New evidence is emerging that suggests that Apple could be planning one of their great ever shocks. The September 10th mega-announcement, widely assumed to be relating to the new iPhone 5S and the budget 5C, may actually be about Apple TV instead.
The bills that Apple have filed in the last few days with the Department of Homeland Security make it clear that the company has procured a huge shipment of set top boxes.
There are scores of analysts who are expecting Apple to announce the launch of its new iPhone at a mega event planned next week, but in the past 48 hours there are increasing numbers of experts who are claiming that the event might be used by Apple to unveil its new Apple TV instead. This conclusion has been arrived at by a trade intelligence platform in a blog on its website. Written by Katelyn Holbrook in a post titled “It’s not an iPhone”, Holbrook’s conclusion is based around three shipments that have nothing in common with an iPhone:
- A shipment dated August 25 that was received from a manufacturer in China. The SHipment was clearly marked as containing set-top boxes
- Another shipment received from the same manufacturers and again described as set to box on August 18
- Another shipment received on August 11 and described as set top box once again
These three shipments have been cited as evidence enough to suggest that the product to be introduced in the event next week is indeed the new Apple TV and not an iPhone. This data does not include the number of pieces imported into the country but does mention their weight and says that the weight of the last two of these shipments amounted to more than 18 tons. This blog also takes note of the fact that the Apple TV’s in the market at present were sold by the company soon after a shipment of these very set top boxes arrived in the country in December last year. We reached out to Apple but did not receive a response prior to publishing.
So what is the September 10th event going to be all about? Some rumours suggest that Apple may be planning a bonanza launch, featuring their two new iPhone’s, an updated set-top box, the new iOS 7 and a new radio product.
What is clear is that the Apple TV software is long overdue an update, with the last iteration launching 18 months ago. The company has been gearing up for an Apple TV 4th-gen update for some time, although we remain sceptical that Apple will use the 10th September event to launch a brand new TV product. The company are keen to follow through on the one final vision of Steve Jobs, who dreamed about conquering the TV space in the same way that he did music, computing and digital publishing.
The most likely outcome from tomorrows event? In our opinion we’re most likely to see the two new iPhones alongside a slight upgrade on the Apple TV product. In all likelihood, Apple will wait until next year to really ‘tackle’ TV, with the possibility of a flat screen TV launch alongside a whole new Apple TV product.
Either way, we’ll be glued to the Apple event tomorrow. Follow us below on Twitter or connect with us on Facebook on the right hand sidebar to get the live lowdown as the event unfolds.
Guest-post disclosure: This piece was written by Nayah Shah.
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