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Roku CEO Calls Apple TV a 'Money Loser', Says Product is 'Essentially' an Accessory for iPad
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Hi I'm a Mac , I'm a PC
iOS commericals show a thumb moving from the bottome of the screen to the top to suggest you only need one hand, or they show the head phone jack is now at the bottom, hard to have time to make fun of the competition when your commercials are pack full of excitment like that.
I currently have a Galaxy S3 but like iOS devices better overall
but Samsung does make better commercials 100%
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I wont get into whats better between the ATV and Roku but for those saying you never heard of Roku thats is probably becasue you dont even look at the competition you just by what apple tells you to
I agree. its something that the person trying to call us out for "pirating" isn't aware of or didnt consider.
For example, in Canada, So far it's legal to backup your own media. In fact, unelss it's changed very recently, Downloading ripped content wasn't actually illegal. Transmitting and uploading completely is (though i'm not endorsing or encouraging it).
I have a giant shelf in my office with 300+ DVDs and Bluerays. Plus I have purchased bunches of them online from all varying sources. I rip them so that they can reside entirely online so that I can watch them from any TV in my house without having to have a blueray player on every TV. I have my bedroom TV, Living room TV and Basement Home theatre all connected via Plex and it has made my media experience at home wonderful.
Instead of needing to sort through stacks of DVDs and Blue rays. Or binders full of discs to carry around (how i used to do it). All i ever have to bring with me into another room is my phone. From that phone I can fully navigate my entire media library. Music, Pictures, Videos, And with a few button presses, watch on ANY device in my house.
if I were in the Apple ecosystem, an ATV would probably be fine. But considering I Do not like buying movies from iTunes, since I find them ridiculously huge in filesize for not a whole lot of quality in comparison to ripped right off disc.
So you speak for "most" do you? I would say the numbers I used to see about the old Napster, etc. prove you wrong on your idea of "most". But that's *not* what we're talking about here. The original poster was talking about shifting his PURCHASED Blu-Rays onto a central computer server for his own personal use (i.e. to different rooms around the house and/or mobile devices) *NOT* distributing them around the Internet to other people. Ultimately, you cannot read any digital media without "copying" the bits into a computer (a DVD/BD player is a self-contained computer). The person that attacked his post implied there was no difference what-so-ever between the two. Of course there is. Pirating is the illegal sale and/or distribution of copyrighted materials. If you're not distributing it, it's not piracy. At best, it's a copyright violation (i.e. you don't have permission to copy it), but "fair use" says you do have that right for personal use. So along comes this DMCA bullcrap that doesn't say you don't have a right to copy for personal use, but rather says you're not allowed to defeat copy protection schemes, which is a convenient loop-hole to deny you your fair use rights to a backup or time/data-shift in your own home. Either way, EQUATING time-shifting or data-shifting for personal convenience to piracy is RIDICULOUS. Saying it's "wrong" to watch a movie you purchased on a Roku or AppleTV but OK on a BD player is a logical absurdity since it's the same movie from the same disc. Your license is to watch the movie, not the plastic disc it's on. Besides, "Right" and "Wrong" imply moral actions, not legal ones. It might be "illegal" to watch that copy depending on how the law is read, but that doesn't make it "wrong" as no moral code is being broken.
For example, it was against the law for Rosa Parks to refuse to give up her seat on a bus to a white person, but the law itself was morally wrong. It all comes down to whether you believe in "Laws" or do you believe in "Morality" and when there's a conflict, which do you choose to follow, what's right or what's legal? How far do you take it? It's a very slippery slope when you use "I was just following the law/orders" (see WWII Germany for the most extreme examples of where it ultimately ends up if you keep following the "law" road to its final destination). What's "right" should always trump what's "legal" in my opinion, but then I'm a moralist, not a lawfulist type of person. The problem is that people make immoral laws based on personal greed/beliefs and/or bribes (lobbying) and they're not easy to change. But most don't care if I copy my purchased DVD to a hard drive. I'm not pirating. I'm not hurting anyone. No one even knows what I do in the privacy of my own home unless I tell them or show them. But if someone like you found out I no longer use the DVDs sitting on the shelf, but just select them from a convenient menu system in any number of rooms around the house, you'd be calling the movie industry and telling them to sue me for data-shifting their movie onto a hard drive for convenient viewing. (Note that if you have ripped any of your CDs into iTunes for convenient listening around the house or on mobile devices, you've done the same thing; the only difference is the lack of encryption).
But YOU have compared this shop-lifting, tax dodging and insurance fraud. "All the same" you say. I say you don't have any understanding of logic what-so-ever when you make ridiculous blanket statements like that. If anyone is "wrong," it's you.
I'd love to see him come up with something so successful but which matters so little to the company they call it a 'hobby'...
Because they are desperately afraid that "The Second Coming of AppleTV" might just steal sales from Roku. That's the only good reason for him badmouthing AppleTV at this time.
It's all about timing. Companies pre-emptively slander their rival's products JUST BEFORE that rival releases a brand new version of said product. Nothing new.
...when it works. I was quite disappointed at the problems I experienced getting that to work in an "all-Apple" environment. The Apple forums have quite a few threads with others experiencing the same issues.
Since I couldn't get that functionality to work reliably and predictability, giving it up wasn't difficult.
How hard is this to understand? I'm not asking you to justify why Roku is or isn't making money. I'm asking you to justify your belief that Apple isn't making money. You keep telling me that Roku can make money by selling their set top boxes for less than Apple, so why can't Apple make money selling theirs for more than Roku??? Faster iteration doesn't make a product cheaper to produce btw.
I'd love to see your source on that. Most charts look like this:
Your points don't seem to line up with reality very well.
