14 DAY TRIAL // Despite selling half a million Apple TV set-top boxes per quarter, Apple regards the product a ‘hobby’ and is not determined to take the still-fledging TV industry by storm this year, one analyst opines.
"[W]e love the product. It's clear that customers love the product," COO Tim Cook said of the Apple TV during a meeting this month.
"We really guided right when we went to the new Apple TV just last fall. But right now, it's still a hobby status that we're continuing to invest in it because we think that there is something there."
There are many analysts who believe Apple is on the verge of launching a full-fledged Apple-branded television, chief among them being Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster.
Munster strongly believes an Apple HD TV is almost sure to arrive next year at the latest.
Steve Jobs once famously said there’s no go-to-market strategy in the TV industry at the moment. Munster is confident Apple will be able to deliver by next year’s end.
However, Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo tells AppleInsider that his industry checks have churned up little to no indication of such a product.
With more than 480,000 units shipped during the second calendar quarter of this year - a 70% year-over-year growth - the Cupertino tech giant isn’t even planning an incremental update for the Apple TV hardware, Kuo suggests.
Instead, Apple will be taking a different approach to keep things interesting until it attempts to completely revolutionize the industry.
According to the report, Kuo says the company run by Steve Jobs will launch an Apple TV Software Update this fall that will allow iPhones and iPads to “beam their content to the big-screen.”
This means the iPhone and iPad iOS will gain new, unconfirmed functionality. Apple has so far confirmed there will be 200 new features in iOS 5 when it debuts this fall.
However, none speak anything of any TV integration, except for AirPlay mirroring, which basically puts on the big screen what you see on your iPad.