10-07-2010, 07:19 PM
Seacrest wrote:
Apple will not partner with a low-end brand like Vizio.
They would sooner source the panels from someone, add iOS to the panels and sell them as Apple-branded TVs.
There have been rumors of an Apple TV (as opposed to AppleTV) for a while now. It could happen, but I doubt it. Consumer electronics (TVs in particular) is a very competitive market with razor-thin profit margins - not the type of market Apple likes to play in.
I think it makes much more sense for them to license the AppleTV technology to existing TV makers. Based on the AppleTV's pricing, it seems clear that they are not looking to make tons of money on hardware sales - the real money is in creating a market for iTunes rentals. They could grow this market immensely in almost no time at all by allowing existing TV manufacturers to build the ATV technology into their sets.
The downsides I see are:
- proceeding in this manner would require Apple to relinquish some of the absolute control that they are used to exercising over all aspects of their products.
- it would become harder for Apple to market the resulting TVs as Apple products to end-users who are used to Apple products/technology being clearly identified as such.