Jobs may have meant voice when mentioning his idea for the simplest interface one could imagine for a TV set. How this solution would work is not clear enough by now. For instance, it would be interesting to know how the voice could overcome the sound of the TV itself.

There is enough time for Apple to make this project work. The TV set has been a guaranteed product, thinking back at the moment when the first TV set-top box of Apple appeared in 2007. Last year, large parts of what may have been important elements of the prototype have circulated. Therefore, the company is expected to unveil its new product at the end of 2012 and may ship in 2013.

Apple will certainly try to refine the product, but may also want to wait for cheaper displays in order to make TVs meeting its cost expectations. Internet-capable TVs are considerably over $1,000 and may often be over $2,000, and therefore may discourage casual upgrades. This is the reason for which most owners keep their TVs for several years. Apple tries to determine TV owners to upgrade every two-three years, which makes almost impossible trading up at current TV prices.

The current Apple TV hub may be Apple’s prototype for what it intends to implement ultimately. During result calls, Steve Jobs and other representatives of the company have referred to the device as being a hobby but did not cease to suggest that something was hiding there. Many people have interpreted this as a sign that future devices could be improvements on Apple’s box. However, Jobs said that one of the most important obstacles to obtaining widespread adoption was represented by the need to have a separate box besides the usual TV receiver for satellite or cable.

A previous level of integration already existed for the two services since 2007, but Google Talk users were required to sign into AIM simultaneously and support was limited. The new compatibility with AIM allows now users to talk to each other in a direct manner and there is no need for an alternate login. This is a true two-way interaction.

Any application, including third-party clients like Trillian or Pidgin and mobile applications, should now benefit from cross-network chat. Certain features like video or audio chat do not work and are not known to get interoperability very soon.

Apple’s intention corroborates to its hiring plans in late 2010, which were focused mainly on support for voice command. The technology Siri would bring is based on performing complex actions like booking tickets for movies or setting calendar appointments and describes them in plain language.

Apple has beaten Google to including voice commands through its Voice Control on the iPhone 3GS, but the Android platform has rapidly overtaken iOS with respect to its sheer range and the complexity of the commands. Apart running generic Google searches, users can also dictate text and e-mail messages or can navigate maps and even translate languages. Siri is expected to not only provide iOS with comparable support but also implement multi-step commands that are missing on Android.

There were rumors that pushing the iPhone to the end of the summer or in early fall would provide enough time to implement LTE, which is supposed to help streamline a MobileMe cloud service, but it is not quite so. The absence of a second-generation LTE chipset and sufficient coverage would make Apple face battery problems as well as frequent drops back to 3G. HTC’s Thunderbolt typically gets four to five hours of service in 4G zones and has spurred on the use of extra-large battery packs.

The initial 650×170-pixel banner (the ad space) automatically expands when the user rolls over it. The ad space will be sold in the USA through Meebo, in the UK through Ad2One and in Germany through Ströer Interactive. Ads can include video or audio and users will be able to close the ads through a dedicated button. So far, Mac users can’t view the ads.

Apple’s iChat has a similar offer for a maximum of four people, with host included, at no charge, but Skype’s offer would support up to ten parties, although the company recommends only five as an optimum for best quality. Only the originator of the call must pay, while all parties have to use Skype’s latest version, which is either v5 beta for Mac or v5.1 for Windows, and have to meet all the system requirements of these versions. The v5 beta for Mac is not available to users of PowerPC Mac. Skype recommends a configuration with at least 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and a 4Mbps downstream/512kbps upstream connection in order to obtain a best-quality service on either platform.

A possible final release of Skype’s recommended v5 appeared at a certain moment but disappeared later in the same day. Both the new features and the calling plans are expected to be accompanied soon by a final version. Free features on Skype, such as IM or video and audio calling one-on-one, connecting Skype users on ether platform, will continue to be free of charge and are not affected by the company’s new plans.

At that time, Apple had claimed that Google Voice applications, Google’s own included, were only duplicating features already present on the iPhone but at the same time were providing reduced functionality. This controversy led to an investigation of the FCC, but it did nothing to make Apple change its position. Google has found a solution through an HTML5-native page, but it was not very efficient since it had difficulties in running in the background in any form or work using the native contact list.

There was no comment from Apple relative to these statements. It is not known if they reflect the official position of the company either. However, the company may want to avoid further federal investigations or simply prevent developers from jumping to Android. The iOS 4 makes Google Voice more viable, since it can maintain a limited presence in the background. Neither Google said if it planned to resubmit its own application.

Google’s new Voice service is currently available on various mobile platforms; it is also a native application on the Android platform. The recent objections of Apple have downgraded Google Voice to an HTML5 application on some devices, preventing incoming calls in the background.

SkypeKit will come out, for the Linux platform, on June 23; Windows and Mac versions will most likely be released a few weeks later. The program is currently in beta; participation is constrained to an invite-only basis.

The services of the communication standard Long Term Evolution (LTE) are awaited to be available in specific markets by the end of 2009. Moreover, deployments on a larger scale are sure to begin after the beginning of 2010. Verizon states that these network services will be available in 2010, whereas other carriers for mobile phones like AT&T, for example, claim that the 4G Long Term Evolution networks will be launched starting with 2011.

The company entitled this voice feature HD voice standard. It represents a high quality product because it includes a better audio codec used in voice transmission. This means that with a better quality encoding system, the transmission need a higher bandwidth over 3G/HSDPA. In order to support Orange`s developments, Moldova improved its network support up to 14.4 Mbps HSDPA in order to face the upcoming upgrades.

Accompanying the evolution of voice transmission, Orange presented to the public the first and also single mobile phone able to support this upgrades. It is a model of Nokia 6720 classic that incorporates a special handset that copes with the AMR-WB codec which is utilized in encoding the high-definition voice calls. This Nokia cell phone model comprising the HD voice transmission can be found only in Orange shops from Moldova and its price is approximately 260 euro.

The multinational company desires to get the high-definition voice transmission service in the other European networks. The first two countries which will use this service will be Great Britain and Belgium around the year 2010. But in order to make this thing possible, Orange should take into account that the need for phones that support this service will increase and new models will be required.