I don't generally make product predictions, but today I'm going to.
The web these days is abuzz with rumors of an Apple TV set. Not the Apple TV set-top box we know today -- an honest-to-goodness 50-inch piece of glass. My thought on that idea so far has been No way. Every company should consistently ask itself "What can we be the best in the world at?" Apple is very good at answering that question and at following through with an implementation of exactly that thing and nothing else. Apple's model is to (1) control the integration of their products in order to (2) create a premium user experience, and as a result of these things to (3) drive margins. This model doesn't make sense when it comes to TVs as we know them today, because the user experience (picture quality during a movie) and component costs (huge frickin' LCD) are driven almost entirely by things Apple is not the best suited to control. Can they make a TV screen that is so much better than Samsung's that people will immediately see Avatar playing on that thing and say, "Wow, you got that from Apple!" No. And without that perception, they certainly can't charge a premium price -- LCD TVs are already extremely expensive. Can they do the opposite: source the components so much more cheaply than the incumbents that they can redefine the price points, as they did with the iPad? Not likely, and unless they also redefine the category, as they simultaneously did with iPad, a discount price would risk eroding their brand in any case.
There's the crux: redefining the category. That's where two things I've read or heard recently clicked for me.
