We get a lot of these sorts of stories from the Tame Apple Press. These ideas appear, they get debated and then are mysteriously forgotten about.  It is almost as if by promoting Apple vapourware the press wants to create the illusion that Jobs’ Mob is on the ball, rather having dropped it.

The telly rumour comes from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, although according to him it is also considering an iPad-like smart home device to rival the likes of Amazon's Echo Show and Google's Nest Hub.

However, the Tame Apple Press has claimed that Apple is stepping into the TV market before, ignoring the fact that Jobs’ Mob would be going up against companies like Samsung, Sony, Panasonic and LG which know what they are doing. 

The TV rumour is being considered so silly, that the Tame Apple Press has had to second guess itself and claim that the rumour is not about a telly at all but something like an  Amazon Fire TV Stick rival that you could plug into a HDMI port in the back of your current TV and access Apple's tvOS interface and services?

Gurman thinks it is a good idea and has gotten other yea sayers in the Tame Apple Press to agree that it's something they have wanted for years.

The only issue with that is that Apple already has its Apple TV box which the Tame Apple Press had talked up as a cure for cancer.  Now, mostly to fit his current wild theory Gurman claims the Apple TV is "lagging behind rival products.”

He said: "If Apple offered a cheap and quick way to access tvOS, the App Store and services on any TV, it could quickly create a foothold and increase its services revenue.”

In Gurman's idea for the Apple Fire TV Stick equivalent, there would be no physical remote, with that job taken by the iPhone. This is hardly innovative – my ten-year-old telly can be controlled from my Android phone. Coupled with an Nvidia Shield everything that Gurman is suggesting is already on the market for half the price that Apple would offer it.