Apple expected to launch 3 HDTV models by March 2012 - report
Apple will likely launch a new high-definition television set in March 2012 with three screen sizes and price points, one Wall Street analyst claims.
Trip Chowdhry with Global Equities Research issued a note to investors on Sunday in which he shared his "converged view" on an anticipated Apple HDTV, with information based on details culled from a number of developer events he attended.
Chowdhry said the product that is most similar to Apple's rumored HDTV is the Bose VideoWave, a 46-inch LCD HDTV with an integrated surround-sound speaker system. The VideoWave aims to simplify HDTVs by reducing clutter, and to improve picture and sound quality.
The Bose VideoWave gives the greatest sense of where Apple's alleged HDTV may be heading, Chowdhry claimed. He said his "converged view" of data from various developers is "probably" 75 percent accurate, and that it will "probably" be launched in March of 2012, with developer sessions at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Apple's rumored HDTV is apparently being benchmarked against the VideoWave because it has reduced its number of cables to just three. Chowdhry believes that any television set from Apple would have just one cable.
The VideoWave also sports a thickness of six inches, packing in 16 speakers. Chowdhry said that Apple's purported HDTV will be a third as thick and will also have 16 speakers.
"These 16 built-in speakers gives a complete surround sound experience, without the need for any external speakers," he said.
Bose's HDTV product comes in just one screen size and price point: 46 inches for $5,200. Chowdhry said that an HDTV from Apple will have three screen sizes and three price points.
"The DSP chip in Apple HDTV is a brand new chip based on Apple's acquisition of PA Semi," he added. "As of now, this new chip is not in mass production."
Claims of a forthcoming Apple-branded Internet-connected HDTV are not new, and one report from April even suggested that Apple could release its own television set this year. One analysis issued earlier this month found that Apple's market capitalization could grow by $100 billion if it were to enter the HDTV market.
Trip Chowdhry with Global Equities Research issued a note to investors on Sunday in which he shared his "converged view" on an anticipated Apple HDTV, with information based on details culled from a number of developer events he attended.
Chowdhry said the product that is most similar to Apple's rumored HDTV is the Bose VideoWave, a 46-inch LCD HDTV with an integrated surround-sound speaker system. The VideoWave aims to simplify HDTVs by reducing clutter, and to improve picture and sound quality.
The Bose VideoWave gives the greatest sense of where Apple's alleged HDTV may be heading, Chowdhry claimed. He said his "converged view" of data from various developers is "probably" 75 percent accurate, and that it will "probably" be launched in March of 2012, with developer sessions at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June.
Apple's rumored HDTV is apparently being benchmarked against the VideoWave because it has reduced its number of cables to just three. Chowdhry believes that any television set from Apple would have just one cable.
The VideoWave also sports a thickness of six inches, packing in 16 speakers. Chowdhry said that Apple's purported HDTV will be a third as thick and will also have 16 speakers.
"These 16 built-in speakers gives a complete surround sound experience, without the need for any external speakers," he said.
Bose's HDTV product comes in just one screen size and price point: 46 inches for $5,200. Chowdhry said that an HDTV from Apple will have three screen sizes and three price points.
"The DSP chip in Apple HDTV is a brand new chip based on Apple's acquisition of PA Semi," he added. "As of now, this new chip is not in mass production."
Claims of a forthcoming Apple-branded Internet-connected HDTV are not new, and one report from April even suggested that Apple could release its own television set this year. One analysis issued earlier this month found that Apple's market capitalization could grow by $100 billion if it were to enter the HDTV market.
Comments
THREE models? Three.
Whenabouts would we be seeing Apple's absolutely massive LCD order (in three sizes, no less) in time for manufacturing and shipping of this product for a March release?
Bose's HDTV product comes in just one screen size and price point: 46 inches for $5,200. Chowdhry said that an HDTV from Apple will have three screen sizes and three price points.
Yeah, 36" for $5,200, 46" for $6,200, and 56" for $7,200.
I'd love to see what Apple has in mind for future TVs, but I'm skeptical.
