Put this one in the highly speculative basket, but we’ve heard that Telstra’s sweetener for its iPhone 4S (or will it be iPhone 5?) deals will be a free Apple TV with inbuilt Telstra apps.
It’s less than 24 hours before Apple announces whatever it’s going to announce tomorrow, and the rumours are running thick and fast. One of the more intriguing to pass by us was sent in as follows:
Telstra is going to bundle a free Apple TV with every iPhone contract starting next month. I know this from an inside source from Telstra in Perth. This will also incluse a Telstra Big Pond TV app services which runs on the iPhone and Apple TV combo. They are going to ditch there existing hardware for this combo.”
Typos not withstanding, there’s perhaps a grain of possibility in this one, but it hinges on whether Apple’s going to say anything at all about the Apple TV tomorrow. Apple’s invite is rather iPhone-specific, and without an iOS5 announcement for Apple TV, it seems unlikely that BigPond TV would be easily bundled.
The other issue here is the suggestion that the Telstra T-Box would be dumped in favour of Apple TV, which I’ve got to say sounds far too fanciful. Not because Telstra’s buried under a pile of T-Box customers per se (although the company does have a briefing on its home entertainment products scheduled for later in the week), but simply because it’d be handing a huge slice of control of its IPTV future over to Apple in doing so.