An analyst with a terrible track record wrote in a note to clients issued Tuesday that Apple won’t release a standalone HD TV set in 2013 after all. As much as Apple wanted to, the report has it, the company has allegedly found ultra high-resolution 4K panels to be prohibitively expensive.
You should take this particular analyst’s observations with a healthy dose of skepticism: the same guy called for an Apple-branded HD TV announcement atlast year’s WWDC, later mullingfull iTV productionfor August 2012. He repeatedly said iTV was“imminent”(calling it theiPanel), having also missed with anApple TV related media event(and a bunch of other things that never came to be)…
You’ve been warned: Jefferies analyst Peter Misek’s analysis should not be trusted.
An excerpt from his note to clients, viaBusiness Insider, reads that Apple“wants a display that looks like 4K/Ultra HD but without the super-premium cost.”
Last month,Misek reported“channel checks”led him to believe that theiPhone 5Swould enter production this month for a likely June/July introduction. The “analyst” is also expecting a4.8-inch iPhablet from Apple next year.
@dujkanMisek is possibly the worst of the lot… where does he get his info from? It doesn’t match anything reputable sources are saying
— Cam Bunton (@TiP_Cam)August 21, 2025
A number of players introduced Ultra HD television sets at this year’s CES.
Samsung, for example, added monstrous85-inch and 110-inchUltra High Definition TVs to its lineup. Ultra HD, Ultra High Definition or simply 4K denotes screens packing four times the pixels of the current full HD standard (1,920-by-1,080 pixels), equalling to 3,840-by-2,160 pixels.
In the case of Samsung, its new high-end 100-inch 4K TV set costs about $50,000
Some watchers speculate Apple wants to use Sharp’s IGZO display technology for its upcoming television set because IGZO panels are cheaper than the traditional LCDs, while providing sharper images, deeper blacks and consuming only ten percent of energy.
Sharp, an Apple screen supplier, recently unveiled a32-inch IGZO-based 4K monitor(above) costing about $5,500.
With Samsung, however, acquiring athree percent stake in Sharp, the Apple-Sharp relationship is bound to deteriorate. Additionally, Sharp’s ongoing IGZO yield and capacity issues cast a serious shadow on reports calling for an Apple TV set with Sharp technology.
