Conventional wisdom is that Apple has not cracked the code to winning a spot in the living room. Maybe, but let me present a case that challenges such wisdom.
First, some backdrop. A friend of mine recently made a semi-serious statement that Apple will make more profit on its Smart Covers for iPad 2 — some project Smart Covers alone to be a $1 billion business — than the entire industry combined will make on their actual tablet product sales.
This got me thinking. Apple has essentially turned what is a mere "accessory" to their products into big business. Why couldn't they apply that same philosophy to retrofitting the big-screen TV?
In homage to what "Intel Inside" meant during the PC era, I'll dub such a concept "Apple Inside." The premise is this: Apple already works with third-party hardware makers to support iPod and iPhone integration in cars, within docking stations, and other vertical device segments. Obviously, Apple also works with legions of software developers to see to it that great apps find their way onto iOS devices.
Why not combine the hardware and software constructs to let consumer electronics manufacturers harness Apple's iOS-iTunes mojo? Putting a bow around this, what if Apple helped save Sony, Steve Jobs' one-time aspirational business hero, by nesting an Apple TV inside of a real TV?
UPDATE: Bloomberg is reporting that Apple is contemplating licensing AirPlay for video streaming to TV Set manufacturers. This seems to bolster my theory that this is the beginning of an Apple Inside strategy, whereby Apple licenses the skin, bones and brain of Apple TV to TV set makers as part of their ubiquity play in the living room. Why? Number one, the alternative for Apple is building their own TV, which has lots of downside; namely, a commodity product in an entrenched ecosystem (cable/sat, set-top box, broadcast, HBO, movies, CE). Two is that TVs as a device category lack the product obsolescence lifecycle that Apple tunes its R&D for (i.e., people keep TVs 10+ years). At the same time, Apple can not NOT own the living room, given the piece parts they have assembled to fuel the digital media lifestyle. It's too strategic for them.
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