This article below is WS Heard on the Street tod

This article below is WS Heard on the Street today. It may answer some questions about Apple and TV today. Pay attention to the sentence about the tech company that can solve live sports in the digital world in the second to last paragraph

By MIRIAM GOTTFRIED
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@miriamgottfried
miriam.gottfried
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Miriam.Gottfried@wsj.com
Jan. 25, 2016 11:32 a.m. ET
6 COMMENTS
For Apple, the battle for the living room might be over before it got started.

In 2003, the computer giant took the music industry by storm with the launch of the iTunes Music Store. TV is proving a much tougher nut to crack.

Indeed, nearly a year after The Wall Street Journal first reported Apple planned to launch an online TV service in the fall of 2015, no such initiative appears imminent. Meanwhile, services such as Netflix are reshaping the TV experience and making it less likely that a single player will dominate the living room.

This matters for investors who have pegged growth hopes for Apple and others in part on the idea they might be the one to siphon value from the TV industry in a replay of what happened in music.

ENLARGE
Apple’s online TV service was reportedly going to be a skinny bundle of about 25 channels, priced at $30 to $40 a month. But Apple and content companies appear to have hit an impasse, possibly because the latter are far more attuned to the damage services such as Netflix have done to their traditional revenue streams.

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An even bigger issue is that while such an online service could have appeal, it would in some ways be more a reflection of where TV has been than where it is going. As Apple has grappled with whether to manufacture a TV or launch a service, video-streaming platforms are stealing a lead.

And they are reshaping TV dynamics. Unlike purchased digital libraries of yesteryear that locked consumers into one platform, streaming has significantly lowered the switching costs for music and video consumption. It is as easy to move back and forth among Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and YouTube as it is to listen to music across Apple Music, Spotify and Pandora.

For its part, Apple now seems to be taking a different approach. In September it announced the latest version of its Apple TV set-top box, with an operating system that allows developers to create TV apps in the same way they might create an iPhone app.

But while Apple may have created a superior experience, the new user interface is itself a reflection of how diffuse viewing habits have become. Apps for Netflix, Hulu and HBO Now sit next to iTunes on Apple TV.

Moreover, unlike the iTunes library, which once made it all but necessary to own an iPod, few streaming services are tied to specific hardware. In an app-based world, consumers can watch online video content on any smartphone or tablet. The vast majority of services can also be viewed on any device designed to bring content to the TV screen.

That has caused fragmentation in hardware as well. Google’s $35 Chromecast had the highest market share globally among digital-media- streaming devices in the third quarter of 2015 at 35% of shipments, according to a November report by Strategy Analytics.

Granted, that doesn’t reflect the performance of the new Apple TV, which went on sale in October. If the $150 box takes off, it could eventually help Apple aggregate streaming services, perhaps with bundled pricing. But others are angling for the same role. And it is hard to see how any tech company will be able to wring significantly more value out of the TV ecosystem without live sports.

In the living room, Apple and other tech players may have to settle for a seat on a crowded couch.