Steve Jobs 'Cracked' the Secret to an Apple TV Set Before He Died

The Steve Jobs biography hit stores—real and virtual—today, and in the book, Apple's former CEO reveals that he had been working on an Apple-branded television before his death on Oct. 5.

Appearing on 60 Minutes yesterday, the book's author, Walter Isaacson, said Jobs hinted that he would have liked to "conquer television" in one of the more than 40 interviews Isaacson conducted with Jobs while working on the biography. The book itself reveals even more. Isaacson writes that Jobs "wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant."

"It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine," Jobs says in the book. "I finally cracked it." Isaacson writes that Jobs describes an integrated TV that would sync seamlessly with all (presumably Apple) devices and iCloud, Apple's new consumer cloud service. It will supposedly make complicated remotes for disc players and cable boxes a thing of the past.

The key word being "will," not "would" or "might." From the passage, several industry analysts are seeing it as validation of a device that they've been predicting for some time. Apple has had its Apple TV set-top product for years, of course, and many observers see a full-fledged Apple television as the logical next step. Even though entering the TV market would be foreign territory for Apple, with many obstacles, such a product could be part of a larger strategy to make iTunes a stronger player among services selling movies and TV shows.

Based on the bio passage and his own data, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster predicts Apple will release its television in late 2012 or 2013, calling it a "new growth driver" for the company. Also jumping on board is Brian White of Ticonderoga Securities, who declared in a report this morning, "A full-blown Apple Smart TV is in the works." White says he expects Apple to charge a "healthy premium" above other TVs on the market.

More importantly, what is this ultra-simple user interface that Jobs was referring to and says he "cracked?" The current Apple TV has its own menu system, of course, but given that part of what Jobs said had to do with getting rid of (or stripping down) remote controls, it's possible that Siri, Apple's new voice assistant for the iPhone 4S will factor highly.