Steve Jobs' final project: A 'revolutionary' Apple TV set?

According to a new biography, the late Apple icon had figured out a way to change the way we watch television

In interviews with biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs revealed his passion for reinventing the television the way he did music and computers.
(Image credit: John G. Mabanglo/epa/Corbis)

The late Steve Jobs revolutionized the way we interact with data and music with his focus on an elegant interface and clean, simple design. According to the new biography, Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, the Apple icon next planned to change the way we watch television. "He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones," Isaacson writes. "'I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,' he told me. 'It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.' No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. 'It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.'" While Apple already offers a set-top box, the Apple TV, it's widely acknowledged as a hobby project and a niche product. Will we soon see a "revolutionary" TV set from Apple?

Access to content is an issue: Apple could probably develop, or already has developed, the hardware and software to make Jobs' plan work, but what about content? asks Marguerite Reardon at CNET. To really take over the TV industry, Apple would have to offer something unique in terms of content, and that wouldn't be easy. The iPod would be nothing without iTunes and how it totally changed the music industry. An Apple-branded TV would need to do something similar; too bad Apple has a historically "strained relationship with the TV networks."

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