Apple is expected to venture into the TV market in 2012, with Japanese firm Sharp set to produce the screens for the new TVs. This partnership is expected to revolutionise TVs for the mainstream with support for both voice and gesture recognition controls and cloud compatibility.
Apple obviously is remaining tight lipped and hasn’t confirmed anything, but speculation surrounding iTV is growing with analysts and rivals alike. Apple iTV is expected to do the same for TVs as what the iPhone did for mobiles – bringing apps and “smart” capabilities to the mainstream.
What Apple may entice us with is probably already being sold in most modern TVs, but these features and functions seem somewhat restricted to only the tech-savvy. However Apple knows this and will look to bundle television programming with improved interaction, social media, cloud capabilities, streaming and apps all in one package.
The first the tech-world heard about Apple’s desire to conquer the TV was from Steve Jobs autobiography, he said: “I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it.”
The way Apple will make the iTV “easy to use” is by incorporating voice controls, in a similar way Siri has done with the new iPhone 4S. They are also planning physical gestures a la Kinect, which is hinted at in the recent filing of an Apple patent that uses “real-time video process control using gestures”.
Factor in new rumours, that Microsoft has been in talks with two licensing partners for Kinect to be incorporated in TV’s – something has got TV manufacturers attention – so is it Apple’s iTV ?
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