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Steve Jobs email about Apple TV hints at subscriptions, apps, and a 'magic wand'

Steve Jobs email about Apple TV hints at subscriptions, apps, and a 'magic wand'

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Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had grand ambitions to change the way people use TVs, and a new email correspondence between him and top executives a year before his death shows just how far that vision might have gone. In a 2010 email that goes over the topics for the top 100 — a secret meeting Apple has each year with its top employees to discuss strategy for the coming year — there's mention of "Apple TV 2."

"Where do we go from here?"

"Where do we go from here?" says one of the bullet points, followed by "apps, browser" and "magic wand?" as possible options. However, those suggestions could be just be riffing. In testimony in a San Jose court earlier today, marketing chief Phil Schiller noted that items from this email were just an outline, and not necessarily set in stone for the confab. That includes mention of 2011 being the "holy war with Google." In this case, the Apple TV 2 presentation is described as an opportunity to discuss the company's plans to "stay in the living room game and make a great 'must have' accessory for iOS devices."

Appletv

Alongside the Apple TV mention, the full email (which you can read here) mentions plans to "catch up to Google cloud services and leapfrog them," evidence Samsung's using alongside the "holy war" mention to paint Apple as a follower. For the next three weeks, and potentially beyond, the two companies are duking it out in court over dueling claims of patent infringement. In Apple's case, it says Samsung's infringed on five of its patents, and wants $2 billion in damages, more than twice what it won during the first trial. Samsung's asking for $6.9 million for two patents, and has targeted nearly every iOS device since 2011.