Is Apple building a TV?

This is a king-size rumour with king-size doubts on it, but it’s out there and it’s an interesting proposition: Apple really could build its own TV.

In less than ten years, the company has transformed the way we listen to music through iPods and iTunes. Since launching in 2007, Apple’s phones have dominated mobile internet usage figures.

Partly as a result of mainstream adoption of these ‘satellite’ devices, Apple’s desktop and laptop computers have become more accessible, too. Once Apple computers were the preserve of graphic designers and architects. Now your mum has one.

And the iPad? Even without the benefit of hindsight, you’ve only to look at the investment in tablet computing from every major manufacturer to see that Apple’s got that licked, too.

Yet Apple TV never took off as a standalone box, exactly the reason Apple should mount a second charge and build the screen as well.

In iTunes, it has the ecosystem to sell movies and TV shows. And here is a company that has just blown apart existing conceptions of what good glass can be with the iPhone 4’s Retina Display; Apple knows its screens.

So why not? Coupled with Jonathan Ive’s knack for inventive industrial design and the iOS user interface, it could be the next big thing in TV.

As long as it can pick up a good signal, that is.

[speculation from the New York Times blog]