“I believe you can detect traces of what might make an Apple television a truly distinctive – and distinctively Apple – proposition in the arrival and gradual device-creep of Apple’s HomeKit system,” John Archer writes for Forbes. “But now I’ve also started to see a potential solution to the seemingly more intractable pricing issue. Namely that Apple could be planning to launch the world’s first television given away to consumers – or at least heavily subsidised – on the back of a contract-based business model.”
“The idea of an expensive Apple product doing explosively well on the back of a contract sales model is, of course, hardly new [see:iPhone],” Archer writes. “Intriguing though this scenario sounds, however, there’s a pretty major problem with it: the sort of subscription broadcasting platforms that currently give away or subsidise hardware in return for a minimum period of viewer subscription are definitely not Apple’s friends… Cue a much simpler and more direct solution: Apple itself sets up the subscription-based content service/package through which it could subsidise its home-grown TV hardware.”
“If an Apple TV is designed from the ground up to work optimally with the new sort of TV distribution model I’ve been talking about in this article, then it truly could deliver just the sort of game-changing interface and experience that’s become Apple’s trademark,” Archer writes. “All doubtless wrapped up in some deeply glamorous aesthetic design and potentially able to run your entire electronic household via the HomeKit system.”
Much more in the full article here.