Bloomberg: Apple won’t release a TV or set-top box anytime soon

Apple won’t release a television or a new set-top box this year because the iPhone maker hasn’t been able to strike deals with media companies or cable providers, a source familiar with the situation told Bloomberg Thursday.

“It’s not a nice, simple, easy story that Apple is going to come in and turn the world upside-down and we’re all going to live happily ever after,” Craig Moffett, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co., told Bloomberg. Reports to the contrary “ignore the business realities that make this such a complicated industry.”

According to Bloomberg, there are two major sticking points preventing Apple from wading further into the television space: Cable companies are unwilling to give Apple total control over the user interface of a set-top box, and they’ve also disagreed over how such a device ought to be sold, with some arguing that it should be leased through cable providers.

“It’s a tough problem because the cable companies and media companies are not very enthusiastic about the prospect of Apple creating a better user interface,” said Walter Price, an investor with RCM Capital Management, a firm that owns $1.9 billion worth of Apple shares.

Cable companies also fear that giving Apple too much control over their content could hurt the value of their bundles of TV, Internet, and phone services, Comcast SVP Charlie Herrin said in a recent interview.