Seriously -- apps coming to Apple TV without a doubt would become a game changer in the CONTENT distribution business. If -- if in fact the content kings are fighting the prospects of a proposed paradigm shift towards "al la carte" programming -- that fight could deflated by a mass market device.. Think about it..
If ANY developer could in fact create an app that delivers "original" or "licensed" product -- what would Apple potentially need network or licensed programming per say. Plus -- plus it would in a way make the App Store a type of "you tube" like marketplace -- where anyone literally could develop an app to deliver content..
Studios are you listening? I happen to work for one of the majors.. Apples iOS user base is just north of 500 mil and growing. Add a real Apple TV that is content loaded -- seriously HOLY ****-AH! Plus what would stop Apple itself or an acquired property from bringing or making its own content deals -- even though Apple claims it wouldn't do -- I call BS on that..
Content is king.. Mark my words -- the value of content will soon start to accelerate -- deals like NFL, NBA, etc etc.. All the players - Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc know all to well that it's the content stupid.. And yea software in my world is considered content.....
Apple TV unlocked could blow the lid off the way content gets distributed -- frankly the dynamics of this delivery will ultimately force Hollywoods hand..
I'm wrong? Tell that to the music industry...
The existing players like things more "as is" rather than handing it all over to Apple. If the al-a-carte vision ends up as just Studios + Apple + Us and we perceive we are going to pay a lot less than we pay in the "as is" model, which of the other 2 links in that chain is going to take the big hit so that we can pay a lot less? Or are we expecting much cheaper out-of-pocket but somehow all of our favorite shows will continue to be produced, at the same levels of quality, etc AND brand new pilots for brand new (future) favorite shows will still have big incentives to be made?
And even if we are, who owns the pipes through which an Apple replacement solution must flow? How do we imagine that the Cable/Satt empires will just roll over and let Apple take their cable subscription revenues and not make up any such losses in the broadband toll "for heavier users"?
This is nothing like the music industry scenario. Consumers had easy access to unprotected CDs from which to rip any music they wanted in their digital collection. For the "then I'll just steal it" crowd, the music industry had no control over the pipe through which the piracy was dependent. It is much more complicated & painful to try to rip any video and video- by nature- is not like music where you might want to hear the same song 1000 times (and thus some justification for building up a music library). And the video guys pretty much generally have a complete lock on U.S. broadband Internet connections (why do you think they are in that business... and why do they crush any upstarts that try to spring up in areas they control?). The music industry was in a very weak position all the way around and Apple was just one of the lifeboats they tried getting into.
The video industry ship is not sinking; it's sailing better than ever. And the video guys got to witness what happens when an industry allows itself to get under a heavy level of domination by Apple as middleman. They desperately do not want to repeat the mistakes of their music industry cousins. Those cousins have been trying to get themselves out from under Apple's thumb ever since.
TV apps as "channels" or links to a database of shows does seem very likely. But wait until we see the prices of the "in app" purchases or subscriptions. My bet: that cable sub at about $100/month could be replaced with al-a-carte apps involving total costs of about $150/month (in short, we will pay a premium to realize the al-a-carte dream, not get a huge discount). No one in the existing chain- Apple included- has any real incentive to kill the existing cash flow of about $100/month and replace it with one that yields about $5-$20/month. I would bet very hard that the masses $100 cable bills will not be able to be cut by 80%-90% or more and still get everything we want to watch, and still have the machine bring us new shows we might want to watch in the future, and keep the quality of our favorite programming at least at the level it is now.
I think too many people imagine al-a-carte is current cable bill/# of cable channels = X (cost per channel). For example, $100/month now/200 channels = 50 cents per channel. 'I' only like to watch 10 channels, so my bill should be $5/month. The reality of al-a-carte programming is probably more like how adult channels are priced: one channel could cost $20, $30 or $40/month (there's that premium I referenced above). Even if we assume an average price of- say $12 per channel (more like cable HBO-type pricing), 'my' 10 channels al-a-carte would cost $120 vs. the old 200 channels at $100.
And again, since Apple's replacement solution will have a huge dependency on flowing through pipes that are generally controlled by the existing cable monopoly/duopoly, I completely expect average broadband costs to go up and/or for the cell-phone-like tiered model to show up to price broadband for "heavier users such as video streamers". So if our broadband is- say- $50/month now, I would expect it to rise to $100-$150 then.
Net: we go from $100/month for 200 channels of cable + $50/month for broadband to $120/month for our favorite 10 channels plus $100+/month for broadband. If so, that's $220/month (not $22 or $10 or $5/month) for al-a-carte.
I would bet very large that this is more representative of the economics of some al-a-carte replacement model than the one that the vast majority of us imagine. Even Apple can't resolve the broadband pipe toll issue regardless of how innovative a new
TV or
TV software might be (just as an iPhone doesn't deliver us dirt cheap data streams via AT&T, Verizon, etc 3G/4G connections). That's real-world al-a-carte.
Some also dream of the "commercial free" addition: commercial-free, al-a-carte, forgetting that commercials are a HUGE subsidy paid by other people to help deliver the shows we love. Those who want the commercials killed off are wanting that subsidy killed off. In the Studios + Apple + Us new replacement model, who makes up for
that subsidy if we are going to pay a fraction of what we pay now? Apple? No way. So we apparently expect the Studios to take that huge hit too yet still be able to keep cranking out new episodes of our favorite programming at the same level of quality AND we expect them to also back pilots of brand new shows that could become our future favorites? Al-a-carte is a mess. Commercial-free al-a-carte is even a bigger mess. Both are fantastic dreams but they fall apart in dramatic fashion when one thinks them through. Personally, I love the dream as much as anyone but I know it's just a dream as many of us are dreaming it.