He spent years predicting Apple would launch a TV. The 'painful lesson' he learned when it didn't still applies today.
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- Apple is reportedly reconsidering its TV and smart home devices.
- Deepwater's Gene Munster said he learned from past predictions that Apple's projects may not launch.
- The tech company has previously shelved projects like its electric car despite initial efforts.
Gene Munster was one of the loudest voices predicting an Apple television 10 years ago. Now that the company is reportedly eyeing the project again, he said he's learned his lesson about doubling down on product launches.
Bloomberg reported on Sunday that Apple is reconsidering a TV, along with a slate of smart home devices. Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said he isn't holding his breath for an Apple TV.
"I learned a painful lesson that sticks with me today; because Apple is working on a product doesn't mean it will see the light of day," Munster said in an X post.
I’m breaking my almost decade-long silence on the topic of $AAPL building a branded television set.
— Gene Munster (@munster_gene) November 20, 2024
For those not old enough to remember; for years I predicted Apple would launch a TV, a road that came to an end in the late spring of 2015, when reports broke that Apple was…
He told Business Insider this week that in 2011, he believed that companies putting energy behind a project was a sure sign they were "committed to getting this product to see the light of day."
Munster said it's still a "painful topic" since he spent a lot of time looking into the Apple TV and was emphatic that it would happen.
"It will be the biggest thing in consumer electronics since the smartphone," Munster said in a 2012 interview.
As reports emerge about Apple-branded AI-powered home assistants and tablets with robotic arms, Munster said he's learned not to speak with so much certainty about such projects.
"I was encouraged to hear that this is back on the table, but I'm not fully taking the bait," Munster said.
The idea of an Apple TV started gaining traction in 2011 when biographer Walter Isaacson wrote that founder Steve Jobs said he'd "finally cracked" how to create a TV with Apple's signature minimalism. However, in 2014, another author, Yukari Iwatani Kane, wrote in "Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs" that Jobs told Apple employees in 2010 that a TV set wasn't happening.
The lesson Munster learned about a company assembling a team and putting resources behind projects that may remain on the shelf continues to apply. In February, Apple executives reportedly told a 2,000-person team that they'd no longer be working on an electric car after a decade.
Still, Munster's lesson didn't stop him from making a plea for CEO Tim Cook to bring the Apple TV to shelves.
"Tim, if you're listening, that would be a lot of fun," he said.