Piper: Apple's $3.9B component deal more evidence of Apple television - Page 2

Why not one step at a time?

Add a 30" this year to the iMac refresh and include an option to add an internal AppleTV. I plan on replacing my original G5 iMac (ordered the day it was announced) with a new one (to be ordered the day the Sandy Bridge is announced) and I would pay for a 30" upgrade, especially if AppleTV is included.

As for the $3.9 Billion, I can see displays as being at the top of the list. I can also see Apple being willing to invest more (up to $10 Billion) for other enhancements, like doubling the size of their new server farm, enhancing protection for other components for their mobile lines (including capital investments capital equipment for producing memory.

What else would Apple potentially need that would benefit from pre-payments.

Aircraft aluminum.

How about we work on getting a 30" display before we start talking about TVs.

(Oh, forgot, Apple doesn't care about its computer products anymore)

Munster has been barking up this tree for years, and for years, I've said he's full of it. There's nothing Apple can bring to the television set that it can't solve with AppleTV... Even the TV interface if it wanted to... Just add throughput to it, and now you're watching TV through Apple's box with Apple's UI.

-Clive

Sorry, but didn't I say glassless?
Glassless 3d gadgets are coming (Nintendo 3ds, LG Optimus, HTC, Sharp, etc). And it does have a lot of sense, since the autostereoscopic technology (based on parallax barrier) works much better for mobile devices because they do not require 180 viewing angle as big TVs do.

Good points! Yep Apple does seem to do only glossy screens. I do think that any TV manufacturer would love to make the TV's for Apple. Manufacturers are scrambling to have "something" to differentiate themselves from the other TV manufacturers and having Apple "inside" (Bom bom bom bommm-thankyou) could be just the trick. They would look at it as a premium product and as you say, get premium pricing...plus Stevo could tell Schmidt to stick it up his nose so to speak where Apple succeeds with a TV and Google fails, again! Best

Exactly .... with "TiVo" and a TV tuner built in ..... and then sell an app for each channel that you want on a subscription basis ..... it's a no brainer. ... lol

As far as Apple is concerned the iPad IS the future of TV.

-iPad 3 will have a retina display so HD content will be amazing
-The avg American home has 3 TVs (that's the old model)
-In 10 years the avg American home will have 1 TV and 3 iPads (that's the new model)

I call shenanigans.

We will see higher ipad resolutions before apple sells a TV. We will see higher iMac resolutions before apple sells a tv.

Wish Apple would get into the automation/control market. One quick way is to buy Savant out: http://www.savantav.com/

Would love to see Apple give Crestron and Extron a run for their money!

Brilliant! Pretty cool stuff.

Wouldn't the imac essentially be the TV in the diagram already? Dumbest rumor ever and it would make no sense for Apple to pursue a full blown TV. What would it be an imac without OSX? HUH?

We've seen this guy push this rumor a million times before. UGH you'd think he'd find something original to talk about. May I suggest and Apple branded appliances instead? I want Ikitchen and ilaundry.

Am I reading your post wrong? "3D sucks because you have to wear glasses" ... "If the whole 3D thing was just in the glasses, it coulc catch on".

Those seem completely contradictory. To me, the only way it'll really catch on is to eliminate the glasses alltogether. If I'm not mistaken, this has been developed in a limited way, but you need to be directly in front of the set. I see that as being the path to success in the 3D TV market. No glasses whatsoever.

as much as i want to call munster an asshole, this will happen. of course when you leave yourself a window from late 2012 to future, any electronics company still standing 5-10 years from now will introduce a tv too. no big deal. just like the tablet invasion right now, they will all disappear in a year except for a few winners.

apple could introduce a tv with an appletv built-in today but what will they do about content? they need more than some movie and tv show rentals. they need to lure in the greedy / failing cable companies and/or studios directly just like they did with the record labels. then they can take over those distribution channels too for better or worse.

.

