Daring Fireball’s John Gruber speculates on his blog that an unusually high number of “To Be Announced” sessions on the WWDC schedule this year (particularly in Presidio, the biggest room for sessions in the building) implies that Apple will be announcing something big and his guess is a new developer platform and apps for Apple TV:
TV market
Apple’s long-rumored television set may soon become a reality, as China Business News reports that Foxconn, Apple’s Chinese manufacturing partner, has already started a pilot production of the new Apple HDTV:
Insider sources told China Business News that a Foxconn factory in Shenzhen has received orders for an Apple “smart TV” and is producing them on a trial basis.
Apple TV set featuring Siri, FaceTime, Airplay, and a build in iSight camera is more of a reality today than ever before. Though we have had many reports from anonymous insiders, today marks the first public admission of the project by someone within Apple’s product release chain. More than simply admitting the products existence, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou discussed some of the production details. According to China Daily:
Is Apple’s newest HDTV creation set to have Siri, FaceTime or AirPlay? Is Apple’s new TV set going to be slick, smooth, and as beautiful as its other products? According to an anonymous source, the answer is yes to all. The team of at Cult Of Mac has released some information given to them by one of their sources. It is important to note that they said:
Our source is well-placed and has provided us with great tips in the past. However, not all of them have panned out, ostensibly due to the fact that our source tends to see products in the prototype or early development stage and Apple doesn’t always ultimately choose to release them. We hope this is one of our source’s tips about an upcoming Apple product that actually sees market.
Thanks to JP Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz, our dreams of a 2012 release of the famed Apple TV set have been dashed. The team over at AppleInsider has obtained a “note to investors” where Mr. Moskowitz is quoted saying that the firm’s research “does not indicate any looming TV-related product launch.” Moskowitz also goes on to explain that the current conditions of the economy simply are not favorable for Apple to release this long awaited device.




