(Revised October 14) Just before Apple’s September 10 iPhone 5s/5c announcements, veteran industry journalist and analyst Jim O’Neill reported on industry rumors that along with a new iPhone, Apple would be announcing an update to Apple TV at the September 10 launch event.
My guess, given that Apple TV already had Airplay, was that it might be a new “Apple TV-Plus” unit with internal storage to become a form of whole-home DVR (re-purposing Apple’s Time Capsule electronics). Control it via your paired iDevice, running a remote control app and using Siri for voice control. Plus integration with iCloud for personal content. Plus an updated processor to align the Apple TV device with the latest iPhone so it can take a few years’ worth of software updates.
Then, given that new programming can be added to Apple TV anytime, in the form of new TV apps (as Apple did in August), there would also be a new set of TV Everywhere apps from our favorite pay TV operators.
Unfortunately, Apple made no changes to Apple TV in September, nor did any operators share the September 10 stage. But prior to the announcement, I had a flight of fancy about what could have been – and what may still be.