Yea, yea - Gene has maybe always, in a sense, sorta been 'out there'

Perhaps covering Apple for 20 odd years will do that

But must say - a few of these comments about took my breath away

Please - some of you tell us what you REALLY think about the Man



.

Regardless of the veracity of this particular prediction

The 'idea' is valid - that 'something' is going on - maybe in TV, maybe not

We'll see in time

.

What we do know from this report, and it keeps showing itself over and over

To all the Folks who constantly byatch about Apple sitting on a pile of cash

"Apple, give us a dividend. Apple, lower your prices. Apple, do something with that money"

Well - here we go - and $3.9 Billion ain't chump change

.

WHATEVER Apple's plan - we'll find out when ready, but be sure of this

It will be - as Dave said

"Something Wonderful"






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P.S.


Ok, here's example of what we can expect in the future from "whatever" this may be

(and found this Story/Link via MacSurfer, bit surprised Insider not picked it up)

http://www.betanews.com/joewilcox/ar...ago/1296750375

Again, Apple's aiming for where the puck WILL be

Are times when that can be very tough to "see" until it happens

And until we're able to look back

.

and the picture is wrong

$299 for a PS3 which includes a nice blu ray player. and only idiots buy DVR's when you can rent for $13 a month from your cable company

Agreed, would be a dumb move by Apple & I think they know it. Apple TV standalone for 99 bucks can't be beat.

I could see them inventing some new wireless ways to get audio & video from the ATV to TVs though, they would be AirPlay compatible TVs or something like that. Then the only cable an ATV would have would be power.

no, because most people already have a blu-ray player or game console that does all these things. i know someone that bought an internet TV and these people never use the features. they were either sold them by best buy or they wanted the entire feature list just to have

and TV prices are always falling. the $1300 47" TV someone i know bought back in July is $899 now on clearance with a blu ray player included. only way apple could make money is to only sell the biggest screens

Spot on... that's why TV sizes have moved from 27" to 40" to 50" to 60" in response to consumer demand.

An iPad would be just grrrrrreatt.

Some of you have touched on why Apple will not be giving us TVs in the near future, but the primary reason is they can't distribute all the content they need to have available.

WHEN Apple can broadcast all live events LIVE and distribute EVERYTHING else easily (either by subscription or ala carte), THEN we will see the possibility of an Apple HD TV.

If Apple HDTV were available today, NONE of it's faithful would be hosting Super Bowl parties this weekend. Why? Because Apple wouldn't have the content available.

But you know what? IF Apple HAD that kind of content available they could make every TV into an Apple HD TV via an iPad or a more advanced Apple TV, so there would be no need for the TV we are discussing.

Content is the key here. Nothing can happen (that we really want) until it's ALL available.

If I were Apple, that's what I'd be working on.

Why would Apple make an Apple branded TV when they could just put a dock connector on Apple TV and wait for manufacturers to support it. Then you would just buy a TV with an Apple TV dock and slide your Apple TV into the dock and you'd have a 50" Apple TV.

Can anyone tell me if Munster has ever been right about anything? I'm surprised he's actually paid for this stuff.

You may be able to stop paying the cable or phone company for TV service but you still need them for internet, otherwise how do you plan to access iTunes?

They will either have to make a deal with Apple or will use their power to slow this model.

In this end this would be great for consumers though.

Apple will not get into the consumer large-screen HDTV market. As smart as Apple has been, it would be a disaster for them.

The HDTV market is a low-margin market. Apple cannot compete against LG, Samsung and Toshiba and probably not even against Panasonic or Sony.

Apple might be able to compete at the high end of the market, but Pioneer, who had plasma sets with the highest quality picture, failed and left the market, even though their sets are still in great demand by video geeks.

Furthermore, Apple's simplification of product design would probably work against them in this case. HDTVs have numerous inputs/outputs, including legacy connections. Most sets support composite video, composite S-Video, component video and HDMI as well as analog, TosLink and in some cases, coax digital in and out. Knowing Apple, they'd stick their mini-display port on there and be done with it and limit the connectivity of other devices. Now I'm not saying that all the legacy connections are absolutely necessary, but it's what the marketplace expects.

