Apple Engineering "Something Big" with New TV Exec Hire?

Any time Apple hires outside the company, rumors immediately start about what the company could be working on. In the case of Jean-Francois Mulé, former Senior Vice President at CableLabs who worked on web TV before, the new hire himself started the rumor mill, saying that he's working on "something big."

What Mulé presicely said on his LinkedIn profile confirming that he joined Apple is that he felt, "Challenged, inspired and part of something big," according to FastCo. Whether that "big" thing is Apple TV, or iTV, or just mundane new-hire speak is up to speculation. And speculation is rife.

Mulé previously worked on application development for mobile devices for multi-screen experiences, headed IP technologies and protocol development for internet TV, and worked in engineering HD voice, VoIP, and multimedia service delivery over cable. He joins Apple as an Engineering Director, but it's not clear if he'll be working in TV development or something else, like continuing to develop and run iOS 7's FaceTime voice-only VoIP services.

Apple has been rumored to be working on an internet TV service - or perhaps an "iTV" hardware/service package - for some time. Recently, insider sources told Quartz that Apple was negotiation "with production studios and networks to provide content for a television set that would emphasize apps over cable TV."

Companies that Apple were purported to be speaking to included Disney and Time Warner subsidiaries, along with Viacom. However, with the TV industry caught between old and new media, such informal talks (and informal is almost certainly what they were) are happening between media and IT companies a lot.

Recently, Apple bought Macha.tv, a startup app that recommends TV and movies to viewers based on their watching habits on devices like iPads, which fueled iTV rumors as well.

Many see devices like the Apple TV and Chromecast as a precursor to so-called "over the top" TV services, which means streaming live and on demand TV through the internet. Such services are thought to possibly be customizable and not require a subscription to an "old fashioned" cable lineup, but these imagined internet TV services are currently still just that: Imagined -- and something cable execs say will "never happen."