Let’s pour one out for the Apple Car fans. The hopeful few who were saving a down payment for 2025, then 2026, then 2030 and beyond. The analysts who asked on every earnings call – when is the Apple Car coming? It’s never coming, we have learned. The Apple Car has been killed, its team reshuffled into other projects. Now that we are done with the Apple Car, I hope Apple will get back to a more important project: making the Apple Television set.
Feel free to groan. I groan. I groaned when somebody mentioned the stupid Apple Car. I groaned when I saw terrible CGI mock-ups of a vaunted Apple vehicle of the future. I groaned at rumors that Apple might buy Tesla. I groaned and groaned, and now there is no Apple Car, so clearly groaning works.
We can be thankful there is no Apple Car, now that we’ve seen the Apple Vision Pro. I don’t need a car that displays my eyeballs as headlights, or a 15 pound steering wheel that I strap to my face. A car that costs seven times what the next best car costs.
Just kidding, I’m sure the Apple Car would have been amazing. It’s easy to be sure, because the Car is never coming.
Apple already makes a television... in parts
Before the Apple Car rumors, there were Apple Television rumors. I don’t mean Apple TV 4K, that scornful little box with its terrible miniature Schnauzer of a remote control. I mean a real, bona fide 48- to 60-inch television set. A set I can hang on my wall, or stand on my, um, stand. The TV of my dreams. A TV set to match the best iPhone. A TV interface that’s as smooth as iPadOS. A TV remote that’s… well, they’re going to need a totally new TV remote, but that’s part of what I want!
Admit it, an Apple Television just makes too much sense. First of all, Apple sells all of the pieces that make a television set already. It sells displays. It sells a TV interface, tvOS, complete with apps, games, and original content. Apple owns its own TV channel with Apple TV Plus. Apple even makes smart home gear, smart speakers, and just about every other component you would need to make a smarter TV. It just doesn’t make a TV.
The only missing hardware is the big panel itself, and now is a very cool time for big panels. Television panels are cheaper than ever, and new technology like transparent OLED displays made a huge showing at CES this year. There are TVs that disappear, fold, and roll up. Now would be a great time for Apple to make a splash in television design.
I can't lose the remote control if I'm the remote control
The second reason I need an Apple Television is to kill remote controls. It’s time for the remote to die. We need a better way to control the TV, and Apple is developing new control methods for its spatial computing device, Apple Vision Pro, that would translate wonderfully to a television.
Today, I have two TV sets at home, and four TVs among them. I have a Samsung smart TV with a Google Chromecast attached. I also have a TCL Roku TV with an Apple TV 4K. Honestly, I don’t need all of these TVs, but when I lose one remote I can just switch to whatever box I’m able to control.
I know there are apps to control everything I mentioned, and the apps are horrible. Google Home makes it too hard to find the remote. Roku loses the connection to the TV every time I use the app. The Apple remote app is only marginally better than the demonic Apple TV remote. Only Samsung gives me a great big honking TV remote that I can’t lose, but it’s loaded with 70 extra buttons I don’t need.
Instead, Imagine a TV that could respond to gestures. Imagine a television that tracked your eyes for control, a la Vision Pro. That would be wonderful.
We need Apple to fix Netflix, and Hulu, and Max, and...
The third reason we need an Apple television is to bully the content providers. Remember, US readers, when we all cut our cords and thought things would be so much better and cheaper now that we could ditch cable? No more paying $100 a month for channels we don’t want? Wow, we were stupid.
Now we pay $125 a month to maintain seven subscriptions so we can watch the eight shows that we like. I hear that older movies and shows are included with those subs, but first I need to go on a treasure hunt across all of my streaming apps to find where shows are buried.
Even worse, the apps are terrible, buggy, and hard to navigate. They are designed to keep you confused. Then, these streamers have the gall to raise prices, or take my shows hostage with advertisements. Enough is enough. We need an 800-pound gorilla to put the fear of Jobs into these streaming goons; I’m looking at Apple.
Apple did it before. When Verizon insisted on loading VZ Navigator and other bloatware, Apple just ghosted Verizon and sold its phone on AT&T. Eventually, Verizon and every other wireless carrier caved to Apple’s insistence. If Apple can get The Network to roll over, it can definitely force Netflix to give up some control.
If Apple made the best television ever, a TV set that everybody needed to own, the streamers would fall in line to get their apps on that screen. It would need to revolutionize TV and make us realize we’ve been doing things wrong the whole time. You know, the way the iPhone changed smartphones, or Tesla changed electric cars.
Ooh, too soon, Car fans? Yes. But it’s not too late for Apple to make a great TV.
