3. And will the price be like the iPad “rumored” price below $1000 which is code for $999.00? Or will the TV be like the actual introductory iPad price of $499.00?

    So, will the AppleTV be $2000.00 code for $1999.00 or will it be introduced as $1499?

  4. Apple branded TVs will happen

    how many years of rumors regarding video iPods, iPod phones, and Tablets did we endure before they became a reality. If there wasn’t something there, we wouldn’t be hearing all of these rumors. Expect them to continue to ramp up, slowly becoming more specific over time, until we are all aware of the exact press conference where the iTVs will be revealed, just like the phone and the pad.

    As for apple’s unwillingness to enter an unfamiliar low margin market crowded with competitors, this wouldn’t be the first time they have pushed into markets initially deemed as too hostile. Remember the world of highly subsidized mobile phones tied to specific carriers people believed Apple would never be able to crack in 2005?

  5. Being organic, does it mean it will be certified by the USDA…?

    It is quite annoying that the word ‘organic’ has been commandeered by the food industry to represent food grown naturally (without pesticides, growth hormones, antibiotics, etc), thereby completely confusing its original meaning (as in ‘organic chemistry’, or chemistry of the carbon-based compounds).

  6. When I picked up the iPhone4 in Soho last summer on Day One I noticed that everything in the store was Apple branded except a 40″ Samsung TV playing Apple commercials in the back corner to the left of the staircase. It felt inevitable that they’d look to replace that Samsung with an Apple.

  7. Has anyone at MDN ever worked for Apple. And if they haven’t why do they write as if they ever have. As an Apple employee they annoy me with their take sometimes.

  8. I think they should license AirPlay bundled with iTunes to every major TV maker. Take the innards of the current ATV and put it in all the TVs, bluray players, set top boxes.
    Tagline iOS compatible, AppleTV, works with iPhone, etc.
    It would be like them selling the current AppleTV to anyone who buys a TV from everyone else.
    Nothing wrong with an actual AppleHDTV either but I really think this is the one case where they should license their tech and software out.

  9. Apple Surface! This is a rumor that is iterative from one know nothing to another. What Apple is really planning is to use it’s cash horde to buy NASA, relaunch a space shuttle built with iPad ceramic tiles and run with Apple brand dilithium crystals and 10,000 lucite cubes.

  10. Sounds like baseless speculation.

    Apple can’t even consistently deliver 1080p video today. If Apple wants to compete in large-display cinema, it needs to exceed the video quality that Blu-Ray offers. AppleTV, as i recall, is still referenced as a “hobby”. Maybe if true 4k horizontal resolution and content were delivered, then cinephiles would take notice. But Apple would have to figure out how to get such content through the pipelines, currently controlled by 3rd parties who aren’t interested in supporting a new competitor.

    Rebranding someone else’s display is neither financially attractive nor strategic. As a manufacturer of electronics, margins are slim and shrinking. Just ask Lowe, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, Runco, Zenith, and every other former high-end video display manufacturer. Apple would be better off licensing AppleTV very inexpensively to Panasonic or other leading display manufacturer(s).

    …and finally: Vizio sucks. It’s a cheap knockoff brand for people who pick their TVs in warehouses under fluorescent lights from a wall of high-volume booming, uncalibrated boxes.

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