Apple TV: Coming in 2012?

The Cutline

Before Steve Jobs died, he told Walter Isaacson that he finally figured out how to translate Apple's magic with iPhones, iPods and Macbooks to consumer televisions.

"It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine," Jobs said in Isaacson's just-released biography on the late Apple chief.

Jobs had long admitted that Apple's current TV offering--a small, $99 device that plugs into TVs and streams programming from Netflix--was a "hobby" for the company, because there was no way to get an innovative product to market.

But according to a Bloomberg report, the new, integrated Apple TV that Jobs told Isaacson about could hit the market as early as next year.

Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller declined comment. But Jeff Robbin, the Apple executive behind the iPod and iTunes Store, is "now guiding Apple's internal development of the new TV effort," according to the report.

More from Bloomberg:

Apple has a prototype TV in the works and may introduce a product for sale by late next year or 2013, according to Gene Munster, an analyst with Piper Jaffray Cos. He based that timing on meetings with contacts close to Apple's suppliers in Asia, industry contacts and Apple's patent portfolio. Munster said Apple also is investing in manufacturing facilities and securing supplies of LCD screens.

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