Before his death, Steve Jobs had put into motion a new project at Apple aimed at revolutionizing the standard television set. In his biography of the Apple founder, out today (Monday), Walter Isaacson quotes Jobs as saying, "I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use. ... It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud. No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it." Speculation immediately arose that the interface Jobs had in mind was a version of Siri, the interactive voice system integrated into Apple's new iPhone 4S. Television shows and rented movies could literally be "called up" by the user from the iCloud and could be told to play, fast-forward, increase volume, etc. by the user without ever having to touch a remote.

24/10/2011