Steve Jobs Said 'No' to a Real Apple TV, New Book Reveals

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Former Apple CEO Steve Jobs displays the Apple TV at a news conference in San Francisco on Sept. 1, 2010.

Image: Paul Sakuma/Associated Press

By Pete Pachal2014-03-17 20:31:52 UTC

A year before he died, Steve Jobs told Apple executives in a secret meeting that he had no intention of entering the TV market, according to a new book.

First reported by Business Insider, the book Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs by former Wall Street Journal reporter Iwatani Kane describes a "Top 100" meeting in 2010 where 100 of Apple's top executives, managers and employees attended a closed off-site retreat. On the last day of the event, Jobs told attendees to "ask me anything" without fear of insulting him. Somebody asked Jobs if Apple was going to release a TV.

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Jobs didn't hesitate in his response: "No."

He explained that "TV is a terrible business. They don't turn over and the margins suck."

Many TV manufacturers would agree. While it's possible to turn a profit, margins on big-screen TVs are extremely thin, which is why manufacturers have been turning to 4K and Smart TV features to coax consumers to spend more money on big screens.

Controlling the living room, however, was still a goal, Jobs said, which is why Apple kept iterating on its Apple TV set-top box. But Jobs said it would remain a "hobby" until Apple could ink certain content deals.

It appears those deals have yet to materialize since not much has happened in the world of Apple TV apart from the addition of a few extra services. In comparison, Google Chromecast, which recently enabled developers to create more apps, has been much more active.

Jobs' 2010 denial appears to contradict what he told biographer Walter Isaacson, when he said he had finally "cracked" the interface for an Apple television, which he described as an "integrated television set ... seamlessly synced with all of your devices."

According to the Kane book, "veterans" who attended the Top 100 meeting didn't believe Jobs' denial either, theorizing that he threw water on speculation about an Apple TV so his people could focus on their current work, and try not to think of the next big thing too soon.

For his part, current Apple CEO Tim Cook previously said the TV industry has been an area of "intense interest" for the company. Between his comments and Jobs' confession to Isaacson, rumor and speculation about an Apple television — sometimes called "iTV" — has been rampant over the last two years. It's unlikely that this latest revelation will stem the tide.

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Topics: apple, Apple TV, itv, Steve Jobs, Tech