Steve Jobs Was Working On Apple TV Even After Stepping Down As CEO

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) co-founder Steve Jobs left the CEO post five years ago, but he did not actually plan to leave the company completely. Jobs was rather going to concentrate on some other product: Apple’s reinvention of TV (including a TV set). According to Walt Mossberg, executive editor at The Verge and editor at Re/code, Jobs told him about his TV ambitions on the night he formally announced his decision to hand over the reins to Tim Cook.

Not much progress since Jobs’ death

Mossberg said that Jobs wanted him to know that he was going to be involved in big strategic things, and he was going to reserve one specific thing for himself.

When Mossberg asked, “Well, what’s that?” Jobs said, “Well, it’s television … I think we figured out a way to do it, and it’s going to be fantastic. I want you to come out, in a few months, and I want to show it to you.”

However, Jobs died less than two months later. Since then, the tech giant has only taken tentative steps towards the TV industry. Apple has focused on a peripheral set-top box instead of a set and has made redundant efforts to create its own TV service, but it has not been able to get the deals it wants from TV programmers.

So instead, the tech company is allowing other people to figure out how to deliver TV programming through apps. Also the iPhone maker wants to make a new version of a TV guide, reports Re/code.

Was Jobs really into the Apple TV?

Similarly, Jobs made some statements on the Apple TV to Walter Isaacson, a biographer. Jobs told Isaacson that he wanted to create an integrated TV set that is easy to use and will sync seamlessly with iCloud.

“I finally cracked it,” Jobs was quoted as saying.

However, Jobs publicly downplayed the Silicon Valley giant’s TV efforts as a hobby. He told Kara Swisher and Mossberg in 2010 that the tech giant could not get into TV because there wasn’t any “viable go-to-market strategy.” The same year, he said that TV is a terrible business and that the margins are also not good, says Re/code.

On Wednesday, Apple shares closed up 0.09% at $106.10. Year to date, the stock is down more than 1%, while in the last year, it is down more than 6%.

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