Apple: Will Next Gen iMac Have Apple TV Built In?
Now, here's a novel piece of speculation on Apple. — Wedge Partners analyst Brian Blair this morning asserted in a research note that that the next version of the iMac, likely in the 2012 first half, will include some new TV functionality …
Context & Ripple Effects
Brian Blair's note lands in the middle of an unusually loud pre-announcement drumbeat around Apple and the living room. A week earlier, Gene Munster laid out his case that an Apple television is coming, and back in August VentureBeat reported sourced claims of an Apple TV set targeted for 2012. What distinguishes Blair's call is the vehicle: not a standalone set, but TV functionality folded into the next iMac refresh, which he expects in the first half of 2012.
The iMac-as-TV framing also echoes an older pattern — AppleInsider ran compelling-new-features rumors ahead of the 2009 iMac cycle — though this time the speculation is about a category entry rather than a spec bump. The syndicated pickup by Wired, arguing Microsoft has the right TV strategy and Apple the wrong one, shows the story traveling beyond Apple-watching circles into a broader debate about how PCs and televisions converge.
First-order effects
- Investors get another sell-side data point in an already crowded Apple-TV narrative, and the stock's near-term trading around product-cycle expectations now has three distinct analyst positions — Munster's set, VentureBeat's sources, and Blair's iMac hybrid — to price against.
- Prospective iMac buyers face a timing decision: if Blair's first-half-2012 window holds, purchasing a current-model iMac means risking a refresh that adds functionality no previous iMac has carried.
Second-order effects
- If TV tuners or living-room features land inside the iMac, the display becomes a Trojan horse for Apple's media ecosystem — pulling iTunes content into the den without requiring the separate $99 Apple TV box, and squeezing the standalone set-top's reason to exist.
- PC makers and TV manufacturers would both be forced to answer a converged product: rivals like Dell and HP would face pressure to justify why their all-in-ones stay productivity-only, while TV vendors would see a premium computer brand encroaching on panel real estate.
Third-order effects
- The disagreement among credible voices — a full television versus TV-in-the-iMac versus incremental Apple TV box updates — signals that even Apple watchers do not yet know which form factor Apple will choose, meaning the structural question of whether the computer absorbs the TV or the TV absorbs the computer remains genuinely open heading into 2012.
- If the pattern of escalating analyst and sourced reports continues into an actual launch, Wall Street's product-rumor machinery will have effectively front-run Apple's own announcement cadence, further compressing the surprise value of keynotes.
The trend: Analyst and sourced reporting is converging on an Apple move into the living room in 2012, with the open question being whether it arrives as a television, a TV-equipped Mac, or an expanded set-top box.