Apple’s $99 set-top box is of limited use unless you of course jailbreak it. This might change soon, at least to a certain extent, a well-informed pundit has suggested. Apple last refreshed the little hockey puck in March of this year, with new features such as full HD (1080p) video support, a revamped interface and a tweaked A5 chip with…
Boy Genius editor Jonathan Geller ran a story earlier this month asserting Apple would unveil the official software development kit for the Apple TV at WWDC. He credited the claim to “a trusted source”, writing:
We have heard from a source that Apple will be introducing a TV SDK at WWDC next week. This would enable third-party developers to create software for Apple’s TV products.
Geller wasn’t the only to make dubious Apple television claims ahead of WWDC (I’m looking at you, Jefferies & Company analyst Peter Misek!).
Well-known Apple pundit John Gruber wrote in response to Geller’s claim which, as you know, has failed to materialize:
So much for that trusted source. Worth noting: I took a guess that Apple might announce something like this at WWDC, but Geller wasn’t guessing.
And from what I gathered asking around during WWDC, there was never anything Apple TV-related slated for announcement at WWDC.
Then he dropped a bomb:
Something big is going on with Apple TV in Cupertino, but it’s still being cooked.
Gruber’s comment is pretty vague, but I think it’s worth mentioning because he rarely engages in making such predictions with a certain degree of confidences unless he heard credible stuff from his deeply entrenched Apple sources.
We’re bound to learn pretty soon what aces Apple might have up its sleeve as Google shares updates regarding its Google TV platform at its Google I/O show later today.
Someone’s wet dream on how an Apple television set should look like.
Third-parties are not standing still either. For example, Brightcove officially released its open-sourced SDK yesterday which lets programmers write dual-screen apps for iOS and Android devices that stream media to a TV set while displaying useful and interactive pieces of information on mobile devices such as the iPhone and iPad.
Plus, Apple’s Taiwanese supply chain is making huge investments into cutting-edge display plants.
Regardless of the whispers and certain sources’ and writers’ track record of accuracy, would you be willing to predict that at some point Apple will want to enter the television hardware business?