Snippet: Interpreted Apple TV Messages ☇

According to Philip Elmer-DeWitt for Fortune, Pacific Crest’s Andy Hargreaves wrote a report and drew conclusions from an analyst meeting with Apple CFO Peter Oppenheimer and Senior Vice President for Internet Services and Software, Eddy Cue, stating that Apple won’t be interesting in making an actual stand-alone TV any time soon (via MacRumors):

Relative to the television market, Eddy Cue, Apple SVP of Internet Software and Services, reiterated the company’s mantra that it will enter markets where it feels it can create great customer experiences and address key problems. The key problems in the television market are the poor quality of the user interface and the forced bundling of pay TV content, in our view. While Apple could almost certainly create a better user interface, Mr. Cue’s commentary suggested that this would be an incomplete solution from Apple’s perspective unless it could deliver content in a way that is different from the current multichannel pay TV model.

Unfortunately for Apple and for consumers, acquiring rights for traditional broadcast and cable network content outside of the current bundled model is virtually impossible because the content is owned by a relatively small group of companies that have little interest in alternative models for their most valuable content. The differences in regional broadcast content and the lack of scale internationally also create significant hurdles that do not seem possible to cross at this point.

This seems to be in line with what Apple has been saying for awhile, part of the reason why the current Apple TV box is just a “hobby”—how about we just focus on the rumors for the next iPhone and a smaller iPad?