Apple Job Posting Leads To Speculation On Apple-Designed HDTVs

Tweet

The “Apple will make HDTVs” rumors and speculation are starting up again after Apple fan blog 9to5Mac found an Apple job posting that hints at possibly TV and display products coming from Apple. The call is for electrical engineer to work on power supplies on Apple products. And it mentions “standalone displays and TV.” Huh, what?

While Apple was once just a computer manufacturer (think Dell, HP), they’ve become much more of a consumer electronics company (think Samsung, Sony) in recent years and I think that’s part of the reason that people have suggested or hoped they might start making standalone HDTVs. The Apple TV is a set-top box product that allows users to stream stuff from iTunes and rent movies. With the second-generation of Apple TV being based on iOS, some have suggested that Apple may allow “TV apps” to run one day on the set-top boxes. We’ve seen “smart” TVs from Samsung already come with apps and LG introduced at CES that they’ll allow smart TV apps on their new line of smart TVs coming soon.

Google TV is Google’s Android-based TV solution. Now, set aside for a moment the fact that Google TV is awful (at least in it’s first revision) and think about this: the Logitech Revue is the Google TV set-top box, but it also comes built into TVs from Sony, and soon from Samsung, VIZIO, Toshiba and others. We’ve seen Android become a popular operating system for phones – what if Google TV becomes the popular solution for TV manufacturers who don’t want to come up with their own smart internet connected TV solution?

12 months ago, I think you would have to been crazy to say that Apple should make an HDTV. But considering that we’re starting to see the spread of “smart” internet-connected TVs, and the possibility that Google TV could become the “Windows 95″ of that space, it would make sense for Apple to come out with their own TV running iOS. Or, the version of iOS that’s on the Apple TV.

FYI, here’s the pertinent information from the job posting in question. Bold is mine:

In this position, you will be part of pride developing innovative designs, which are implemented in products used by millions of people. The position primarily involves high-density offline power supply’s development for Apple’s next generation Macintosh platforms spanning from notebook computers, desktop computers, servers, standalone displays and TV.