Apple plans for the future TV experience APPLE TV

Apple has been sizing up the world of television for a long time now with very hungry eyes. The company almost never reveals its plans out loud, of course, but if you test the PH level of the rumor pool, it's starting to look a lot like it did about six years ago, just before the first iPhone came along.

At that time, it was widely believed that something called an "iPhone" was on its way, but what that would shape up to be was anyone's guess. And it wasn't just about the design and capabilities of the device, either. To get a product like that going would be a lot more complicated than just building a gadget and putting it on shelves.

Apple had to make deals with the entrenched companies that controlled the networks on which those devices relied -- wireless carriers. Either that or enact some kind of grand strategy  to go it alone and make its own network, which would be an especially risky undertaking.

As it turned out, Apple dealt with the carriers. It drove a hard bargain, but it played the game, and now the iPhone is kind of a big deal.

Now it seems Apple may be looking toward that same strategy for what's presumed to be its next industry shakeup: television.

For the moment, Apple TV is a simple little set-top box that does iTunes, some streaming sports channels, Netflix, YouTube, so forth. A lean-living cord-cutter can survive nicely on it, but Apple's said to have bigger dreams. It wants to come out with a full-sized Apple television -- not just a box, but a 40-something inch screen. And it wants full-sized content. It wants more shows, immediate availability, everything on-demand, more live sports -- basically everything a cable TV package has to offer.

Getting that by jumping over Big Cable's head would mean carving out dozens of deals directly with content producers, some of which may balk if their cable godfathers lean on them even a little. And cable wouldn't stand for it -- they're already scared enough of the cord-cutter trend; the last thing they need is one of the most popular consumer electronics corporations in the world serving up a full-access, all-Internet entertainment package in a neat little black box.

It'd be a messy and complicated process, and odds are good that at best it would end up being a half-baked product.

The easier route: Sit down with the cable providers themselves. And that's just what Apple is doing, according to a Wall Street Journal report. The company is supposedly negotiating terms for letting cable providers pump their content directly into Apple TV. Customers keep their subscriptions; they just use Apple's equipment as the cable box instead of renting a more or less generic one from the provider.

Cord-cutters won't be pleased about that -- it still means cable subscriptions are necessary to get full access to all content. But it could save customers a few bucks in the long run, if set-top Apple TV devices remain available for US$100. It's not a totally alien idea for some cable providers -- a few of them already have similar deals with Microsoft's Xbox 360. And a deal like that does get Apple's foot in the door -- and once it's there, the company often proves itself to be very good at wedging things open a lot further.