Apple has always inhabited the pricier side of the connected TV spectrum and it doesn’t seem like the company is heading in the opposite direction any time soon.
This week, Bloomberg reported that Apple is working on a new Apple TV that combines a streaming TV device with a HomePod smart speaker and a camera for making video calls. It’s unclear how far along Apple might be in the development cycle for this device but it seems like, if it does find its way to market, it will bring with it a premium price.
9to5Mac did some quick math and, considering the $299 cost for a full-size HomePod, the $179 starting price for an Apple TV and a built-in camera, figured that this device could cost around $500. It’s an educated guess at this point and hardly confirmed but, it doesn’t sound outside the realm of Apple pricing possibility.
The publication also ran a survey asking how much respondents would be willing to pay for such a device. The majority said between $200 and $299. Another 20.85% said between $300 and $399, and 17.64% said they would pay nothing because they are not interested. A little more than 17% of respondents combined said they would pay $400 or more.
The response to a hypothetical Apple TV/HomePod seems lukewarm at best. That may be reflected in current market realities for both device categories. According to Strategy Analytics, Apple tvOS controlled 2.7% of the global connected TV platform market at the end of 2020. That’s well behind Amazon Fire OS at 6.4%, Roku TV OS at 6.4% and Android TV at 5.9%.
And last month, Apple discontinued the HomePod so it could focus on the $99 HomePod Mini.
A less expensive Apple streaming stick would likely receive a warmer response from consumers looking for a connected TV device that doesn’t cost more than the television itself. Alan Wolk, co-founder and lead analyst at TV[R]EV, has for years been a vocal proponent of Apple going that route, and calls its “baffling” that the company behind the iPod Nano and iPod Shuffle can’t see its way toward launching an Apple TV Stick.
“[It] just seems like a huge missed opportunity. If I had to guess, Apple was betting that most streaming TV viewing would be on mobile devices like iPhones and iPads, but that didn’t happen, and the widespread availability of $500 big screen TVs means it likely won’t—the TV is now the cheapest screen in the house by a significant margin,” he said in an email.
It’s possible that Apple sees some technical/manufacturing hurdle to making a streaming TV stick that is profitable at a lower price point but still feels premium. Also, for such a design-obsessed company, it probably kills them to think something they made would just be dangling out of an HDMI port on the back of a TV, out of sight.
Apple tvOS’s trailing market share in the connected TV ecosystem doesn’t mean that the Apple TV app and Apple TV+ haven’t secured fairly wide distribution. The app is available across devices from Amazon, Roku, Samsung, Sony, LG, Vizio and Microsoft; it most recently launched on Chromecast with Google TV.
Reports suggest that Apple isn’t done iterating its Apple TV hardware. Last year Bloomberg reported that Apple was developing a new Apple TV with a faster processor designed for handling video games. But prices keep going up for Apple TV devices with more functionality built in – while Roku is rolling out $40 4K players – the company shouldn’t expect to break much further into the connected TV market.