Right off the bat, it doesn’t really make sense why Apply would enter TV market with an Apple-branded LCD. The market is as cutthroat as ever with companies eating costs and gouging prices. Most of the big PC names (Dell, Gateway, etc…) are getting out, leaving obscure Chinese manufacturers to hash it out. Sure, Apple makes their Cinema Display, but those are strictly for the computer market and aren’t any bigger than 30 inches.
So while they’re not LCD n00bs, they’re still green to the TV market. You can also use the cheapness wars to highlight the best selling TVs are the ones which only offer video, speakers and a sufficient number of inputs leaving the rest to the consumer. But at the same time, all these manufacturers are bottoming out with their prices, and will soon need to distinguish their product from the rest with special features. Storage is also an issue.
The Apple TV relies on a 40 GB HDD to bring content to the living room. Putting a spinner inside a TV is something manufacturers are adverse to, probably because of drive failure, noise, and heat concerns. It’s entirely possible they could stick a 64 GB SSD in the TV and call it a day, but that still adds a couple hundred extra dollars to the price. There are also reasons why this rumour might have some validity to it, the most obvious of which is Jason Calacanis’ standing in Silicon Valley.
Unless he’s pulling a stunt to get his own fledgling projects some attention, you have to believe the internet tech entrepreneur rubs elbows with some people who actually know what they’re talking about. Kevin Rose has proven to have some great insider information in the past, so there’s no reason to think that Calacanis wouldn’t. Looking at other companies, networked TVs and internet-based content are becoming more popular in flat panels.
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