Industry data and related projections put forward in a new NPD DisplaySearch report suggest that the evolving market momentum of wearable devices is inspiring Apple to change its focus on new projects.
For well over two years, we’ve heard that a connected HDTV from Apple is coming. Now it appears that the Cupertino, California-based tech giant is focusing instead on the smartwatch market.
According to sources in the TV supply chain, it appears that Apple’s long-rumored TV plans, which were far from concrete anyway, have been put on hold again, possibly to be replaced by a rollout of wearable devices.
A lack of access to exclusive content is another problem for Apple.
“To offer truly unique product differentiation that would allow Apple to capture market share from existing smart TV brands, they would need to either deliver some exclusive source of content that the other brands cannot, such as a la carte pay-TV channels, or proprietary content not available on other devices,” today’s report reads. “Neither of these is easy to achieve, and our sources indicate this is one of the principle reasons for the delay in the project.”
