A new report from Bloomberg’s venerable Apple journalist Mark Gurman suggests that Apple is hinging its smart home future on the success or failure of its upcoming smart home display, and its success may lead to other smart home devices, including an Apple-branded TV.
Rumors of Apple developing its own TV product are nothing new, and the company has worked on Apple-branded TVs in the past. In fact, it may have been a pet project of former CEO and Founder Steve Jobs before he passed in 2011.
Instead, Apple went the way of the Apple TV streaming boxes, which have been popular and are generally well-liked among consumers. Now, the company is at least entertaining the idea of developing its own smart TV that runs on what would likely be a version of tvOS.
In Gurman’s report, he says these TV ambitions really depend on the success of the company’s smart home panel, a small 6-inch iPad-like device designed to be wall-mounted for home control. A larger display with a robotic arm could follow. We could learn more about those devices in March.
According to Gurman, Apple is only “evaluating” an Apple-branded TV set, so if these upcoming devices don’t catch on, the Apple smart TV will likely be canned for good. However, this model would follow that of some competitors, such as Roku and Amazon, which both first started making streaming devices.
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Gurman’s report includes nothing else about TVs, but with the backbone of tvOS and years of developing advanced screens for iPhones, iPads, Macs and MacBooks, adding a TV line would ostensibly be seamless.
Analysts have also said the company could dive deeper into the smart home industry with a complete new line of products, including home security cameras.
Again, these are only rumors, and those reporting the rumors largely say the company isn’t 100% certain it wants to be in these markets, so we’ll likely simply have to wait and see.
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