Steve Jobs' Biographer Left Out Details on Vision for 'Next Apple TV' - MacRumors
Skip to Content

Steve Jobs' Biographer Left Out Details on Vision for 'Next Apple TV'

bits applesiri blog480While Steve Jobs' official biographer Walter Isaacson created a stir last October with his disclosure of Jobs having "finally cracked" how to develop a revolutionary television set product, it now appears that Jobs shared even more about the product that Isaacson has so far declined to make public.

The revelation came in an interview with Brazilian television yesterday, and The Next Web highlights Isaacson's comments about holding back the information because it would have been "unfair to Apple" to share it before the company's plans were publicly known.

[Isaacson] says that he left a few things out of the book, one of those being details of “what [Steve Jobs] thought the next Apple TV should be.”

He says that he left it out of the book “because Apple hadn’t yet done it and I thought that, maybe, that was unfair to Apple before they produce the TV…reporting what Steve thought it should be.”


Apple has been rumored to be working on a Siri-enabled television set that could be set to launch late this year or early next year. The company has reportedly been investigating components for the product, with various prototypes sitting in Jony Ive's design lab.

Related Roundup: Apple TV
Buyer's Guide: Apple TV (Don't Buy)

Popular Stories

Apple Event Logo

Apple to Launch These 15+ New Products Later This Year

Friday March 27, 2026 2:03 pm PDT by
March has been an incredibly busy month for Apple, with the company unveiling more than 10 new products and accessories. We said hello to the MacBook Neo at the start of the month, and we bid farewell to the Mac Pro at the end of it. Nevertheless, there is still a lot more to come this year. Beyond the usual annual updates to iPhones and Apple Watches, Apple's all-new smart home hub is...
iOS 26

iOS 26.4 Adds Two New Features to CarPlay

Tuesday March 24, 2026 1:55 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 was released today, and it includes a couple of new features for CarPlay: an Ambient Music widget and support for voice-based chatbot apps. To update your iPhone 11 or newer to iOS 26.4, open the Settings app and tap on General → Software Update. CarPlay will automatically offer the new features so long as the iPhone connected to your vehicle is running iOS 26.4 or later....
Mac Pro Feature Teal

Apple Confirms Mac Pro Is Dead, No Future Models Planned

Thursday March 26, 2026 2:04 pm PDT by
Apple has discontinued the Mac Pro and has removed the machine from its website, reports 9to5Mac. Apple said it does not plan to design a new version of the Mac Pro, and no new model will be coming in the future. The Mac Pro was last updated in 2023, which was when Apple added an M2 Ultra Apple silicon chip, but the chassis has not been refreshed since 2019. Apple redesigned the Mac Pro to...

Top Rated Comments

184 months ago
He'd better watch his back... He could well be samsung'd on his road to work any day!
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
184 months ago
Who else is more excited about Apple's new TV endeavor than the iPad 3?
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
S.B.G Avatar
184 months ago
What the heck is that awful setting they have him in?
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Peace Avatar
184 months ago
Kudos to Walter Isaacson for not publishing it b/c he thought that it wasn't fair to Apple (and to Jobs). He knows how big of selling point discussing a pre-release product would be to the book yet he respected the secrecy of Apples development chain.

I'm sure a lot of authors wouldn't have been so honorable.
Well after reading the book. Well.. Part of the book. It seems like Isaacson started to really like Steve. He saw a part of him that nobody else saw. Except for Steve's family. So i'm gonna guess he did it out of respect not some NDA agreement.

And darn it. I'm 58 years old and I want to cry again..

Steve we do indeed miss you.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
trainwrecka Avatar
184 months ago
Wonder what else was left out.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Peace Avatar
184 months ago
Wow. Is this guy being interviewed or interrogated ?
And is he talking about the Apple TV or the Apple Television ?
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)