Last night, Eddy Cue and Jimmy Iovine were interviewed at the Code Conference post the announcement of Beats acquisition by Apple. Among a million other things, Apple TV popped up in between and Cue had more than a few words to say.

He said he feels that the current television experience “sucks” and even went on to compare it to the VCRs of the 90s, reminding us of the “When I go into my living room and turn on the TV, I feel like I have gone backwards in time by 20 to 30 years” comment made by Tim Cook in 2012.

Cue doesn’t seem to be satisfied with the current video-on-demand setup either, because signing into a cable provider account to access content is just “not ideal”.

Apple exec talked about the 20 million sales of Apple TV so far and said that this billion-dollar business will get bigger this year.

And although he feels the television market is still complicated

TV is hard. There is no standards, either locally in the US, in some regions, certainly globally. There are lots of right issues down to rights issues. It’s a complicated landscape.

he said that Apple TV “will continue to evolve” as the company continues to “improve the experience.”

Cue also hinted that Apple has “the best product pipeline in 25 years” coming up later this year and we expect the new Apple TV will obviously be on of the new products Apple will introduce by the end of the year.

Reading Cue’s words alongside with the rumors of a September-October launch of the next Apple TV, we can expect some revolutionary changes to the set top-box soon. If speculations are to believed, the overhaul will include a completely redesigned easy-to-use interface, an iOS 7 based firmware, separate App Store, an SDK for third party channels, support for games and MFi controllers.

And the undue delay in the release of Apple TV 4 also points to some huge incoming changes.

Read the complete interview with Cue and Iovine here.

Stick around here at Apple TV Hacks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) for more coverage on the new Apple TV.

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Though official announcements are yet to arrive, it is almost certain that Apple has made its largest acquisition yet, in the form of Beats Electronics, for a staggering $3.2 billion. Things are taking some interesting turns here for Apple TV fans, as Steve Jobs’ biographer, Walter Isaacson claims that the Beats acquisition is focused on video content streaming and the ultimate Apple TV experience, more than anything else.

And the cue here is Jimmy Iovine, the co-founder at Beats Electronics.

It was already reported that both Jimmy and Dr. Dre would take up executive positions at Apple, post to the acquisition. And according to Isaacson, this rather neglected part of the story is what makes the purchase worth every penny – Apple will get Iovine on their team. And why is that so relevant?

According to Billboard:

Isaacson thinks the Apple-Beats deal is not about headphones or streaming music but rather is about video. He speculates that Cook wants Iovine to run Apple’s content business and help Apple launch the TV product that analysts have been gossiping about for years. The product has been held up because Apple can’t get all the content owners on board.

Isaacson speculates that Iovine will be made the lead of Apple’s content delivery system and expects radical changes in how iTunes, Apple TV channels and future video content will behave.

What Apple needs now to make the revolutionary Apple TV possible is an insider directly involved with the content makers and the distributors, who can make use of his connections to good ends and pull off the deals which none of the other Apple executives nor Tim Cook himself could ever do.

As Micah Singleton reported to The Daily Dot:

Jimmy Iovine may be the most connected man in Hollywood, with an accomplished history as a music executive and producer, who has worked with Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, U2, Tom Petty, and John Lennon. Iovine has also produced films, documentaries, and TV shows, giving him rare insight into all phases of the entertainment industry. 

What you can count on is Jimmy Iovine being Apple’s Hollywood liaison. Iovine can get deals done that Apple executives cannot. Hollywood runs on relationships, and thanks to running one of the biggest labels in the world and producing films and TV shows, Iovine has relationships with executives across the industry. Iovine may be tasked with reinventing iTunes at first. But when it’s time to make those content deals for the long-rumored Apple TV, you can expect Iovine to be in the room.

However, many analysts are responding against Isaacson’s predictions and rejects the possibility of him having connections with such deep insider sources. It also seems to be out of sense that Apple would add the whole company to the cart just for its co-founder and not its headphones or subscription service.

But at this point we can only hope that if the speculations are true, Jimmy does his job well and brings more channels and better content to the next generation Apple TV.

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