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this is a false equivalent.

Disney is not giving away. Disney+
time warner is not giving away hbo Max.

Rather, these are wholesale agreements where channel partners decide to offer it for free to sell other services while the content owners still get paid.

now, don’t get me wrong. The spirit of your response is correct. Just because there were a couple of bad reviews does not mean apple has to give this away.
Disney is in acquisition mode, so they certainly aren’t charging what it’s worth. Prices will increase as the service grows.
 
Easy to get ratings with streaming. Amazon has some fantastic stuff, as does Netflix.

But for some reason, I don't just see Apple in this. Just seems weird. Microsoft the same thing. If they make an effort to disguise the fact that geeks and engineers are footing the bill, like ATT does with HBO, well then maybe :D

Apple is an artistic company, but it ain't show biz. just look at those Keynotes :D. Maybe they should hire Brad Pitt to do those. Pay him a billion dollars.
 
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that’s not what the reviewers said. You only read one or two of the sites, clearly. Dickinson has gotten good reviews from female reviewers so far. For all Mankind does not have “too much gender politics” rather, the gender discussion is considered a high point of the show!

And you clearly want these shows to be good. That’s okay I can dig it. It’s only $4.99 a month if that’s your thing.
 
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Well, i had some hopes for „For all mankind“ - and according to the first reviews that‘s - while not great - still the best of the bunch. Absolutely no surprise that The Morning Show, featuring a main actress with a face operated beyond expression, Dickinson, which reads like a stereotypical, overly PC, forced comedy without a target audience, and See, with it‘s strong „Earth 2“-Vibe are stinkers.

I've read the aTV+ executives say the following about the morning show before it‘s release: “Zack and I knew how to create a premium, high-quality, great show,” - When somebody says that about their own artwork before it has even been released, it's usually mediocre at best. Ordering full seasons of shows without a pilot and paying massive amounts of money to actors up-front ? Pretty stupid.
 
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Ok, do you have any example of a TV show where the vast majority of the critics agreed that it is meh but the general public endorsed as great? I can recall any. The opposite situation may happen in very rare circumstance where the first 2-3 episodes are great and then the show goes downhill big time. Highly unlikely scenario for a show with such a high profile and budget.

wait what?

panned by critics but loved by viewers:

Dirt
Desperate Housewives
Punisher
Moonlight
The Orville
King of Queens
American Dad
Full House
Fuller House
Surface
Iron Fist (1st season)
Criminal Minds
Hart of Dixie
ALF
Living Single (the inspiration for Friends)

The list goes on and on. A lot of these shows went on to success because networks listened to fans over critics.

The critics are not always right.
 
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Not surprised by the bad reviews. The majority of the trailers I’ve seen almost made me cringe, not because they’re so horrible so much as they sure don’t look very good even when trying to be objective about the audience each is intended for, and this is Apple pushing it. It’s almost embarrassing to some degree. You don’t necessarily have to appreciate something personally to recognize quality, and I didn’t see much of it in the trailers. For All Mankind is the only big one that really interests me and even that trailer didn’t do much to sell me.

Apple is clearly throwing a lot of money at big names and ideas, but in a world over-saturated with content, not to mention the subscription fatigue that has clearly set in. This feels like a “stay in your lane” sort of effort. There’s nothing Apple can really do that’s special in the content space relative to their hardware and software. It’s content, and again, we already have too much.

In an era where the software is really starting to slip in quality and the whole experience is feeling less and less friendly and obvious, launching a big mediocre streaming service isn’t really a good look. I’m well aware that the Apple TV+ team has nothing to do with MacBook keyboards and OS software development, but it sure doesn’t look like Apple is a focused company right now all while their core products are suffering from a lot of notable issues.

Too many in tech want to be in entertainment and too many in entertainment want to be in tech. The result of both parties efforts rarely amount to much other than embarrassment and wasted money.
 
I think a MacBook Pro release would be more exciting. Appears from the reviews that Apple played it safe as expected. More rather generic TV
Oh, I think we'll get a MacBook Pro announcement this week, probably tomorrow even.

I expect the same thing that happened around spring, with the daily releases for like three days str8.
 
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Not surprised by the bad reviews. The majority of the trailers I’ve seen almost made me cringe, not because they’re so horrible so much as they sure don’t look very good even when trying to be objective about the audience each is intended for, and this is Apple pushing it. It’s almost embarrassing to some degree. You don’t necessarily have to appreciate something personally to recognize quality, and I didn’t see much of it in the trailers. For All Mankind is the only big one that really interests me and even that trailer didn’t do much to sell me.

Apple is clearly throwing a lot of money at big names and ideas, but in a world over-saturated with content, not to mention the subscription fatigue that has clearly set in. This feels like a “stay in your lane” sort of effort. There’s nothing Apple can really do that’s special in the content space relative to their hardware and software. It’s content, and again, we already have too much.

In an era where the software is really starting to slip in quality and the whole experience is feeling less and less friendly and obvious, launching a big mediocre streaming service isn’t really a good look. I’m well aware that the Apple TV+ team has nothing to do with MacBook keyboards and OS software development, but it sure doesn’t look like Apple is a focused company right now all while their core products are suffering from a lot of notable issues.

