Former TechCrunch writer and Google Ventures partner MG Siegler said back in February that he was hearing “chatter” about Apple making a significant push in television by the fall of 2013. He says now that it could be “as soon as this November”.
Siegler appeared on yesterday’s episode of The Talk Show with John Gruber, and near the end of the podcast talk turned to Apple’s plans for a lower-cost “iPhone 5C” and the iWatch. But as noted by Business Insider, Siegler also slipped in a brief comment indicating that Apple may still be planning some sort of television announcement for “as soon as this November”.
At the 1:27:00 mark of the podcast:
Not to go into rumor central here but the latest things I’ve heard, that some sort of television product — not necessarily a television screen but something — could be coming as soon as this November. And I think there’s some surprises there about what it could actually be and I don’t know this for sure yet, but there’s been whispers about, so I’m not going to write anything about it, but there’s whispers out there that the interaction with it could be the interesting thing. People have talked about voice, but I think that that might be out the window and there might be some new way to interact with whatever this thing is.
Amidst the rumors of Apple’s push into the television market, they have quietly been making moves to expand their current offerings on their Apple TV set-top box.
In June, Apple added several new channels to their “hobby” device, including WatchESPN, HBO GO, Sky News, anime site Crunchyroll, and music concert and documentary streaming service Qello.
Apple is also reported to be close to launching an app in cooperation with Time Warner Cable, and television network The CW has announced that it is also working on an app for the set-top device.
As with all reports like this, take it with the proverbial grain of salt substitute, but Siegler is known for being well-sourced in the goings-on at Apple, so…
