Apple "cracked" how to build easy to use TV: Jobs’ biographer

Apple has "cracked" how to build an integrated television that is "completely easy to use", Steve Jobs revealed to his biographer.

The company also discussed with book publishers plans to transform textbooks into digital products that aren't just words on a screen but designed specifically for reading on an iPad tablet, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

It comes as other revelations have been uncovered in the biography like Jobs declaring "thermonuclear war" on Google and its Android mobile platform, calling executives who took over Apple "corrupt" and delaying cancer surgery in favour of bowel cleansings and herbal medicine.

In the book released today and written by Walter Isaacson, the late Apple co-founder left the biggest hints yet as to the direction Apple would now take in terms of new products. One of those hints was that the company would now start selling Apple-branded TV sets.

Although the company already sells an "Apple TV," which allows users to watch streaming content on their TV sets, Jobs has previously dismissed it as a "hobby" and said that "smarter people than us" will figure out how to revolutionise the TV business. But now Apple appears to be re-assessing that view.

“He very much wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players, and phones, make them simple and elegant,” Isaacson wrote in Jobs's biography.

“'I'd like to create an integrated television set that is completely easy to use,' he told me. 'It would be seamlessly synced with all of your devices and with iCloud.' No longer would users have to fiddle with complex remotes for DVD players and cable channels. 'It will have the simplest user interface you could imagine. I finally cracked it,'” he added.