A new report from Re/code reveals that after Apple CEO Steve Jobs turned over the reigns of the company, he planned to remain with Apple working on his own secret pet project to reinvent television.
Walt Mossberg explains how Jobs called him on the night that he formally handed over the Chief Executive role to Tim Cook and shared his TV ambitions, telling Mossberg, “I think we figured out a way to do it, and it’s going to be fantastic.” Although Jobs invited Mossberg to come and see what he was working on, the untimely demise of the former CEO only two months later meant that much of his vision never came to fruition.
The report notes that “Mossberg believes (Jobs) was talking about an integrated set.” Of course, Apple has yet to introduce its own TV set, and rumors on that front died down some time ago.
Jobs downplayed Apple’s efforts as a “hobby” for years, and in 2010 publicly stated that Apple had no “viable go-to-market strategy” for the TV business, and reportedly told internal staff that “TV is a terrible business.” However by 2011, Jobs’ biographer Walter Isaacson reported that Jobs had been working on TVs behind the scenes, with the now-famous line that he thought he had “cracked it.”
