Steve Jobs once believed that the Mac should be just a Mac and nothing more. Leave Zenith at doing what it did best and Apple to what it was doing best. In 1998, he told Fortune magazine, “I don’t really believe that televisions and computers are going to merge. I’ve spent enough time in entertainment to know that storytelling is linear. It’s not interactive. You go to your TV when you want to turn your brain off. You go to your computer when you want to turn your brain on. Those are not the same.”

Of course that tune changed last year when the iMac G5 was released with Front Row on it. In fact, Jobs told the world, “The new iMac G5 debuts our amazing Front Row media experience, and we think users are going to love it.”

So what happened? I thought the computer was the computer and the TV the TV? Well, in all fairness, Front Row does not have a tuner in it, so it’s not really a TV, but it does play movies which most people use their TV for in addition to over the air programming. And when one does watch a movie, well, the brain does go off on either the iMac or the Zenith.

c|net has a few more of these, ten in all, of when Apple said one thing but later did the other. It’s an interesting read to see how one does need to be careful with what one says. Heck, you all keep pointing that to me daily! :)

Tags: steve jobs, no mac tv, hello front row, he said he said