Now We Can Really Get Excited About an Apple TV Set

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Either the chief executive of Foxconn is running his mouth or the much-blogged about Apple television is in the works. At a press conference Friday, Terry Gou confirmed that his company was preparing to manufacture a next generation TV for Apple. The announcement came buried in some much less exciting news about the construction of Foxconn's new headquarters and development of a new distribution strategy. Nevertheless, he did offer details. "Gou said Foxconn is making preparations for iTV, Apple Inc's rumored upcoming high-definition television, although development or manufacturing has yet to begin," reported China Daily from the event. "iTV reportedly features an aluminum construction, Siri, and FaceTime video calling." 

This isn't the first time that the iTV's bounced around the rumor mill, but it does seem to be the most definitive. Last December, The Wall Street Journal's Jessica E. Vascellaro and Sam Schechner had a report that Apple had been talking to a number of media executives about a television with wireless streaming capabilities (key to FaceTime calling) and possibly voice recognition technology (the foundation of Siri). The key to the new device -- and a notion that appeared unambiguously in Steve Jobs's biography -- would be the iTV's interaction with Apple's other mobile devices. "I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use," Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson, "It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud."

It's also totally possible that the Foxconn chief is just propping up pre-existing rumors. Since he didn't give a timeline or talk too much about the iTV's specs, the project could easily just disappear like vapor. We should also remind readers that fantasizing about Apple's nonexistent television set has become as fashionable as wondering what the next iPhone will look like. And since Gou said that production and manufacturing haven't started, we'll have many more months of dreaming before we see anything on stage at an Apple event. But assuming nothing got lost in translation, the fanboys can feel free to fantasize.

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