Goodbye Apple Computers
Apple is a new company now.
AppleT&T.
Apple Telephone and Television Inc.
Yep, Apple will be out of the computer biz in a few years.
Maybe offer two or three models as an after thought. Oh, wait...
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Apple Pitching iTunes Subscriptions to TV Networks?
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AppleT&T.
Apple Telephone and Television Inc.
Yep, Apple will be out of the computer biz in a few years.
Maybe offer two or three models as an after thought. Oh, wait...
Wonderful News! I hope this pans out. I have always wondered why no one ever offered some sort of a subscription service that allows you to chose channels a la carte. There is a lot of money to be made here, because I know a lot of people just like me (and I imagine there are a lot of people that feel the same) that refuse to pay $50+ for all the garbage cable and dish companies force down your throat only to get a few channels that you actually want to watch. Death to the Standard and Deluxe packages!!!
I would graciously pay $4.99 a month per channel to stream what I want when I want. They can even keep the commercial breaks. Just let me pay for only the channels that I want.
I would graciously pay $4.99 a month per channel to stream what I want when I want. They can even keep the commercial breaks. Just let me pay for only the channels that I want.
I think you nailed the issue. Expect cable companies to lobby congress against this and try to include some odd litigation as political pork for some other bill.
Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7D11 Safari/528.16)
I'm all about this. I'm so ready to dump comcast. Bring it in apple.
I'm all about this. I'm so ready to dump comcast. Bring it in apple.
The primary problem with this is bandwidth and the cost of broadband connections. We already have companies looking to cap your monthly usage without charging extra. A service like this (if widely adopted) will surely put a strain on existing bandwidth, and you're very likely going to see your bill go through the roof, if for no other reason than to compensate for lost cable customers.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
That's not a discount relative to cost, but just a marketing ploy to entice people to bundle. Since the cable already runs into every home in a given region, it would cost Comcast about the same to "turn on" those services to everyone. They could drop their price to be much more competitive and motivate many more people to sign up (making up for lower revenue-per-subscriber, by adding many MORE subscribers).
BUT, what they really want is to not win on volume. AT&T is another example. They already have a working POTS phone line feeding into my home. But since I dropped them for VOIP, the "come back" offers keep coming at prices way higher than I pay now. They don't have much cost beyond throwing a virtual switch to win back my business, so they could easily undercut the VOIP rate if they wanted that business. But since they have almost become a monopoly again, they want their rate-per-subscriber more than they want to win on volume.
That is the nature of a monopoly mentality. Keep buying out the competitors until you are the ONLY player and then charge whatever you want. The role of Government (that looks out for the little guy) is to grease the wheels of competition by breaking up "too big to fail" monopolies, so that there are many options fighting for the same customers. But it seems that neither a Republican nor Democrat controlled government wants to look out for the little guy anymore.
I would think that they would be one of the first to join consider those are pay networks to begin with. The only channels worth watching are Showtime, HBO, PBS, and FX. There may be a couple of shows on network channels.
As for others claiming that they broadband prices will jump through the roof, this is where there will be many lawsuits if the prices are outrageous and there will be many consumer watchdogs whowill be paying close attention. The current administration has also been pushing very hard for net neutrality. Another factor would be competition. Cable companies for a long time have been allowed to operate as monopolies within a given region but it has slowly beginning to change. Here in NY there is a fierce battle going on between Verizon, Cablevision and Time Warner.
Everyone should be clamoring for this. With the iPhone, Apple has slowly been turning the cellular networks into dumb pipes. With iTunes, Apple is attempting to force the cable providers to become dumb pipes. This is they way it should have been for awhile now.
I was designing hardware when you were still in diapers. Just because someone is over 50 doesn't mean that they aren't tech savvy. I meet a lot of folks both young and old that are very tech challeged and frankly afraid to mess with the machine because they might break it.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
If such a system is going to be developed, there's nothing to stop premium cable channels like HBO from being a premium subscription option via this kind of thing. If HBO is $10.95/month via Cable/Satt, it could be $10.95/month via Apple's television delivery system.
Why should HBO and similar care, as long as they get paid the same? And, if Apple's cut was less than Comcast (and others cut, since Apple's primary business model is selling hardware), HBO and similar would pocket more money per subscriber.
Death of Comcast
For those worried about bandwidth caps and the Comcast lock on the majority of the market, a truly competitive option is near:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G
quote from the above page:
"At the present rates of 15-30 Mbit/s, 4G is capable of providing users with streaming high-definition television. At rates of 100 Mbit/s, the content of a DVD-5 (for example a movie) can be downloaded within about 5 minutes for offline access."
For those worried about bandwidth caps and the Comcast lock on the majority of the market, a truly competitive option is near:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4G
quote from the above page:
"At the present rates of 15-30 Mbit/s, 4G is capable of providing users with streaming high-definition television. At rates of 100 Mbit/s, the content of a DVD-5 (for example a movie) can be downloaded within about 5 minutes for offline access."
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
DSL companies and Cable companies are together on pricing. Either already has the pipes running into your home. They could simply make more money on volume by dropping their prices and thus signing more people up. But do you see much of that?
