I remember people saying this exact same things when it was first revealed Apple was planning to enter the mobile phone business (and actually even further back, when they entered the personal music player business, a market long time ago developed by companies who understood it, such as Creative, Sony and Philips…). Same thing was said when Apple prepped the iPad launch – tablets have long been done and we all know what to expect from them…

I don’t think Apple really wants to sell television sets per se – they sell computer displays for decades and I’ve never seen any push to sell these to non-Mac customers – instead, they will try to reinvent the television by offering something completely new as an experience, and judging by their track-record, they probably will, or at least have something up their sleeve, otherwise they wouldn’t be even announcing it. I don’t think the iPanel or whatever it will be called will be a TV set with built-in Apple TV either – that’s not something they would invest any money in, as otherwise all their competitors might start bundling the $100 a piece Apple TV with their sets and kill any advantage for Apple.

So, to summarise – would I pay premium for an Apple television, if it is identical with the likes of Samsung or LG produce (and might have a slightly better design aesthetics) – hell no – I would probably not buy one even if there is no premium; but would I and million others shell out premium to own a whole new experience that just happen to replace the market for the traditional TVs – well, most definitely!

Ask anyone at Nokia, Motorola and Sony Ericsson if you don’t believe me… :)

When it comes to computers and smartphones, I’ve been an Apple guy for a long time.  But Sony’s tempting me.  I’m a huge fan of the Xperia Play and if it weren’t for the wife would have switched to a Vaio last year when we replaced our Apple laptops with a single new one.

What is this, 1999?  The iPad is extremely competitive on price: show me a cheaper tablet that does as much, or a tablet at the same price that does more.  The iPod Touch has virtually no competition at all (I’m guessing without carrier subsidies or a viable app store, there’s no market for the hardware).  The Macbook Air has spawned Intel’s “Ultrabook” project, but even with the chipmaker throwing $300 million at it, most of the PC versions start well over the $1000 target price (which would match the Macbook Air).

The only place I see Apple still being expensive is with their Mac Pro tower computers.  So it seems like the closer something gets to “consumer device with just a big screen”, the lower Apple can drive prices.

A TV is basically just a big screen, and their supply chain is second to none.  They already have licenses to sell content to play on it, so they don’t need to make a big profit on hardware like existing TV companies do.  Apart from the tired “Macs used to be expensive” meme, what reason do you have for why they would not be able to compete here?

“It’s becoming increasingly clear to just about everyone that at some point in the next several months,Apple will be announcing a television.”

You’ve got the order wrong.  They always start small.  First the iPod and iPhone.  Then the iPad.  Then bumping them up to high-resolution “retina” displays, starting with the smaller ones.  The next logical product for them is high-resolution “Retina” Macbooks.  Developers will be begging for these, anyway, for making and testing their iPad apps.  Then moving bigger with Retina iMacs and external displays.

An Apple TV would have to be at least 30 inches, and they’re not going to leapfrog straight to that.  They move fast, but not that fast.  Your TV is at least 2 years away.  You’ll know it’s near when they’ve finished upgrading the displays on the rest of their product line.

A fool and his money are soon parted…….

Apple sells overpriced, underspec, although well designed pieces of glass and aluminum. After 3 conistently crappy iPhone 4S, which was nowhere near what Apple had promised, i think i have every right to doubt a company that has yet to prove their products are nothing more than propaganda sold to incredibly gullible and naive consumers.

unfortunatelly, the same bunch of rich brainwashed idiots who bought iPads probably will.

The only folks going on about it are fanboys who think if they scream loud enough it’s going to happen. I’m not anti-Apple, I’ve got an iMac & iPod & that said they’re whole thing is their ecosystem of itunes & you can already get that on ANY TV by either connecting a mac directly to it or via appleTV. 

Hardware is not where big profits are made & they don’t need to make a TV to expand the reach of their software. When you give it an ounce of thought beyond “omg I just want Apple everything, I want an Apple TV, an Apple fridge, an Apple microwave, drive an Apple car *fap fap fap fap fap… it doesn’t make any sense.