Apple, Microsoft, Google and the sad state of TV

The latest news on Apple’s plans for the future of television is that the company is in talks with big pay TV operators to carry their live programming. This would turn a future Apple TV product into a kind of set-top box, reported the Wall Street Journal Wednesday. Negotiations with cable companies are ongoing, with no deal in sight, and operators are wary of Apple’s quest for control, according to the paper. But the sad truth is that even winning a contract like this would be a defeat for Apple. The company originally set out to disrupt the TV space and sell programming directly to consumers. It wanted to unbundle cable much in the same way it unbundled the CD when it started selling single songs on iTunes for $0.99. A move like that would have been truly innovative. But as it looks now, Apple is just going to repackage the good old cable bundle and make it available through yet another device. If it’s any consolation for Apple, it is not alone with this path. Numerous companies have tried to reinvent TV, only to end up with products that look just like more of the same.