Foxconn receives Apple smart TV order - report
Shenzhen factory set for trial run
The Apple ‘iTV’ rumour mill has gone into overdrive after the latest reports from China suggesting that Foxconn’s Shenzhen plant has received orders from Cupertino to build the much-hyped sets on a trial run.
China’s First Financial Daily (via Sina) got the news from the obligatory un-named inside sources, although there was little in the way of accompanying detail.
Apple’s plans to build internet-connected TV sets have been the subject of speculation for months now, helped along by revelations in Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs that the late CEO had “cracked” TVs by creating a machine with the “simplest interface you can imagine”.
This has led some to speculate that it could feature a voice-powered search system, as does the Siri app for the iPhone 4S. Apple, of course, has said nothing and will not even confirm it is even building such a device.
Isaacson later revealed that he had left several details of the “integrated television set” Jobs was talking about out of the biography because Apple had not fully realised Jobs' vision.
Speculation has been steadily building, however, with Digitimes supply chain sources suggesting a launch date of Q2 or Q3 this year.
Most recently, Foxconn boss Terry Gou apparently said his firm was preparing its production lines for such a product, although he was forced to clarify that no orders had actually been received by the long-time Apple manufacturing partner.®
COMMENTS
All well and good but I don't expect it to be a mega hit even if it does come to fruition.
TV sets, user friendly or not, are still fine several years after you purchase them. They're not like phones or other gadgets which suffer from "got-to-have-it" - My 50" Pioneer plasma is still just fine, ticking along just the way it always has since the day I bought it. Why would I throw it out to replace it with one that has an Apple logo and a pretty UI?
Sure, some will.. but I can't imagine it being anywhere _near_ the level that will happily toss out an iPhone 4S the day the iPhone 5 comes out.
Re: Ummm...
'simple' doesn't mean 'least functionality'. It means the simplest way to access a wide range of functionality. A channel up/down is the simplest functionality but a big pain when you're on #1 and want to watch #400. Modern TVs have a massive amount of functionality but crappy UIs which makes accessing that difficult.
There is indeed a lot of competition in the TV market
but that does not matter if <insert manufacturer name here> comes out with a device that breaks the rules as regards usability.
At the moment, the TV UI is a morass of writhing slimy eels. Some look like that they have been designed by a masochist or the main design criteria was to have as many unused controls on the handset as possible.
The nay-sayers and anti apple fanbois will be out in force until we actualy get to see what they are doing.
It might be a 'Meh!' moment or it might just shakeup the TV market for good. Whatever happens, it is going to be interesting.
Oh man! It's gonna be great, I can just imagine it!
The shape of this TV will just be like whoa! cool man! And when you change channel the screen will go like whoosh! And the EPG will cascade in like da-da-da-da-da with all these gorgeous drop-shadowed icons. And when you want to record something, it will be like Boom! and it's done. And the remote will be so neat with a multi-touch UI that's like Wow! And you'll be stuck in traffic and missing Master Chef and so you'll be like "Hey Siri! Tape Master Chef for me" and Siri will be like "Do you mean record Master Chef?" And you'll be like "Yeah, whatever."
And when you see it you'll just be like "I just gotta get one of those babies". And the price will be like "WTF?"
