There is a fresh "assault" in the works from Apple on the TV industry, and a piece in today's Wall Street Journal focuses on some recent meetings that Apple execs have been having with a range of media companies, some at the request of said companies which are nervously biting their nails trying to figure out what Apple has up its sleeve next. People familiar with the meetings say that Apple execs remain vague, but they're throwing out some clues like about new ways of streaming content that would allow a user to pause a show they were watching on a home TV and continue watching it on a mobile device.

Some rumors suggest Apple may be moving beyond the TV-top Apple TV console to a more all-in-one, TV-like device, despite the fact that Steve Jobs himself last year said that getting into the TV business would be a bad idea, given how infrequently people purchase new TVs. But, given how fast online video-watching options have been evolving in the past year or two, the company's strategy may be shifting, and in one of the last interviews he gave to biographer Walter Isaacson, Jobs said they'd "finally cracked it" when it came to a wireless TV-watching device. As always, the thing remains shrouded in secrecy despite the fact that it will require multiple licensing deals with old-guard media companies, none of whom have actually been approached with any licensing agreements yet. The only thing that the device is probably guaranteed to have is a connection to iCloud that allows DVR-stored programs to be watched seamlessly on multiple devices in succession, like a TV and an iPhone. And it's also guaranteed that most of your friends are going to want one, and the thing is probably going to give Comcast and DirecTV a run for their money — but your bills for internet service are probably going up as a result.

[WSJ]
PREVIOUSLY: Bad News for Hulu Addicts: Usage-Based Internet Fees Are On The Way