Most modern sets have some web apps and connectivity built-in to support Pandora, Netflix, Amazon On-Demand and many others. Apple would probably only support Apple TV or links to the iTunes store.

I think Apple would produce a set that has a great design and looks fantastic when shut off. I think their menu design would kill everyone else's (although I'm not all that impressed with Apple TV). But I think they would not be interested in necessarily providing the best picture quality and they probably wouldn't provide ISF control access for calibrators. And since they'd probably be priced among the most expensive sets in the market, I don't see how they'd be successful, except among those who must have Apple everything.

The electronics manufacturers come out with new models every year. As the year progresses, the price of current models varies considerably. Apple doesn't do this. Even after new models are released, the price of previous Apple models drop only modestly. In addition, street prices tend to be way below list price. Apple would have a hard time competing with this. For example, Sony's 2010 model 55" KDL-EX710 started out at $2500. Sony has changed the price since its release to as little as $1800. Best Buy was recently selling this set for $1499. When the 2011 models are released in April, this set could drop to as low as $1000. And Sony is a relatively high-priced supplier.

On the other hand, if Apple produced a set that had the picture quality of a Pioneer Kuro, it would probably be the one time that I would sleep outside a store overnight to be one of the first in line to acquire a set.

You mean OLED (e.g., AMOLED)? OLED is still super expensive for large screen and has many issues so frankly, I do not see that happening for awhile. Heck, OLED isn't used on any Apple products.

If you are referring to mass market TVs with LED lighting, you do realize that those TVs and displays are still LCD? Just as how most Apple displays are LCD with LED back or edge lighting? And that these TVs are still inferior to plasma.

I used to have Comcast, but recently switched to U-Verse. The interface is definitely much better! More responsive, more logical, better looking, etc. Of course, I'm still jumping around using channel up + channel down, and there's some other weird stuff going on. Not Apple quality UI obviously.

My dream would not necessarily be an Apple branded television set, but an upgraded Apple TV:
+Guide/DVR interface by Apple
+Compatible with Apple Remote, iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad
+Record and stream to iOS devices or Mac

Apple TV + Tivo + Slingbox. $200. Killer!

3D TV is a gimmick. Old fashioned color reigns supreme.

Not just the warehousing and showroom space but think of how many existing AppleTVs you could ship for the same cost as a single 50" Apple television. This is such a low-margin business compared to Apple typical product margins.

They could possibly license AppleTV tech to existing television makers but Apple has not really been in the technology licensing business.

I own several Pioneer Kuro sets. They are great- I think the picture is still better than a high-end Panasonic plasma set I bought last year. Why did Pioneer exit this business? Because most people refused to pay the higher cost for a Kuro in a market that has been fully-commoditized. Things are a lot different in terms of price points compared to when Apple introduced the iPod against other PMPs.

Bingo!

____________________

Hmmm. But have you checked the price of the mediocre Bag & Olufsen TVs recently. Apple favours serving the smaller but premium buyers i any market - the people who are content to pay more for an optimal solution. Small market share. Higher price. Lion's share of the sector's profit share.
Sound familiar?

Oh Jahffray, how you make us to laugh!

Apple is not going to make a 50" tv.

They are going to release a super-sized 50" Ipad, that's what the screens are for.

It will weigh 29 pounds and you have to be a body builder to hold it, but then again, this device is not targeted towards your average consumer. The 50" ipad will also feature a retina display, meaning that it will have a resolution of 19200 x 10800 and it will require 16 octo-core GPUs to push all of those pixels.

B&O notwithstanding, the prime example of a very high-quality line of TVs (that really were high quality and not just snob appeal quality) was the Pioneer Kuro line. That line had a picture quality still not achievable today by others, even though Panasonic hired many of the Kuro engineers. But Pioneer got out of the business. Furthermore, reports indicate that high-end TVs, especially those with 3D capability, did not do well during the holiday selling season. The top of the Sony line has always been the XBR series. In 2011, there will be only one XBR model (in several sizes).

