What's to blame for Apple iTV delay? Content and the iWatch, apparently

Apple iTV Mockup
Where are you, iTV?

Apple's long-teased iTV may have been put on hold yet again, with the Cupertino giant shifting focus to wearable tech.

According to sources "in the TV supply chain" speaking with Display Search, Apple pressed pause once more on its alleged television product to keep its attention on the much-mooted iWatch's.

What's more, content is reportedly still a sticking point for Apple's TV project - Display Search sources indicated securing proprietary content and lining up things other TV providers can't (À la cartepay TV programming, for instance) is another reason behind the iTV's delay.

An iTV release date of 2014 has been floated for some time now, but it looks like Apple's TV ambitions won't come to fruition until at least 2015.

iWatch watch

Apple may be wise to hold off diving into the TV business, especially with services like Netflix, Hulu and even Chromecast upending content delivery by the minute.

The company also has to catch up with the television manufacturers who have been in the game for years and are continuing to expand with higher-quality though still very expensive 4K sets.

On the other hand, smartwatches are still a new device market that's inhabited by far fewer competitors, namely fitness bands like the Nike Fuel Band SE and Fitbit as well as the Samsung Gear.

Adding more fuel to the smoldering rumor fire, during its recent Q4 earnings call CEO Tim Cook said Apple was looking into "significant opportunities ahead of us in both current product categories and new ones."

This could mean more than one new product line, including TVs and smartwatches. Or perhaps 2014 will be the year for Apple's gaming ambitions to come true?

Kevin Lee

Kevin Lee was a former computing reporter at TechRadar. Kevin is now the SEO Updates Editor at IGN based in New York. He handles all of the best of tech buying guides while also dipping his hand in the entertainment and games evergreen content. Kevin has over eight years of experience in the tech and games publications with previous bylines at Polygon, PC World, and more. Outside of work, Kevin is major movie buff of cult and bad films. He also regularly plays flight & space sim and racing games. IRL he's a fan of archery, axe throwing, and board games.