“Apple is gearing up to launch a revamped Apple TV, but will not push into the television market this year, as many assumed, according to new reports,” Gregg Keizer reports for Computerworld.
“The project to make Apple TV a comprehensive set-top box, perhaps sold to consumers, perhaps in bulk to cable providers, has been forced on Apple by the cable companies’ and content makers’ unwillingness to cede control to the Cupertino, Calif. company, said Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal in stories yesterday,” Keizer reports. “That Apple is apparently not diving into the smart television market this year was also an indication that the company is leery of entering a space where margins are tight and sales have slowed.”
“The ultimate goal of ‘smart TV,’ or ‘interactive TV’ as it’s also called — the ability to call up any program at any time, perhaps paying for each program separately rather than have to subscribe to a broad swath of content — is targeted advertising, said Aram Sinnreich, a media professor at Rutgers University,” Keizer reports. “‘The Holy Grail is advertising that knows who is in the living room and what they want, then provides them with information for buying,’ said Sinnreich. ‘Those are the missing pieces that the cable companies don’t have… The question is who’s going to be providing the link from the channel to the living room, and how it will be monetized. So maybe Apple will retrench [its plans] and do what it does best, make awesome devices with a high profit margin.'”
Read more in the full article here.
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