Apple TV: The Little Hobby That Wouldn't Die

After Steve Jobs unveiled updates to the entire iPod line and revealed that movies would soon be sold in the iTunes store, he made one final product announcement.

"This next thing is a little unusual for us," Jobs began during an Apple event in June 2006. "It's a sneak peak of a product that will be announced in the first calendar quarter of 2007. We usually keep things pretty corralled until we are ready to ship them, but in this case I think it completes the story."

That story, as Jobs told it, was about building a more complete ecosystem, which would let consumers access their entertainment content across what were then the three major screens: the computer, portable music player and television. In order to bring in the biggest of those screens, Apple planned to release a set-top box, referred to in the demonstration as iTV. Read more...