Apple’s Magic Television: Why it’ll be the most disappointing gadget of 2012

You may have heard that right before Steve Jobs died, he wanted to make a television. And not just any television, an Apple Television.

And, by all accounts, Apple is building a television: there are reports and rumors of it putting together 22 and 27 inch displays. And there are even more rumors about what it can do, to the point where we’ve taken to calling it Apple’s Magic Television, because apparently it’ll stop climate change, give everyone a job, and make us all fart marshmallows.

Or it’ll just be a TV. Here’s why we’re leaning towards the latter.

First of all, let’s start with what Apple’s Magic Television will likely do. It will sync up with your iPhone and iPad, allow you to play their apps on a larger screen, connect to the Internet, and will likely have an Apple TV installed in it. It’ll also probably run Siri. All of which actually make it a pretty neat gadget on paper, and disruptive in a number of ways to a number of industries.

Here’s what it won’t do: make TV suck any less.

Yes, Apple has been a game-changer with its products, but there are some games it can’t really change. There’s a lot to hate about modern television, as a technology: channels bundled into groups instead of you being able to pick for and pay for only the ones you want; the fact that cable users pay for content from broadcast networks; the ever rising prices.

But Apple, and its products, aren’t situated to solve those problems. They can facilitate, say, people ditching cable entirely and just buying their TV directly from the studios, but that’s about it.

On the other hand, if Apple’s Magic Television does actually initiate a wave of cord-cutting, then maybe we’ll see some change. But until then, ignore the tech analysts: Apple’s Magic Television isn’t quite as magical as they believe.

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