



I. Apple Moves Towards Television With New UI, Licensing Work






Google is reportedly in similar talks with content providers.











Steve Jobs w/ iPad


Source: WSJ

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RE: Apple has already floppd twice in TV
By simsony on 12/21/2011 8:13:15 AM , Rating: 2
You need to read between the lines of what "build" means.

When you buy flat packed furniture and assemble it, you are building it. But it isn't quite the same a making your own table. The know-how required is vastly different.

Apple has no semiconductor manufacturing specialists. An attempt at PA Semi was made for Soc work, but mostly failed. They are fabless. At best they can come up with the specs of the LCD screen they want. All the tech behind it come from the real semicon and R&D experts like Sharp, LG, Samsung, Sony, Philips, Toshiba etc..(and other non consumer brands)

Hell they didn't even have RF and antenna engineers until they screwed up.

I can assure you that even the A5 is not "built" by Apple. It is exclusive to Apple though. Vendors offer silk screening and exclusivity arrangements for appropriate fees. One clue for eg. is the type of ARM license a company purchases. Journos take note. You can come up with vastly better vetted rumours if you check these things. ;)

So if a TV does come, they will need to make a deal with one of the names above, offering guaranteed volumes for custom deals. Everything has a price. The risk obviously is that the product needs to be sold at a margin that covers these fees and appeals (and sells!) to a sufficient chunk of the market.

They may offer it on finance plans to get impulse buyers as they don't need the cash flow. But this is a "white good", you can sell a phone, ipod and ipad to each person, but a TV as well? The potential market is in households, not individuals. That means say about 3x the iPhone margin?

Or they go down the Kindle route, discounting it at a loss to gain market share. They have the cash for it.


By Cheesew1z69 on 12/21/2011 8:48:05 AM , Rating: 2
Of course, it's built by Samsung.

