Why the Apple TV Launch Didn’t Happen: Insights from the Expert Who Predicted It. Gene Munster, who was one of the most vocal people to predict the Apple TV 10 years ago, recently said he has learned his lesson about doubling down on a product launch. According to a Bloomberg report, Apple is now rethinking the smart home device and TV project. Munster, a managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said he is no longer holding his breath for an Apple TV.
“I learned a painful lesson that stays with me to this day; just because Apple is working on a product does not mean it will see the light of day,” Munster said in an X post. Munster believed in 2011 that if a company was putting energy into a project, it was a clear sign that they were “committed to bringing the product to the light of day.”
A Painful Subject for Munster: Apple TV and the Missed Opportunity
Munster also explained that it was still a “painful subject” for him because he had devoted a lot of time and attention to Apple TV. He insisted that the product would definitely launch. In a 2012 interview, Munster said, “It will be the biggest thing in consumer electronics since the smartphone.”
But as reports of Apple’s AI-powered home assistant and tablets with robotic arms have continued to surface, Munster said he has learned not to talk about such projects with as much certainty anymore. “I’m encouraged to hear that it’s back in the news, but I’m not completely buying it,” Munster said.
The idea of the Apple TV was discussed in 2011, when biographer Walter Isaacson wrote that founder Steve Jobs said he had “finally” found a way to make a TV with Apple’s signature minimalism. However, in 2014 another author, Yukari Iwatani Kane, wrote in her book “Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs” that Jobs told Apple employees in 2010 that the TV set wasn’t happening.
Munster also said that the importance of a company assembling teams and putting resources behind projects it believed in still applies today. In February, Apple executives reportedly told a team of 2,000 people that they would no longer work on the electric car, a decision that was made after a decade.
Still, this important lesson learned by Munster didn’t stop him from appealing to CEO Tim Cook to get the Apple TV on shelves.
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