Here is Daring Fireball’s John Gruber’s take on yesterday’s speculations on whether Apple is working on a standalone TV set or not:

Carl Icahn in his open letter to Tim Cook:

Apple Television Set – after many years of rumors as part of Apple’s push into television and as we referenced previously, we expect in FY 2016 Apple will sell 55” and 65” ultra high definition television sets.

In addition to an Ultra High Definition television set, we expect Apple to launch a related suite of tiered products and services, including a “skinny bundle” of pay-tv channels (partnered with various media companies) and an updated Apple TV microconsole.

Daisuke Wakabayashi for WSJ:

Investor Carl Icahn said he expects Apple Inc. to introduce an ultra-high-definition television in 2016. But after nearly a decade of research, Apple quietly shelved plans to make such a set more than a year ago, according to people familiar with the matter.

John Gruber on his blog:

One way to read it is that Apple gave Wakabayashi this scoop in order to throw cold water on Icahn’s speculation — they’re not doing a TV set and they want everyone know it, so that when they announce a new Apple TV box at WWDC next month (I know nothing about that other than that it’s widely rumored) everyone will understand that there is no TV set coming next year to wait for.

Making boxes that connect to TVs — like Apple TV as it stands today — that makes sense to me. Making actual TV sets, though, I’ve long been skeptical about. Years ago, I thought, “Why should Apple settle for selling a $100 box connected to a $2000 TV instead of just selling the $2000 TV set with the box built in?” The problem, though, is that TV set prices have dropped dramatically, and people don’t replace their TV sets that frequently. The only way to build a large TV-based platform is to make boxes that connect to the TV sets people already own. There has to be a standalone Apple TV box. In theory, Apple could make an actual TV set, too, but I’m unconvinced that makes strategic sense.

Also read: Everything you want to know about Apple TV 4

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WWDC 2014 keynote kicks off  in less that one hour and Apple will be streaming it live on the Apple TV via a temporary Apple Events channel that should have appeared on your Apple TV’s main menu earlier today. Tune in at 10 am PST/1 pm EST/7 pm CET.

Last-minute predictions from John Gruber: “An updated Apple TV seems like a possibility.”

Stick around here at Apple TV Hacks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+) as we’ll be following the event live reporting on all Apple TV-related announcements.

The post Watch WWDC 2014 keynote live on your Apple TV appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.

Usually well informed John Gruber of Daring Fireball gives his predictions for today’s WWDC keynote:

An updated Apple TV seems like a possibility, even though there don’t seem to be any rumors to that effect. I say maybe because I’m hoping that whatever form the next major release of Apple TV takes, that it will be a developer platform with an App Store of its own. That would make sense for a WWDC introduction.

Right, an Apple TV SDK rather than a new tiny black box.

WWDC 2014 keynote begins today at 10 AM Pacific/1 PM Eastern/7 PM CET. We’ll be following it live reporting on all Apple TV-related announcements.

The post WWDC 2014: “An updated Apple TV seems like a possibility” appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.

Daring Fireball’s John Gruber speculates on his blog that an unusually high number of “To Be Announced” sessions on the WWDC schedule this year (particularly in Presidio, the biggest room for sessions in the building) implies that Apple will be announcing something big and his guess is a new developer platform and apps for Apple TV:

Apps for Apple TV is just a guess — I’ve heard not a single whisper about such a thing from any Cupertino area little birdies. But it’s one of the few things I can imagine that would be big, new, and different enough to warrant that much attention at WWDC. Combine these holes in the session schedule with Jonathan Geller’s report at BGR — and I’ll put five bucks down on this actually happening.

Yesterday’s BGR report claimed Apple is planning to unveil a brand new version of the Apple TV operating system next week at WWDC. A “trusted source” has told BGR that the new OS will be much more feature-complete than the current Apple TV OS and that it’s apparently the one that the long rumored Apple TV set will run.

Gruber believes that Apple’s “hobby” is “catching on”:

I can’t think of anything Apple could do to make it more interesting and popular than to open a new branch of the App Store for it.

China Business News reported on Monday that Foxconn has already started a pilot production of the new Apple “smart TV”.

Check out this video to find out how Business Insider’s Jay Yarow sees the feature of Apple TV:

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