Apple TV to Go Beyond Remote Control; Will it Arrive in 2012?

First it was Smart TV, then 3D TV and now it's time for Apple iTV to complement living rooms.

There's already widespread speculation about the company planning a cloud-based TV service, and the rumor received new legs when Walter Isaacson's posthumous Steve Jobs autobiography was released. In the book, Jobs discussed that television was the next domain Apple would conquer.

The technology giant has already thrown the ball in the court and is believed to have left no stone unturned to win the television market, in terms of features and variants of the expected product.

According to reports, the product will feature Siri -- Apple's virtual personal assistant that debuted on the iPhone 4S -- and will also run on a new quad-core A6 processor, which is also believed to be featured in the company's next-generation iPad. Meanwhile, the Apple iTV is also expected to come in three different screen sizes which would range from 32 inches to 55 inches.

The big question which pops up here is: Will Apple revolutionize the television market similar to the way it brought about a paradigm shift in the mobile technology? Also, do apps have a future in the evolution of the television set?

On this, experts predict that with television manufacturers racing around trying to find the missing piece, Apple certainly could be the game changer. Apple's major feature Siri would allow users to toss away remotes, enabling voice to turn televisions on and off or change channels.

Viewers could ask Apple TV what the weather is like and have Siri automatically open a weather widget or switch to the Weather Channel. Finding content would be more robust.

One could ask Siri for an episode of the David Letterman Show. And Siri could respond, asking if the choice is rather to watch any particular episode of the show. Siri would automatically pick up the users' viewing habits and remind them of programming ahead of time.

Reports have confirmed that Apple will follow Google's lead in embedding their software into OEM televisions. This leaves Apple with the prospect of designing and building its own Siri-driven television.

The current Apple TV shares components with the iPad, which is good news for suppliers including Broadcom. With Apple's long innovative history of building computer monitors and now Siri, Apple finally has the intuitive control it needs to differentiate itself from the others in the market.

Meanwhile, according to industry analysts, Apple plans its foray into the television market in the second half of 2012 or early 2013. Amid all these speculations, CEO Tim Cook is silent on the much-talked about product and has no comments on the iTV launch plans.

However, analyzing the market insight, Apple is one of the few companies that will be able to pull off such a massive project. If it does, Apple could capture a huge share of the 206 million television units sold in 2011.