With Apple TV not really selling well and now facing new competition from Google TV (which, incidentally, Sony is one of the loudest supported of, and has released the first HDTV with Google TV built-in), buying Sony would give the company an instant leg-up in the home entertainment market.

It would also mean Apple could integrate the iPhone with the PSP (something that Sony Ericsson are rumoured to be doing with their next Android phone) and turn Sony’s entire Hi-Fi line directly towards the iPod and iTunes.

Although Apple have obviously denied any of this, the rumours have sent Sony’s shares up by 3%. Apple are sitting on a $51 billion pile of cash, and Steve Jobs has been quoted as saying “…we do feel that there are one or more strategic opportunities in the future,” with Sony, Adobe and Disney all being identified as potential targets.

Of the three, Sony makes the most sense. There can be no love lost between Apple and Adobe, with Jobs laying into Adobe’s Flash and refusing to support it on either the iPhone or the iPad, and no real need for the company to buy it. Disney would move Apple into a distinctly different market, although with Pixar under the Disney banner, there’s an obvious affinity and history there. But it’s with Sony that any deal makes the most sense, simply because its brand, its range of home entertainment gadgets, and the brains of its staff, would all perfectly align with Apple.

[Source: Reuters]

The South Korean electronics giant is working on bringing its developing a single software platform for both its smart TVs and mobile phones, thereby seamlessly merging its powerful smartphones, tablets and TVs into one Samsung-powered eco-system.

Samsung’s strategy

Both Google and Apple have already doen this to a degree. Google has just released Google TV through its partners Logitech and Sony, which puts Android on the telly, and lets you control your Google TV with your Google smartphone (or your iPhone for that matter – Google’s very open about these things!)

Apple, too, has Apple TV, which you can also control via your iPhone.

Now Samsung have joined the frey, although it’s nto clear whether their new platform will be their own Bada or Google’s Android.

“What’s Bada?”, I hear you cry…!

Samsung’s Bada

Bada is Samsung’s own mobile OS, developed specifically by the company to give it maximum control over its phones after it decided to drop Nokia’s Symbian. First released on the Samsung Wave phone back in June 2010, Bada hit a huge roadblock in the shape of the massively successful Samsung Galaxy S – another Samsung phone that’s much better than the Wave, but which runs on Google’s Android.

Embarassingly for Samsung, they built an Android-powered phone that’s much better than their own phone running on their own OS! Thuis doesn’t augur well for a Bada-powered TV!

However, the company is undeterred.

“We have a plan to have a single platform for Samsung TV and phones,” Kyungsik Kevin Lee, vice president at Samsung’s Visual Display Division, told Reuters in an interview. They have the power to do it, as well, as they, LG and Sony are the only companies that are big players in the TV and mobile market.

I doubt if it can succeed, though. Although I don’t doubt that the TVs will sell, a Bada-powered TV platform will never be able to establish itself as the dominant platform, as Bada will never be able to compete with Android or Apple.

Still, competition’s never a bad thing!

[Source: Reuters]

Top of the rumour tree is a new iPod Touch, and this fourth generation is whispered to be the most social of iPods yet.

Apple iPod Touch Rumours

The recent leaks of a supposed case and the digitiser for the new device all show it to have a hole in the top that’s roughly tiny camera sized. Given that Apple somewhat oddly stuck a camera on the iPod Nano (maybe Del Boy Jobs got a job lot) it would make sense for them to incorporate one into their premier PMP.

This would no doubt introduce Apple’s FaceTime video calling to those without an iPhone 4 and will allow iOS apps designed for the front camera to run on cheaper hardware. So will we see Skype video calling on the iPod Touch? You never know.

Apple TV Rumours

The other big rumour in Appleland is a(nother) revamp of the ailing Apple TV device. Currently only popular with a few consumers and techheads willing to hack it, Jobs is still backing the device long after the general public and are not.

The word is that Apple TV will return to its original moniker of iTV (um, may not happen here Steve) and will run iOS instead of a cut-down and skinned OSX, allowing access to the all-important App Store.

Certainly this would appeal to the iCrowd and if it can out-Google the forthcoming Google TV system with plenty of social interaction and syncing with iPods and iPhones, it may well find itself a niche in the living room, especially at the rumoured price of $99

[Source: Techwhack, Appleinsider]

Now, all this is fine, but I can’t ehlp but feel that such a device is playing catch-up, and not just with the iPod Touch, either. The new Walkman sports many of the features that the latest mobile phones have had for months (incuding, ironically, Sony Ericsson Walkman phones!)

As such, Sony isn’t just competing with the iPod Touch, it’s competing with the entire mobile phone industry, including its own Sony Ericsson division. I’m not sure what the Sony Touchscreen Walkman offers that the other devices don’t already offer, and given that you can get the phones for free, whereas the new Walkman won’t exactly be cheap, Sony’s gong to have a tough time on its hands getting it shifted.

Still, that said, I’m looking forward to seeing exactly what Sony have in store for us at CES next year, and it certainly makes January much more exciting than it would ordinarily be!

[Source: Electronista]