Carl Icahn remains convinced Apple will build television set, despite report of project's demise
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn argued in a Tuesday TV interview on Tuesday that Apple will indeed make and sell a television set, despite a new report claiming that the company abandoned the project over a year ago.
Referring to TheWall Street Journal's story, Icahn told CNBC's Halftime Report that despite having read it he doesn't "even know what it says," insisting that the report was "ridiculous" with a "relatively misleading" headline.
"I'm not backtracking in anyway. I believe they [Apple] will do a TV. That's my belief," he asserted.
On Monday, Icahn issued an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, suggesting that the company should already have a $240 share price and market capitalization near $1.4 trillion. The same letter also proposed that Apple will launch a TV next year, and a car in 2020.
Rumors of an Apple television persisted for years, but petered out some time ago, leaving Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster as one of the few people backing the idea. Earlier today, Munster issued a memo saying he no longer expects the product.
Instead of a full-scale TV, Apple is though to be throwing its weight behind a revamped Apple TV set-top that should be announced at June's Worldwide Developers Conference. It's expected to have support for Siri and an App Store, and feature hardware upgrades such as an A8 processor, a touchpad remote, and greater internal storage.
Referring to TheWall Street Journal's story, Icahn told CNBC's Halftime Report that despite having read it he doesn't "even know what it says," insisting that the report was "ridiculous" with a "relatively misleading" headline.
"I'm not backtracking in anyway. I believe they [Apple] will do a TV. That's my belief," he asserted.
On Monday, Icahn issued an open letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook, suggesting that the company should already have a $240 share price and market capitalization near $1.4 trillion. The same letter also proposed that Apple will launch a TV next year, and a car in 2020.
Rumors of an Apple television persisted for years, but petered out some time ago, leaving Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster as one of the few people backing the idea. Earlier today, Munster issued a memo saying he no longer expects the product.
Instead of a full-scale TV, Apple is though to be throwing its weight behind a revamped Apple TV set-top that should be announced at June's Worldwide Developers Conference. It's expected to have support for Siri and an App Store, and feature hardware upgrades such as an A8 processor, a touchpad remote, and greater internal storage.
Comments
Picking up the banner from Gene, huh? Crazy Carl...
TV market is a low profit business being dragged down by the flood of cheap Chinese brands. Even Apple would have a hard time selling high end TVs dominated by Samsung, LG, Sony. Integrating Apple TV into high end brands is an option, similar to Carplay.
Picking up the banner from Gene, huh? Crazy Carl...
Considering the only comments that ever came out of Apple were from Steve and his comment to Isaacson was very vague, I think there has never really been a definitive go-to-market strategy for Apple regarding a TV. That they haven't yet offered one indicates to me that the closest thing to an Apple Television will continue to be the iMac.
Incidentally, I'd love if Apple had a build-to-order option that included a digital TV signal card and built-in DVR functionality for the iMac, but I doubt I'll ever see that.
I've always thought "There just couldn't be a single person who actually thought that Apple could make money long-term with an actual TV set (or even think it is a good idea to get in that market)"... Guess I was wrong.
Icahn may have information on something to do with this program, which is hard to imagine Foxconn and Apple just dropping.
I think it's obvious that the oxide production technology from Sharp is proving difficult, otherwise we'd likely have more than just the 5K iMac in the larger screen category from Apple.
Would Apple do its own branded TV based on this tecnology? Only if it could excel in some compelling way other ways of doing big screens, say much better than plasma and much cheaper (and more reliably?) than OLED. Maybe Foxconn could test the waters under their own brand, and it's these signals that Uncle Carl is picking up.
Two thoughts...
1. There is little Apple could do to improve the picture quality over the better 4K sets on the market. It's such low margin with slow upgrade cycles. Why bother? They can improve the user experience that is generally driven through a set-top box that is now delivered by the cable/sat company or Roku/ATV etc.
2. You'd think with all his money, Carl Icahn would get those eyebrows groomed.
Gene and Carl should roadtrip together.
The all-singing, all-dancing Apple Stock Manipulation and Imaginary News Revue.
Why not focus on "the brains" where the profit is and leave the low margin display panel to all the others?
What's the difference between a monitor and a TV? A TV usually has an antenna connection and a tuner. Perhaps Apple could make a $4,000+ 8K res monitor and throw a tuner in it for legal regulations. By then most or all of your video content will be coming from the internet anyway.
I'm still thinking about a Mac Pro, but I sure would like to pair it up with an Apple branded monitor like I did before.
The only way Apple is going to come out with a TV is if it's a virtual reality set.
This one thing would all Apple devices to utilize everyone's TV's, stereos, and printers - all of which are commodity product markets that Apple does not want or need to play in....
Steve's "I cracked it" quote in the book referred to Airplay. Apple should license (maybe for free) the rights to have Airplay installed in all new TV sets. This would be a classic win-win. Every TV becomes a display for any and all of Apples iDevices. They should do the same for Airprint and Airtunes.
This one thing would all Apple devices to utilize everyone's TV's, stereos, and printers - all of which are commodity product markets that Apple does not want or need to play in....
Now that I like.
I'd like to raise a motion to not have any more posts about Carl Icahn on this site. I don't care how much AAPL stock he owns. He is not an "activist investor." He is a fame-whoring nitwit who seeks only to hear the sound of his own voice.
I have to agree and if you know anything about TV and how they are sold on the wall of TV and why Samsung does so well. The best analogy I can find it is like bugs to the bug light. Samsung turns up the brightness and color saturations which makes their TV standout in the crowed across the room and people are just dawn to the petty bright colors.
This is hard to compete with, since most people have no idea what makes a good TV picture. They think brights and boldest is the best. If you want to buy a TV and compare them to see how true to color they are have the sales person run a nature video with water and blue sky and trees and such, Samsungs when compared to the TV with correct colors setting will look bad. If you look at a Samsung by itself you will not notice it. Put it next to Sony and you will see how off they are.
Reminds me of a quote. Let me think...
Oh yeah, here it is:
That was Tim Cook replying to a NCPRR representative at a shareholders' meeting.
(The NCPRR climate-change-denying douchebag complained about Apple spending money on accessibility for blind users.)
Maybe Apple should waste billions on a Television set with long upgrade cycles and low profit margins. That would surely lower the share price and shut up Icahn.