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Jobs biographer: How Apple could really disrupt TV

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Walter Isaacson, author of the best-selling "Steve Jobs" biography, told CNBC on Thursday the late Apple co-founder would have wanted to do exactly what it appears the company is doing now to try to get television content providers on board for an Internet-delivered, pay-TV service.

Apple is in talks with TV programmers to allow the tech giant to offer so-called "over-the-top" television service, according to CNBC tech partner Re/code, similar to the new Sling TV product from Dish Network, which offers for $20 a month a select lineup of channels including TBS, TNT, CNN, ESPN and the Disney channel.

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In his book, Isaacson wrote about how Jobs "wanted to do for television sets what he had done for computers, music players and phones: make them simple and elegant … [creating] an integrated television set."

The biographer said in a "Squawk Box" interview Thursday that the obsession over whether Apple will ever come out with a physical television is misplaced. (Apple has, of course, been taking baby steps for years into TV with its small Apple TV box, which allows users set-top access to movies and TV shows offered online.) "If you go back to the music thing, the iPod was really, really cool, but what was more amazing was [Jobs'] hammering all seven music companies to say, 'You're going to put the songs in for 99 cents a pop.' "

Isaacson believes Apple will be able to disrupt television like it did with music. "Getting the content, connected to the software, connected to the hardware ... [is] the genius of Apple for the past 20 years," he argued.