Apple Reportedly Exploring Producing Original TV Shows
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You miss my point. The iPad was not the first MP3 player but the earlier ones sucked. The iPhone was not the first smartphone but the earlier ones sucked. iTunes was not the first music download service, but the other ones sucked and worked with inferior hardware. Apple was the first to do a really good job with these categories, and as such was able to define the market. Apple cannot define the market anymore for cord cutting devices/services: the comparison to iTunes/iPod is particularly apt. Others are there first with good content and devices. Unless the Apple TV is really revolutionary and they completely nail the content, then they won't be able to define the market as they did with iPod/iTunes.
Five years ago, the bar for a v1 service (what they are just now getting to) was much lower. So... yes... I think they waited too long.
jettredmont
macrumors 68030
First, Netflix at $12/month must be for multiple simultaneous streams, which is likely overkill for 4 TVs unless the majority of your content comes from Netflix. Hulu (Plus) is $8/month, period, although recognize that that is for a single stream at a time so you have the opposite issue as with Netflix; if two TVs want to watch Hulu at the same time you will need to get them each their own accounts (this is really backwards of Hulu, and why we canceled the Showtime sub-subscription with them and got it standalone instead). HBO is $15/month unless I'm missing something.
All that having been said, if you keep your eye on eBay PayPal does $50 iTunes gift cards for $40 on a fairly regular basis, and around the holidays you can stock up on iTunes gift cards at closer to a 25% discount. If you do that, then all those subscriptions through Apple end up as costing you 20% less than the face value; your $67/month subscription total would come out to be about the $50/month you say you have budgeted.
All that having been said, I don't see the need for all of those services on all the time. Most months Netflix or HBO provide the same batch of stuff; why pay for both of them every month instead of paying for Netflix when it has exclusives out and HBO when it has exclusives out? I'm hoping any Apple service is likewise flexible in terms of what one gets each month, in which case there are likely several months out of the year when I'd do without it (well, honestly, I'm not really likely to pay for the bundled subscription anyway as I'm more happy just buying a la carte shows for the few high-quality shows the cable networks put out).
The Finder hasn't changed and I don't find it to be a poor UI at all. The error messages could be improved, true. Bad OS X updates are rare - I'd say that's a problem with your comp rather than the software itself. iTunes failing to back up the iPhone if it's disconnected makes sense, unless you mean that it's not actually disconnected. Again, that's either a cable or port problem. Hardware fails in that sense - go get it replaced. The jittering of iOS makes perfect sense if you consider that you have an old phone and new OSes are developed for the latest hardware primarily. Low phone memory? If you mean RAM, that's getting corrected this year and I rarely get it badly jittery. No meaningful increase of battery life? That's increased in iPhone 6/6+ and iOS 9 aims to further increase battery life by a total of 4 hours including Battery Saving Mode. As for the Apple Watch, customers indicate that the battery life is more than adequate. I for one have no qualms about nightly charging tbh. As for no app store for the Apple TV, that is supposedly going to be introduced in little over a week. The security holes in OS X are being patched and Windows has more; but this is an OS X discussion, so all I'll say is that like all the other companies, Apple is patching OS X. Reduction in reliability of laptops? How so? If you mean failure of hardware, I haven't seen any broad scale analysis concluding that. Indeed, Apple has changed its AppleCare terms to include more repairs than before. So from my POV, none of your specifics are objectively true, except for the error messages.
Michael Scrip
macrumors G3
I thought we were talking about Apple making TV shows as per the headline "Apple Reportedly Exploring Producing Original TV Shows"
You can't be late to that... television production will be around for a loooong time. Anyone can get into that. That's what I was talking about.
But you sound like you're talking about the TV ecosystem in general. Gotcha.
Ok... so if Apple is late... who is right on time?
Is Roku the champion? SlingTV? Amazon FireThing? Do those products and services "define the market" ?
It sounds like you're saying "Apple don't bother... these other guys are already the best of the best"
Are they? Is television the best it's ever gonna be?
I hadn't noticed.
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Bill Killer
macrumors 6502
Because you don't have the time to watch new, additional programming, Apple shouldn't look into it?
Don't purchase it if it doesn't interest you. It's not that difficult.
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Tycho24
Suspended
I am genuinely surprised to hear this opinion...
Literally EVERY person I have ever met or spoke to online or in person on this topic feel that there is NOT any good hardware and content pairing at this time...
Out of curiosity: what combo is it that you feel is already as good as or better than cable?
Actually I would argue that Amazon HAS made a great content and hardware pairing with the Fire TV.
I'm going to disagree. While I won't discount the fact that Apple has the money to produce content, it's an entirely different thing to produce content with the polish that Apple has with their hardware and software.
Like, if anything it would make more sense for Apple to create a studio dedicated to non-crappy 2D/3D animation features of the quality of Disney instead of trying to produce B-movie grade TV shows like Netflix/Syfy. Don't get me wrong, I think some of the stuff Netflix IS showing is good, but what would make them great is to have proper budgets and absolutely no corporate-meddling.
Like Fox is the king of meddling, and the king of taking risks... they just have no view of the long game. The reverse of that is Scyfy which airs nothing but Asylum films and no-budget shows that are clearly lacking in quality.
Like the most fitting thing ever would be to have a TV series that actually use their own products to not only produce it, but as functional props. A TV series about making a TV series or something...
I wouldn't get my hopes up. I have a feeling a lot more effort will go into Apple branding being force fed to the audience then having quality content.
