We Won't Wait Forever

It's been 15 months since Walt Isaacson released his bestselling biography of Steve Jobs, and non-Apple-insiders are still puzzling over this enigmatic passage [bold added]:

And he very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones: make them simple and elegant. "I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use," he told me. "It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud." No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. "It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it."

Now comes an intriguing observation from last week's Consumer Electronics Show:

Longtime tech observer Rich Doherty of Envisioneering tells me that he saw numerous Apple employees wandering the floor in Las Vegas. "They were here not to glean ideas but to make sure the company is not blindsided," he tells me. It is a matter of when, not if, Apple will offer its own smart set, Doherty believes. But, he notes, it is also in Apple's interest to bide its time, keeping a muddled market guessing, until it sees what things really work in this new world of social television.

We are one of the thousands (millions?) who have been tempted by low prices to buy a second flat-panel TV. But we have held off to avoid the buyer's remorse we are certain to feel when Apple announces its TV product. C'mon Apple, we say unconvincingly, we won't wait forever.