Beijing: Apple has reportedly secretly begun testing its much-awaited ``iTV`` in China, and is expected to unveil it before Christmas this year.
China`s Foxconn`s Shenzhen factory has received the first order for production of iTV and is producing initial models on a ``trial basis``, Daily Mail reports.
Earlier this month, Foxconn had denied that it was building a television for Apple.
Apple`s British designer Sir Jonathan Ive has admitted that the project he is working on now, which is believed by many to be an Apple TV, could be the firm`s most important. Apple`s iTV is rumoured to have voice control, and was one of the major projects Steve Jobs was working on before he died.
In his final days, Jobs told his authorized biographer, Walter Isaacson, that one of the many technologies he still wanted to remake was television.
Banking analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray has predicted that the product will be revealed in December.
Munster said that the iTV would go on sale in early 2013, with sizes ranging from 42 inches to 55 inches, and prices between 1,500 dollars and up to 2,000 dollars.
The firm has predicted that Apple can grab a ten per cent share of the global TV market within three years of the product launching.
ANI