Apple Hires Cable Exec With Experience in Second Screen Apps to Work on "Something Big"

Apple has hired Jean-François Mulé, a Cable television industry veteran, who has taken an engineering position at Apple for an undisclosed project, reigniting speculation that the Cupertino company is further developing a set-top cable box or completely new approach to its Apple TV product.  Mulé revealed his new position in a post to his LinkedIn page on Tuesday (as discovered by Multichannel), noting that he started working at Apple in September.  The hire was confirmed by Mulé’s most recent employer CableLabs, which is now looking to fill the outgoing executive’s former position of Senior VP of Technology Development.

What’s super interesting is that in the Experience column, Mulé said he would be “Challenged, inspired and part of something big” [emphasis added] in his role as Engineering Director.

Mulé has has a great deal of experience in cable technology, according to Multichannel, he was involved in a number of high-profile initiatives, including CableLabs’ DOCSIS 3.0 program and the creation of APIs for so-called “second screen” video apps.

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We still do not know what Apple has in store for the living room, but Tim Cook definitely made it clear during an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams that the living room is an area of interest to Apple. When you take that in consideration along with all the rumors and speculation that Apple is looking to disrupt the traditional set-top cable box model it certainly is starting to look like this addition is just another in a series of calculated hires to introduce stunning new Apple products (including wearables and TV).