The Wall Street Journal reports Apple wants to make one of the late Steve Job's last wishes come true by "moving forward with its assault on TV" and meeting with executives at "several large (media) companies."
According to WSJ sources, the Apple TV set (or "iTV") will access content via wireless streaming technology, recognising users across phones, tablets and TV.
Delaying development and release is work on the user interface-- one using not only voice (via Siri) but also gestures and iDevices.
This being Apple, development is (of course) extremely secretive, but apparently some media companies are receiving updates on iTV developments. Sources say "the types of new services Apple and the media companies are discussing could be done with Apple's existing technologies, which include its Apple TV set-top box." Apple also wants the iTV to receive data directly from mobile devices via AirPlay, without need for the Apple STB.
Apple is hardly the only company wanting to take over TV-- as we all know, Google has (the still unsuccessful) Google TV product, recently updated to Android 4.0. Speaking at LeWeb 2011, Google chairman Eric Schmidt sounded optimistic, saying "by the summer of 2012, the majority of the TVs you see will have Google TV embedded in it."
Will Schmidt's wish come true, or will fortune favour Apple? Maybe the two rival companies will bring some fuel to an admittedly ailing TV market...