If you think that, you don't know what you're talking about, and if Apple thought that, they'd be called RIM, aka: Blackberry. They followed your brilliant example, how are they doing these days?
Apple has more competition now then they've had in the past, of course they have to keep trying.
You honestly think if this series/movie comes to fruition, there won't be Apple products plastered all over the place? Would you like to place a friendly wager on that?
laurim
macrumors 68000
You mean like nearly every tv show and movie does now? How does that prevent Apple from making quality programming? You're desperately trying to make a non point to slam Apple. Are you worried they won't be able to make their own Game of Thrones because they didn't have electronics then?
stevemiller
macrumors 68020
I agree some and disagree. I'm highly dubious about Apple getting into cars-- huge economies of scale, which means it will take a huge chunk out of that cash mountain to get serious. Media, on the other hand, requires much less capital to get into. Apple could easily throw $2B (peanuts for) into media and become a player.
Maybe. Beats 1 sets a precendent that its the type of thing they *might* do. But I'd still rather them not even tangentally put effort into this, because if its just a matter of throwing money for exclusive content, that just fragments the field even more (although that much I'm at least sure that much *will* happen) And if its actually a creative enterprise for them, even just as "executive producers", its honestly not an area where I believe apple brings any special skill to the table. TV content isn't broken in the same way the hardware and ecosystem necessarily is, they'd just be another "me too" rather than an innovator. I don't want to see a Jony Ive designed sitcom. Or maybe I do...
You mean like nearly every tv show and movie does now? How does that prevent Apple from making quality programming? You're desperately trying to make a non point to slam Apple. Are you worried they won't be able to make their own Game of Thrones because they didn't have electronics then?
No, that's not what I mean at all. I don't know if you're being this dense on purpose or if you really don't get what it is I'm saying, my guess is on purpose, since you smartly chose not to take me up on my wager, knowing what the outcome will be.
ErikGrim
macrumors 604
It did for Amazon, a more apt comparison, what's your point?
Remember you are on Mac Rumors and not Mac Facts. Non of this means anything until it's released.
Darrin Bell
macrumors regular
Why would this dilute Apple's focus? How much focus does it take to write a check to a production company and then stream whatever show that company creates on AppleTV?
Darrin Bell
macrumors regular
No. Netflix has proven that original TV content is a good idea. It's not like Tim Cook would be spending his days sitting at Starbucks writing episodes. All Apple would be doing is cutting a check to some production company in Hollywood for exclusive rights to stream their shows.
rocknblogger
macrumors 68020
I think CalWizard has a good point though. Do you think Apple would put their name behind Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad or Netflix's Daredevil? All very edgy and violent but very well done. I have a hard time believing they would.
Michael Scrip
macrumors G3
Exactly.
It's funny... people seems to think Apple's C-Level executives will be wasting their time sitting in director's chairs calling the shots.
I don't see that at all. I'm with you with the writing checks / hiring production companies to create content.
The US House of Cards series was developed by an independent studio, Media Rights Capital. They shopped it around to HBO, Showtime, AMC and Netflix... and Netflix outbid everyone else.
The CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, or their other high-level executives, do not spend their time writing and directing House of Cards.
And I don't think anyone is those positions at Apple would either.
If anything... Apple would create a production holding company.... ie Apple Studios... and hire people to run it.
It should not affect the engineers who work on microprocessors or iCloud.
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Bill Killer
macrumors 6502
You mean like how "Transparent" isn't offending anyone and winning awards for Amazon?
VulchR
macrumors 68040
A Finder that does not allow one to find information because it obscures long file names by a default that cannot be changed is a poor UI in my view.
I would like to see Apple add more information, such as whether the error is due to a specific program or occurred in a system software library, the functional domain of the error (e.g., graphics, hard disk, memory etc.), whether it is likely to be a hardware fault, and most importantly, how the problem might be remedied. Going to Apple's user support forums is a pain, because Apple actually does not provide answers for most problems - one has to ask other users. And frankly, most of the time the other users have experimented and don't know why exactly they got some problem fixed.
Nope. The computer is fine. The last two updates choked because of directory and file ownership issues. A less amateurish installer would have one dialogue box for allowing a global repair. Instead, the installer asks for each file and directory. That's hundreds, if not thousands, of dialogue boxes requiring manual input of the relevant password, and it can't be pasted in.
This occurs when the iPhone is connected no matter what cable I use. And the phone continues to exchange information with iTunes after this error message. It just doesn't back up. Google it - you'll see that this problem is hardly unique to me and that nobody seems to know why this happens. In any case, is iTunes so dumb it cannot try to re-establish a connection? How primitive must the error-checking routines be to crash out of the backup entirely?
I mean that the iOS installer spasms because there is not enough iPhone memory to download the upgrade over WiFi. The problem is that after the first attempt, the partially downloaded file is not purged, sitting there taking up all available memory, making an update when directly connected to iTunes problematical. Again, this is hardly a user-friendly, graceful recovery from an error.
Not quickly enough in my opinion.
I have a grey scale Powerbook 180 that still boots and is still functional. It's over 20 years old. My kid's new MacBook failed in less than a year, due to a faulty cable. She was not able to book a genius appointment in London (look up how few Apple stores there are in London if you doubt me). It took Apple's business partners more than a week to pick up the laptop and another week to return it.
I have been using Apple products for more than two decades (like I said before, I started with the Lisa). I have always marvelled at Apple's quality control and it usually bulletproof hardware and software. However, lately I have encountered the problems listed above and I do think it represents a change. Thus, as I said before, I would prefer Apple spend its cash on obtaining higher reliability than producing entertainment.