Apple could finally unveil its long-awaited TV in time for the holiday-shopping season, but not this year’s. In an investors note, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said he believes Apple will kick off the TV in November 2013. The new forecast is a change from his previous report in which he projected that Apple would announce the TV next month and ship it next year, says a CNet story.
If and when it ever debuts, the new TV would likely retail for $1,500 to $2,000 and would offer screen sizes from 42 inches to 55 inches, according to Munster. “We expect the beauty of the design to be a feature, but the most important feature will be the ability to use the TV as the main interface for the living room across multiple devices,” Munster said. “We believe the TV will include Siri and FaceTime. The biggest item unlikely to come with the TV will be unbundled channels.”
RBR-TVBR observation: As we have stated, to launch the Apple TV and make it the offering that many are expecting, Apple needs to get quite a bit of licensing and technical deals in place. Designing it may prove easy compared with convincing media and cable companies to loosen their grip on the television industry. Apple and cable providers have reportedly also disagreed on whether a new Apple TV set-top box should be sold directly to customers or leased through cable providers. Indeed, one of Apple TV’s biggest features will be Siri voice commands for everything it does—as some of us know, though, Siri isn’t always that smart. Perhaps they’re working in upgrading her ability to work with multitasked commands, as well as content licensing deals.
