Tim Cook gave an illuminating talk at today’s Goldman Sachs Technology Conference, hinting during his keynote that Apple’s living room dreams are well on their way to market. While some analysts continue to cast doubt on Apple’s mega-mythicized “iTV,” the majority of industry pundits are convinced the revolution is nigh. Of course, the company still refers to the existing Apple TV as a “hobby,” and that’s got some folks confused about the end intent of Apple’s ambition.

Cook explains that underwhelming designation and where it should ultimately lead (via Cult of Mac):

The reason we call it a hobby is because we don’t want to send a message to shareholders that we think the market for it is the same as the iPhone, iPad, Mac, etc. We don’t want people to think the leg of that stool is the same as others. …

Apple doesn’t do hobbies as a general rule. We believe in focus, only working on a few things. With Apple TV, however, despite the barriers in that market, for those of us who use it, we’ve always thought there was something there and that if we kept following our intuition and pulling the string, we might find something that is larger. …

We need something special to make this a main market, to make TV a serious category for Apple.

It’s been endlessly publicized that Steve Jobs “cracked” that “something special” before his passing, and Cook’s now injected a hefty spray of fuel to the fire. Short of announcing an actual product, this is as close to confirmation as we’re going to get.