Let’s pour one out for the Apple Car fans. The few hopefuls who saved 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 never happens, we’ve learned that. The Apple Car has been killed, the team has been moved to other projects. Now that we’re done with the Apple Car, I hope Apple gets back to a more important project: making the Apple Television set.
Feel free to moan. I groan. I groaned when someone mentioned the stupid Apple Car. I groaned when I saw horrible CGI models of a vaunted Apple vehicle of the future. I groaned at the rumors that Apple might buy Tesla. I moaned and groaned, and now there’s no Apple Car, so obviously moaning works.
We can be thankful there’s no Apple Car now that we’ve seen the Apple Vision Pro. I don’t need a car that shows my eyes like headlights, or a 15-pound steering wheel strapped to my face. A car that costs seven times as much as the next best car.
Just kidding, I’m sure the Apple Car would have been great. It’s easy to be sure because the car never comes.
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 contemptible box with its awful miniature Schnauzer of a remote control. I mean a real one bona fide Television set from 48 to 60 inches. A set that I can hang on the wall or stand on my stand. The television of my dreams. A TV that matches the best iPhone. A TV interface that works as smoothly as iPadOS. A TV remote that… well, they 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 the parts that already make up a television set. It sells screens. It sells a TV interface, tvOS, complete with apps, games and original content. Apple has its own TV channel with Apple TV Plus. Apple even makes smart home equipment, smart speakers, and pretty much all the other components you need to make a smarter TV. It just doesn’t make TV.
The only missing hardware is the large panel itself, and now is a very cool time for large panels. Television panels are cheaper than ever, and new technology like transparent OLED screens were hugely on display at this year’s CES. There are TVs that disappear, fold and roll up. This would be a good time for Apple to take a dip into television design.
I can’t lose the remote if I am the remote
The second reason I need an Apple Television is to destroy remotes. 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 very well to a television.
Nowadays I have two TVs at home, including four TVs. I have a Samsung smart TV with a Google Chromecast attached to it. I also have a TCL Roku TV with an Apple TV 4K. Honestly, I don’t need all of these TVs, but if I lose one remote, I can just switch to the box I can control.
I know there are apps to control everything I mentioned, and the apps are terrible. Google Home makes it too difficult to find the remote. Roku loses 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 really big honking TV remote that I can’t lose, but it’s packed with 70 extra buttons that I don’t need.
Instead, imagine a TV that can respond to gestures. Imagine a television that tracks your eyes for control, a la Vision Pro. That would be great.
We need Apple to bring Netflix, and Hulu, and Max, and…
The third reason we need an Apple TV is to spite the content providers. Remember, American readers, when we all cut our cords and thought things would be so much better and cheaper now that we could throw away the 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 we like. I hear older movies and shows are included in those subs, but first I have to do a treasure hunt in all my streaming apps to find out where shows are buried.
Worse, the apps are terrible, buggy, and difficult to navigate. They are designed to keep you confused. Then these streamers have the audacity to raise prices or hold my shows hostage with ads. Enough is enough. We need an 800-pound gorilla to put the fear of Jobs into these streaming goons; I look at Apple.
Apple did it before. When Verizon insisted on loading VZ Navigator and other bloatware, Apple simply ghosted Verizon and sold its phone on AT&T. Ultimately, Verizon and every other wireless carrier gave in to Apple’s insistence. If Apple can get The Network to fold, it can certainly force Netflix to give up some control.
If Apple made the best television ever, a TV that everyone should own, the streamers would be lining up to get their apps on that screen. It should revolutionize television and make us realize that we’ve been doing things wrong all along. You know, the way the iPhone changed smartphones, or Tesla changed electric cars.
Ooh, too early, car fans? Yes. But it’s not too late for Apple to make a great TV.