Apple Inc. The Ivision Television

Apple Inc.

The iVision television set through which consumers can access the Internet and Apple TV will follow the path of other Apple products through the product life cycle. The product life cycle is roughly introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Consumer electronics typically move through these stages rapidly, and the hope for Apple is that the iVision will settle into the maturity part of the life cycle for the long-term. During all stages of the life cycle, the life cycle is renewed through the introduction of new versions of the product, illustrating that there is a different life cycle for any individual product at the product category or brand as a whole.

The introduction phase will be short, moving quickly into the growth phase. These phases will occur quickly for two reasons. The first is that Apple TV has an installed base from which to draw the initial customers. Bundling of the hardware and the media will allow for the combined product to be highly attractive to consumers. This will allow the iVision to move into the growth phase within the first couple of months. This phase is expected to between 6-12 months, culminating in the release of iVision 2.0, which will be even more feature-rich than the initial version.

The launch of iVision 2.0 towards the end of the product's first year will herald the strengthening of the growth cycle, which will last another year further. By the end of the second year, the maturity phase will have begun. By this point, there will have been further innovations and brand extensions, each of which serves to extend the growth phase. The maturity phase should start around the end of the second year, once a large installed base has been built up. A steady stream of innovations should keep the product in the maturity phase for a number of years. The technology of the iVision is not innovative, but it allows consumers to combine their television and Internet media in a way that has never been done before. The high degree of interactivity -- by far much greater than in something like Web TV, which combined the two products but was not interactive -- will reframe the way consumers view the two technologies. This should be the revolutionary hook that will drive a long maturity period for the product. Further advances in the technology could allow for this product to have a very long life cycle, with intermittent growth spurts. The next generation of iVision could take 4-5 years to arrive and at that point might be considered so revolutionary that it begins the life cycle anew, will herald the decline of the origin iVision and its close extensions.