Will Apple's iTV shake biz to core?

An Apple-produced TV set will likely follow the Apple TV set-top box that Steve Jobs introduced in 2006 and updated in 2010. The most-talked about device at CES isn't in Las Vegas. It actually may not exist at all.That won't, however, stop the tidal wave of hype building for the so-called iTV -- Apple's pending entry into the connected-TV market -- from washing over the Las Vegas Convention Center's show floor, where many TV manufacturers will be touting similar products.Never mind that Apple hasn't confirmed such a product is even in development. Ever since Apple founder Steve Jobs was quoted in his posthumous biography late last yearas having "finally cracked" TV, an endless number of anonymously sourced scoops and reams of speculation regarding iTV have appeared, with the result that its existence is doubted by few. There's too much smoke for there not to be fire.In the absence of known facts about the product, iTV has become a bogeyman of sorts -- a mythical creature onto which the industry can project all its fears and fantasies about just what a TV set of game-changing proportions might look like.That Apple is its maker only feeds this frenzy because the company has proved time and again that its offerings can dominate markets seemingly overnight, as it did most recently in the tablet space with iPad. And Apple manages to cast a perennial shadow over CES despite the fact that the company doesn't even bother to show up there.If there's a market vulnerable to an outsider of outsize influence, it's the smallscreen. Global TV shipment revenue growth has sunk to single digits in recent years, according to IHS iSuppli Market Intelligence, which projects a decline in shipments will begin in 2014.Regardless, analysts are bullish on iTV. Barclays Capital has already forecast sales of $19 billion for the product in 2013, yet there's no consensus as to when exactly iTV will be available, with estimates ranging from the second quarter of 2012 to sometime next year. Apple analyst Gene Munster -- who predicted an Apple-produced TV years before Jobs went public with it -- has projected it could cost $1,600, not a small sum coming off a holiday season where manufacturers were slashing prices.Like Bigfoot, the iTV has been lavished with varying awestruck descriptions from sources who have no proof they've actually seen it. The size of its presumed liquid-crystal-display screen has been estimated to be anywhere from 32-50 inches. There may be more than one size model. ITV has been described by some as not a TV set at all but a set-top addition to existing models.But size and shape aren't what will set iTV apart from the rest of the field; it's the bells and whistles built into the set. The obvious additions would be iTunes, the App Store, a Wi-Fi connection and AirPlay, the Apple devices that could bring iTV into a connected ecosystem with its other wireless devices. The iCloud service could make iTV devoid of storage.What really gets tech enthusiasts excited is the possibility that Siri, the voice-activated technology currently running on iPhone 4S, will be part of the product, potentially rendering useless the remote control that has been TV's primary navigation tool for decades. Microsoft doesn't manufacture TVs, but its Xbox videogame console has drawn raves for Kinect, a voice and motion recognition system that has become an integral piece of the service's multimedia strategy -- and major revenue generator.TV manufacturers have a well-grounded fear that Apple will do to them what the iPhone did to wireless handheld makers like RIM, Motorola and Nokia. Cowen & Co. analyst Jim Friedland foresees widespread embrace for Google TV precisely because of the iTV. "We think the threat of market entry by Apple will force television manufacturers to incorporate Google TV into their products, especially given the success of Android," he wrote.But while plenty of speculation has given the tech industry a good idea of what iTV will look like, one crucial aspect of the product remains a mystery: Apple's content strategy. Apple is expected to attempt to secure firstrun programming or entire channels on an a la carte basis.Programmers haven't been persuaded so easily in prior negotiations with Apple, which has tried and failed on the a la carte front. Of course, if there's a company sitting on enough cash -- $80 billion at last count -- to change some minds, it's Apple. Contact Andrew Wallenstein at andrew.wallenstein@variety.com