Rumor: Apple's HDTV Will Feature Siri Control?

Steve Jobs' "I've finally cracked it" comment was referring to using Siri as a means to access content on a television claims an Apple insider.

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An unnamed source close to Apple told the New York Timesthat Steve Jobs' comment of "I've finally cracked it" was referring to the use of Siri on an HDTV, not to an actual TV set.

According to the report, Apple engineers and designers have been struggling for years to create a new interface for TV and replace the remote control. The goal is to give consumers a way to choose content on their television screen just as easily as they do on the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad. Developing alternative remote idea concepts like a wireless keyboard/mouse combo or using an iOS device as a remote just hasn't produced the desired results.

The "I finally cracked it moment" came when Apple realized that you could simply talk to the TV, thus Siri was conceived. Unlike Kinect which not only includes voice commands but actual hand gestures, Apple's Siri supposedly will allow the couch potato to simply say "put on the last episode of Gossip Girl" or "play the local news headlines" or "play YouTube videos of cute cats falling asleep."

Nick Bilton of the New York Times claims that he's followed the clues of Apple's upcoming HDTV for over a year. "At the time [I first heard about the plans], an individual who has knowledge of Apple’s prototype supply chains overseas told me they had seen some 'large parts floating around' that belonged to Apple," he writes. "This person believed that it 'looked like the parts could be part of a large Apple television.'"

Later one Apple employee admitted that a television is a guaranteed product for Apple, that Steve Jobs thought the television industry was broken -- a sentiment Jobs even reiterated in his biography, saying that an Apple-based television would have "the simplest user interface you could imagine." Even more, executives reportedly knew as far back as 2007 that the company would eventually make a dedicated TV.

"This realization came shortly after the company released the Apple TV, a box that connects to any manufacturer’s television to stream iTunes content," Bilton reports. "Consumers did not flock to the Apple TV, and rather than abandon the project, Apple began calling it a 'hobby.'"

So far an actual release date is up in the air. The television project has yet to incorporate Apple's ultra-thin innovation into TVs, and there's indication that the company may actually wait until the price of large displays fall given that an Apple television would play host to additional electronics. Still, there's a possibility consumers will see an announcement by late 2012 and an actual product release by 2013.