Not convinced? Allow me to add some utterly made numbers: 3 models, 2" thick, 16 speakers. Can't argue with numbers.
Wait, still not buying it? OK, how about this: my information is likely 75% accurate. Meaning of the four people I ran this by, only one of them was actually drunk at the time.
This rumor of Apple entering the TV arena has been kicked around for years. It might one day become a reality, but for now it is just a means for some know-nothing analyst to make a name for himself.
Pure link-bait. Global Equities Research is getting their page hits now, but they'll lose credibility when March has passed without three Apple HDTV sets with 16 speakers.
I'm 75% sure of it.
Apple is selling lots of Apple TVs, but TV manufacturers are already pre-installing NetFlix and Google TVs into their products making the Apple TV a harder sell even-though ATV has higher quality interface and content.
So if Apple sticks an ATV into say an LG, and calls it Apple TV 52" they'll make money off of iTunes, the TV, and ATV. Moreover, SJ will be able to "stick it" to Google.
Could Apple really hope to compete with the likes of Samsung and Panasonic? The only unique selling point would be iTunes store stuff, which isn't exactly enough to convince people to buy the Apple TV. Plus Samsung and the like already offer fully connected TVs with access to several streaming services, few of which, one would imagine, Apple would support.
Ignore.
Of course Google has already tried this and fialed like a miserable failure. However I would not buy an HDTV for 1,000 if the only thing it does is replicate a $99 device's functionality on a TV I can buy for $500. That product would be DOA.
Dont want to walk into a minefield of patents held by Samsung in this field.
The only reason I even look at these rumors is that Jobs is reported to hate boxes connecting to TV's, but any TV connected to cable TV will be cluttered with a zillion wires and the cable industry will never change, they make too much money with their old crap & DRM.
Now a Nano sized BT enabled watch that acted as a second display for my phone.....
This guy is talking out of his arse. I hope that he gets fired in March 2012 when his bullshit predictions turn out to be false.
If every analyst got (rightly) fired when their predictions are shown to be wrong, we'd have no analysts left.
Instead they get paid more.
This rumor makes no sense to me at all. Why would Apple want to involve itself in an industry that is in a perpetual race to the bottom with little no profit margin. I fail to see how this would benefit the Apple ecosystem. It is only slightly more relevant than an "iBlender."
Well, before Apple did the comeback, computers was all about a race to the bottom. So was mobile phones. So that is not what bothers me. I think those guys in Cupertino may want to kick ass in other such industries.
But why TV?
What's the rationale? I may be almost blind, but please - why?
To serve a extrodernary living room experience there is so much more than the screen and what's on it. You need great speakers and great receiver/amplifier and all of those are well served from low price to the most expensive already.
Indeed, usability can be improved. A lot. And Apple can do that. But I think improving ATV is a better choice. Together with home server stuff. And they can also work hard on spreading all types of contents to all countries where iTunes exist. Not to mention actually selling the ATV2 outside US. Then people can stick it to a TV (or many TVs) and home cinemas of their own choice and fashion back home. Or in the office.
My 100 percent sure thinking and I do not need to invent sources to tell it. Or pretend I got it from somewhere else.
The con-artist analyst who came up with this rumor SPECIFICALLY invented it to drive up the value of his firm's investment in Apple shares.
It's so incredibly obvious what is going on here, yet AppleInsider and other websites publish this guy's ramblings as if it were news.
I wish AppleInsider would ban the publishing of unfounded rumors like this one.
Fuck all these greedy fucking companies. TV sucks anyway.
Rumor followed by skeptical, sarcastic responses. See above. This reminds me of something... wait a minute... wait a minute... There was this rumor in 2006 about an "i" thing that everybody was laughing at Apple about. Something about a mature, commoditized, cutthroat market that would eat Apple alive? Well, they're not laughing any more are they. And why did Apple remove "Computer" from its corporate name? Let me think about that one again.
You're exactly right.
People will point and laugh (as with most of the posts here) for the next few months as rumors intensify.
But Apple creating a TV that blows tbe current products out of the water is pretty much a given. I have no doubt that we'll have the last laugh!