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Steve Jobs told biographer he wanted to make a smart TV

Steve Jobs told biographer he wanted to make a smart TV

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Apple TV
Apple TV

Steve Jobs once called the Apple TV a hobby, but it was perhaps more to him than that — before he passed away this month, Jobs told biographer Walter Issacson that he wanted to create a complete television set. Here's the excerpt from Jobs' biography, courtesy of the Washington Post:

"I’d like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use," he told me. "It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud." No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. "It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."

Rumors have swirled around an Apple television for years, particularly those generated by industry analyst Gene Munster, and it's not like the technology would be much of a leap for Apple; it's already building the requisite components into a set-top-box, and the firm obviously has plenty of experience with all-in-one PCs. Still, considering this is the same man who denied iPods would play video or that Apple was working on a phone, we wouldn't be surprised if Jobs simply left one last red herring for competitors to snack on.