Besides, in many areas, there is only ONE choice for broadband internet- the cable or DSL company that also makes a LOT of money by delivering television.
For this to really work as dreamed about in these various posts, Apple will need a way to connect with its subscribers WITHOUT relying on existing broadband pipes.
The networks are dinosaurs it seems, so bypass them and start new media. There are HUGE opportunities for innovators!
Boy, the dream is fantastic. But who makes a lot of profit by being the main source of television delivery today? Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, etc.
Who pretty much has a lock on how Internet broadband signals get to your computer orTV-like devices? Comcast, AT&T, Verizon, Time Warner, etc.
Cut the legs off the cable revenue with this kind of thing, and broadband cost will go up to compensate. There is NO motivation for those who control to the pipes to allow this kind of thing to happen, nor to just take the revenue hit should it happen anyway.
Actually, in my neck of the woods we have two major players for internet service: the cable company (Comcast) and the DSL company (Surewest). While the phone company offers some TV options and the cable company offers some phone options, neither really does a good job of drawing the others' customers. In addition, of course, TV is available from the satellite providers (Dish and DirecTV).
If Comcast raised its Internet service rates *and* there was a cheap alternative to its TV rates, you'd see a mass exodus over to the Surewest camp for DSL. The only way Comcast could retain its customer base would be by charging really-cheap rates for "bundled" services and hyper-expensive for non-bundled. I don't think they'd avoid doing that, but literally that is their only option. At the same time, though, they will have to deal with regulatory pressures against predatory pricing structures, and while the current bundling discounts can kinda-sorta be explained away as "administrative cost savings", the lengths they would have to go to to preserve their TV near-monopoly profit structure in the face of competition would clearly have to go far over the line and into abuse-of-monopoly territory.
In the end, assuming we don't get another Bush-like anti-regulatory regime in Washington (and be certain that Comcast will be putting all their money into making that happen), Comcast ends up being squeezed down in size by competition on the one side and regulations against predatory pricing on the other.
You are somewhat correct in your fundamental principles (corporations will do anything and everything they can to maintain their profit margins), but that's precisely why we've had economic regulations since the end of the 19th century.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
The problem with this thinking is you are using relative math from a consumers points of view... My total bill including the crap channels is $60/month. I really only watch 10 channels. $60/10 = $6 for each channel I watch. So give me those same 10 for $5 each and everyone wins.
However, the cable/satt players point-of-view is different: we like making $60 dollars a month from that guy. If he has any other way to get television via our pipes, how do we insure that we continue to make $60/month from that guy? (actually, they would think, how can we get more than $60/month from that guy?).
100 channels for $60/month (with a lot of crap channels) OR 1 ala carte channel for $60/month. They don't really care if it's 1 or 100, as long as you keep sending them their $60.
The ala carte concept revolves around an idea that consumer costs would go down if we could just pick the few channels we actually watch. But the cable companies have no motivation to get less money out of their subscribers, which is why rates only move in one direction over time.
New last-mile pipeline Clear is rolling out 4G in a few markets now. Great thing is they're not already wedded to any contracts or models, so supporting high-volume customers is in their interest (unlike say Comcast, capping & shaping bandwidth to prevent competition with their cable TV products).
Once they turn on a tower near me (I'm just a mile or so outside their range) I'm switching ASAP. Wireless, fast, customer-focused, no ulterior motives - YES!
Once they turn on a tower near me (I'm just a mile or so outside their range) I'm switching ASAP. Wireless, fast, customer-focused, no ulterior motives - YES!
Yes, I think a variation on that is what will happen... AT&T already has U-Verse, which Apple could sure improve drastically...
Does this mean we could watch live TV on our computers???? That would be awesome, as I don't want to buy a television set! I hope it would have live pause and recording, like those modern TVs where you can stop live TV because it gets recorded on a hard drive constantly!
If only...
They don't even offer the "old" iTunes Movies and TV shows to customers outside the U.S or UK
.. fat chance getting this.
I don't see TV or Movies anywhere.. Apple, get with the frickin' program. It's called internet and it's global last I heard.
(Movie studios shmovie studios.. yeah yeah.. if Apple really wanted some customers they'd make it happen)
They don't even offer the "old" iTunes Movies and TV shows to customers outside the U.S or UK
.. fat chance getting this.
I don't see TV or Movies anywhere.. Apple, get with the frickin' program. It's called internet and it's global last I heard.
(Movie studios shmovie studios.. yeah yeah.. if Apple really wanted some customers they'd make it happen
)If that were the case, Macs would not run OS X. Think about it, why waste all that money on it when he can pay his namesake in Redmond just like Dell does....
Apple is not offering computers as an afterthought, far from it, they have re-established at the premium end of the market. They don't want more than 15% market share, because then they'd make less on each computer. Hence no netbook Mac or cheap MacBook. Apple has become an "aspirational brand" as the marketers call it.
As far as the idea of cable networks offering a subscription service on iTunes. This is clearly the future, and could be the way I can finally get off BT. I am stuck with this particular ISP because of our reliance on BT Vision (as I can't get cable and need planning permission here for a satellite dish)
So Steve, go for it