Steve Jobs Didn't Like the New Apple TV

The famed Apple founder did not greenlight Apple's latest television product.

That's according to a former

, who

(in reference to Apple TV), “@aral Fun fact - those new designs were tossed out 5 years ago because SJ didn't like them. Now there is nobody to say ‘no' to bad design.”

,

, and

are among the outlets that have picked up on the story, causing the engineer, Michael Margolis, to make a few clarifications and/or downplay his initial comments (depending on how you look at it). Despite Margolis' more recent statements, one thing remains clear: when Steve Jobs was in charge of Apple

, the Apple TV we have today was thrown into the recycling bin. And less than 12 months after Jobs handed the job to Tim Cook, that version of Apple TV was pulled out of the recycling bin and thrown onto store shelves. Was this a wise decision? Is this a move that Jobs – a man we all

was open to compromise and very frequently greenlit projects he initially rejected (note the sarcasm) – would have supported? The answer might not matter. The reality is that, despite his own personal belief, Jobs was human. He made mistakes. Rejecting this version of Apple TV may have been one of them. We'll know in a year when the final sales figures roll in. Until then, it's anybody's guess. But even if Jobs was not technically “wrong” in rejecting this particular interface, that doesn't mean Apple is making a mistake in releasing it now. Like it or not, the current Apple TV wasn't getting the job done. In terms of set-top boxes, game consoles from Sony

and Microsoft

are vastly superior machines. If Apple is going to compete with these and other tech companies in the TV space, it needs to accomplish many new things first. For starters, the Mac maker needs to experiment, and that might be what Apple is doing here. While some may look at this is as a Jobs vs. Cook extravaganza, it is possible that Jobs was alone in his decision to axe the current Apple TV. There may have been several other employees – from engineers to corporate executives and everyone in between – who were fans of the concept and wanted to see how far it could go. As a business-minded individual, Cook may have been more accepting of a product that received employee support. (As opposed to Jobs, who only cared about what

personally wanted.) But even if Jobs is rolling over in his grave right now at the thought of consumers using an Apple product he didn't personally support, fans and investors alike only need to remember one thing: if Apple TV does well, everybody wins. There are no losers in that scenario. If people are satisfied with the product, that will only serve Apple's bottom line – and make it easier for the tech giant to enter the TV business. The question then becomes how Apple will differentiate between the two products. Apple's long-awaited TV set will

offer a greater degree of UI innovation than any set-top box the company has produced. But if the latest Apple TV is indeed a test for things to come, the impending TV might be more familiar – or at the very least less surprising – than we anticipate.