Did you even read this article or do you just comment? Roku's only way to make money is on hardware. It is well known the reason Apple doesn't jump into Apple TV 100% is they don't make money on it. Most Apple products, Apple makes much more on hardware than any other company. But so far for the Apple TV that isn't true. The App Store is not huge for Apple's bottom line.
I can't speak for you, but considering the Roku outsells the Apple TV with 37% share vs. 24% for ATV.... and every year they inch higher above apple.
Might have something to do with.... price.... 350+ content options.... gaming.... some apps.... maybe just a little bit.
I mean the 15 options on the ATV (that almost all required a cable subscription) aren't bad.... but... there is Airplay that lags and I never use.
Airplay and interface are the only two advantages for the ATV.... there is a reason Apple started adding more content channels over the past year or so... if not for the Roku, itunes and netflix would still be about it.
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This is an old chart.... I decided to check figures on this, and I also came across it.... but look at the date.... those numbers have massively shifted. that was also before Roku was price competitive. They began offering boxes at $49-$99.... and that was also just after Apple launched the $99 price point.
Numbers don't lie.... but the interpretation of them can be very wrong.
Seriously ?
WHy has the CEO waited all this time to announce this ? They do know how long Apple TV has been out don't they ?
Plus, if its an accessory, then how can you can do other stuff WITHOUT an iPad ?
Obviously the guy has never used an Apple TV... making false accusations.. or just wants a bit of media attention.
I just like this stuff...... They'll hit on an thing instantly that a competitor comes out with, and cling to that only without taking into account what Apple has already done with Apple TV in the past.
WHy has the CEO waited all this time to announce this ? They do know how long Apple TV has been out don't they ?
Plus, if its an accessory, then how can you can do other stuff WITHOUT an iPad ?
Obviously the guy has never used an Apple TV... making false accusations.. or just wants a bit of media attention.
I just like this stuff...... They'll hit on an thing instantly that a competitor comes out with, and cling to that only without taking into account what Apple has already done with Apple TV in the past.
It is not "well known that the only reason Apple doesn't jump into Apple TV 100% is they don't make money on it". How could it be well known when you just made it up? I guess you have that much in common with Roku's CEO. Apple TV certainly doesn't have the same margins as some other products, but that doesn't make it a 'money loser'.
Are you ever going to explain how Roku can make money in a market Apple "can't"? The question is pretty simple, but I guess it's difficult to answer when the obvious conclusion is that Apple does make money on Apple TV, but that doesn't match your opinion. I'm done going in circles with you. If you're not interested in answering a simple question, there's no point in replying to you.
PS: The App Store does have a large impact on Apple's bottom line now. I'm not sure why you're repeating a line that hasn't been popular since Apple branched out beyond music downloads.
There's one study (that I'm aware of) showing Roku ahead (in the US), and it's not that recent either (August 14, 2013). Took a while to find it. It's interesting to see how different the results of searching for "Apple TV market share" vs "Roku market share" are. I was replying to Bozzykid anyway, it's obvious that he doesn't fact check, which is why I asked for his source.
Cool chart, it'd be neat to see what it looks like now that the chromecast is worldwide. Seems that chart is older than even US chromecast.
iPad Accessory?
Regardless of which is better or if Apple loses money on them (which I do highly doubt), how stupid is the statement that ATV is essentially an Accessory for iPad? What does that even mean? It's the same thing as a Roku box but ties in to the Apple infrastructure and has the potential to be much more when they allow it to run iOS apps. That statement just makes him sound pathetic and desperate. Dumb!
Regardless of which is better or if Apple loses money on them (which I do highly doubt), how stupid is the statement that ATV is essentially an Accessory for iPad? What does that even mean? It's the same thing as a Roku box but ties in to the Apple infrastructure and has the potential to be much more when they allow it to run iOS apps. That statement just makes him sound pathetic and desperate. Dumb!
Chromecast won't be as big a player as you think right now. Nothing that requires you to shop on the Play Store will be. It simply doesn't hit the mainstream market. The chart is old, I only posted it because of a poster making claims he wasn't backing up.
But I've never shopped on the play store with my chromecast. There Is no lockdown
Netflix/YouTube is the main thing I'm expecting. Especially since live streaming was added
Personally I use netflix and plex. No play store media purchases.
I thought the chart was talking about units sold, not media sold anyway.
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I was referring to units sold, not media sold. Unless I'm mistaken, you still have to buy the Chromecast hardware directly from Google. You can't walk into any store and buy a Chromecast like you can with Apple TV or Roku. That was my point.
Now I'm not in the US, so that could be wrong by now, but Google's offerings are generally light on the supply side, so they don't end up in stores for a long time. I also think a UI on the TV is useful to many people. Chromecast hasn't really moved out out of geek territory yet, so I don't think its impact has been as large as you think it is.
Oh, yeah, I believe chromecasts have been available at bestbuy and walmart for awhile now, sorry that went over my head. Amazon too.
I actually bought one for my parents to use netflix because IMO it's the easiest way to watch Netflix on a tv.
Chromecast is available from Amazon.com, and you can find it in stores in the US at Staples, Walmart and Best Buy. In the UK you can get it in Currys and PC World. It is hardly a Play Store only product. Given the price, it is most likely selling extremely well.
I was only commenting on the rounded shape of Roku vs boxy shape of aTV.
I wasn't making any other distinction. Next to ATV, Roku's rounded shape looks like aTV with lovehandles. It's funny. See? A lighthearted joke!
I've owned Roku for a bit and returned it because I wasn't satisfied with some of its features, but that's nothing to do with my comment at all. JUST SAYIN' BRO.