Steve Jobs may not have planned to build an Apple TV set after all, according to a new book on the late tech titan.
The official line on the matter has for some time been that Jobs had made a breakthrough with a potential Apple TV set prior to his death. That’s according to Steve Jobs’s official biographer, Walter Isaacson.
"I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use," Jobs told Isaacson in one of his last interviews.
However, a new book from former Wall Street Journal reporter Yukari Kane, entitled Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs, claims that the former Apple chief wanted no part of the TV business as recently as 2010. That’s just a year before his death.
In that year, Jobs hosted his final Top 100 meeting. This is a highly secretive Apple initiative where it assembles its top 100 executives, managers, and employees, and discusses (among other things) future products.
On the final day of this particular meeting, Jobs gave his staff carte blanche to ask him anything at all. One plucky employee asked if Apple was going to launch a TV set, as had been rumoured.
According to Yukari, "Jobs didn’t hesitate," and provided a stiff "No."
He also provided justification for this stance. "TV is a terrible business. They don't turn over and the margins suck," he said. His plans to rule the living room appeared to extend to securing the right content for and improving the Apple TV box - which is precisely what Apple has been doing in years since.
Of course, it’s possible that Jobs was merely instructing his staff to focus on the here and now. Indeed, Yukari claims that the veterans in the room weren’t convinced that Jobs really meant what he said.
But here we are, four years on, and all signs are pointing to an evolved Apple TV set-top-box rather than a sleek integrated TV set.
Next, read our pick of the best TVs of 2014.
Via: Business Insider