Shortly after rumors of an Apple TV media event in March were debunked, TechCrunch contributor MG Siegler, based on his own sources, claims that Apple’s lining up something TV related for this fall. While he doesn’t have any specifics as to whether this would be about Apple’s long rumored full-fledged television or an SDK, he believes that third party apps would be a vital part of the equation.
I haven’t heard anything specific about the SDK, but the chatter about Apple’s broader television plans has been picking up. And if that chatter is to believed, something is happening this fall — likely late fall. As always with Apple, those plans are subject to change. As you might imagine, content deals remain a bitch, yet remain vital to such a project. But multiple sources suggest everything is finally lining up for this fall.
Rumors of an Apple TV SDK had surfaced last year as well, and made a lot of sense since the device, under-the-hood, runs iOS, which already has an ecosystem of third-party plugins, which can be installed by jailbreaking it. Siegler says that while standard iOS apps scaled up to TV resolution won’t look good, games and video content would work particularly well with large TV displays, as we’ve seen with the AirPlay compatible apps on the App Store.
He adds that Apple might even take a “two-pronged approach,” releasing the Apple Television as well as updating the hardware on the Apple TV to better support resource-intensive apps.
If the ecosystem takes off, and there are high chances it would given the same software stack that runs on iOS devices and the Apple TV, Apple would pose a serious threat to living-room entertainment devices like the Xbox and the PS3 as noted by Xbox founding engineer Nat Brown and Valve founder Gabe Newell.
No comments:
Post a Comment