And I don't think Apple is interested anymore in niche markets. Apple getting out of the server market and not recently updating the MacPro tower is proof enough of that. This is one of the disadvantages of Apple being so successful in the last few years.

The real question is what value add does Apple bring to the table? Aside from a possibly better user interface for the TV Guide and setup, I don't see much. As per my other post, I see the opposite: I see Apple stripping down the capabilities for the sake of simplicity. And I don't think that Apple cares about ultimate image quality (they might care about the ultimate industrial design of the set though.) However, if Apple could produce a set which would work wirelessly with the complete Apple computer and portable device line, they might have something (as long as that also includes an embedded Blu-ray player). But it's got to be for anything I have on the device, not just media I have within iTunes.

B&O sells so few sets (at least in the U.S.) that they are a completely insignificant player. And do they really make them or are they someone else's sets rebranded?

They not only hired many of the Pioneer engineers, they also acquired a lot of the IP for plasma display. Panasonic can't match the Kuro performance because, in order to do so, they will take themselves out of the competitive market - the same problem Pioneer faced.

no offence but Munster must be off his meds. What Apple is doing is securing the procurement of their supply chain and for a very good reason. With so many devices being released each year and the invasion of tablets it will become increasingly difficult for Apple to get the number of display that they need. On top of that the whole Windows part of the industry has lost their mind and have almost entirely adopted the 16:9 screens. Yeah but that does not fly with Apple and thank f*** for that. The problem is that if the mass produced displays are of the wrong size then you have to invest in displays and possibly make your own. Hence the 3.9 bill investment. And quite frankly an investment consultancy such as Piper Jaffray should have seen this one coming.

From a business standpoint- there are a few things a major investment of this magnitude can involve:
1. Prepayment on future flash components
2. Advance payment on future screens (various sizes)
3. A shared manufacturing plant (most likely with Samsung) to manufacture future chips based on Apple'e Fabless Designer companies they purchased, and utilizing Samsung's manufacturing technology to place more chips into their products, plus manufacture screens in the same facility. Try to keep the ecosystems and supply chain in sync with demand-

This enables Apple to ensure quality chipsets and screens without their vendors sacrificing their parts or manufacturing process to to meet demand from other clients.

Apple has been plagued by demand, and it is obviously too difficult to meet every countries demand quota.

Investing in its own shared manufacturing plant will help boost quantities of all future models (Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, iPod, and possibly Macs) to meet a healthy demand line.

This is the same reason why Intel is spending a lot of money opening a new plant in order to meet future demands from all of its clients.

I'm surprised at how many people think it is a goofy idea that Apple would get into TV's... that the market is too mature... that the current Apple TV is all that is needed. What BS. Apple has ATTEMPTED THIS ALREADY! Remember the Macintosh TV back in the early 90's?????

http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...ts/mac_tv.html

Jobs founded NEXT computer... the company didn't last, but a lot of the ideas and technology did show up in the Macs. Cell phones & MP3 players were a relatively mature market when Apple joined in the market... and because Apple really focuses on the user interface, they quickly dominated that market.

I may not gamble that a new Apple Mac/TV will be out in a year or two... but it seems very likely that they will take a stab at it again... even if you totally ignore everything said in the article, it's a product they've attempted before, they do have the Apple TV... and integrating the devices is a very natural fit.

/chuckle

holograms, fanboiz. Holograms. Apple can create an new market for holograms like the new market for tablets.

Mac TV you say?

Well Apple did have the Newton before the iPhone or iPad and history does tend to repeat itself!

Dummy terminals -> the "Cloud"
Mac vs PC -> iOS vs Android/Win 7 Mobile/Crackberry
G4 Cube -> Mac Mini
Netscape vs IE -> Firefox vs IE

Now where is that follow up to the Pippin?