Too many in tech want to be in entertainment and too many in entertainment want to be in tech. The result of both parties efforts rarely amount to much other than embarrassment and wasted money.
The trailer for See is awful. They shouldn't have had the little kid narrating in the beginning. And the line from Jason Momoa, something like "these children...they have the ability....to see" just sounded so cheesy.

Maybe there will be some hits, but the model for them, I think, is HBO. A small(er) number of well thought out shows, as opposed to Netflix and Amazon, which just churn out the content (and a lot of trash).

We'll see.
 
Did you read the article I linked? Sums up the current state of Apple quite nicely and demonstrates the lack of focus they are exhibiting in 2019.

There's a danger in over-generalising and reducing Jobs' hallowed advice.

In 1997, Apple were making laptops, desktops, tower systems, displays, laser printers, the Newton PDA and digital cameras - and investing in an obscure British CPU called "ARM". Every category on that list made sense for a computer company with a significant presence in DTP/multimedia/video.

At the end of the 00s, still under Jobs, they were making laptops, desktops, tower systems, a rackmount server, WiFi hubs/NAS, displays, personal music players, TV set-top boxes, tablets and phones (nothing like the Newton, no sir!) - the latter including digital cameras - and running an online music/video store, the iPhone App Store and a huge chain of high-street stores. Just as big and diverse a range, if not more. (...and those ARM chips sure came in handy). If anything has gone wrong between then and now, it isn't having a diverse range of products and a few speculative sidelines.

The real problem in 1997 was, they were losing money hand-over-fist and couldn't afford to sustain that range. While some of their cash problem might have been because the Mac range was messy and confusing, it was also because (a) MacOS 9 was out-of-date, bloated and technically inferior to Windows NT (forget Win95) and the replacement, Copeland, was vapourware and (b) it was 1997, the "Wintel" monoculture was at its height and using anything other than a PC was an uphill struggle. Apple was pretty much "last man standing" when it came to non-Windows platforms - Sculley and co. actually did quite well to ensure that there was still an Apple for Jobs to return to (including making the best laptops in town).

(Its 2019 and if you walk into a PC store you see PCs, Macs, iPads, Android phones, Chromebooks... and Microsoft are even making software for Linux - back in 1997, unless you hunted down a specialist Apple retailer you's see a beige wall of Windows PCs - you tell that to kids today...)

Consider: one of Jobs' biggest successes was the iPod - A complete departure from Apple's core business which looked for all the world like a random side-project - which not only made Apple a metric shedload of cash on its own, also raised the profile of Apple's more traditional products via the much-documented "halo effect".

Then there was the little matter of opportunity and timing - the iMac just as personal Internet use was taking off (and when hooking up a Windows PC to the net was harder than it should have been). The iPod just as home Internet was getting fast enough to distribute digital music. The iPhone just before music-players in phones would have decimated the iPod market...

So, no, Jobs pruning the range is not that one weird trick that can save a company. It might have helped, but so did the completely contradictory decisions to make personal audio players and phones.

The Mac business is still valuable, but the PC boom is past so it's not going to see spectacular growth. Phone/mobile growth has probably peaked. (and neither Mac or iPhone is going to keep growing for long with Apple's current policy of ignoring the competition and seeing just how much they can raise prices and cut quality before the die-hard fans jump ship). Apple have to start looking for "the new iPod" somewhere, and it probably won't be a laptop or phone.

As for Apple TV+ - My "healthy skepticism" comes from Apple TV+ being a day late and a dollar short - they're launching it at the same time that Disney et. al. have woken up and launched services backed by their huge content portfolios. Amazon and Netflix have spent the past few years preparing for this by building up their own substantial catalogues of original content. The iPod moment has passed.

I'm wouldn't write it off yet. "Everybody who buys an iPhone/iPad/Mac/AppleTV" is quite a big initial audience, so these shows will have a good chance to prove the critics wrong. If the shows are any good, they'll still be worth money, even if the streaming service fails.

Main observation - being from the UK - the headline shows (except maybe "See") sound a bit "All American" and I'm not sure how they'll play outside the US at a time when there is quite a bit of diversity (I don't mean the social justice kind) on Netflix/Amazon etc. especially if they want to pitch "upmarket". Morning Show/For All Mankind obviously. Dickinson - well, yes she's a famous poet, but probably not on the high school curriculum so much outside the US, so I don't think a huge number international viewers are going to "get" references to her life and work...
 
And...

Verizon giving Disney+ away to Verizon customers means that Disney+ is bad too?
AT&T giving HBO Max away to AT&T customers means that HBO Max is bad too?

Your logic makes no sense.
Umm...how many times you going to watch "Little Mermaid", dude? ;)
 
Seriously. That's like trying to watch 3 episodes of GOT and forming a review. I had to rewatch that a few times before I got hooked, then BAM. One of the best.

Personally, from the opening scene of GoT you could tell it was a high quality show that had something. I felt the exact same way with Westworld. That is the way it needs to be. Like traditional TV with the weekly releases, you need to make a splash right away or run the risk of 1-2 seasons and being cancelled. People will give up easily when they cannot binge. The first 1 to 2 episodes are key with this style of releases.
 
Personally, from the opening scene of GoT you could tell it was a high quality show that had something. I felt the exact same way with Westworld. That is the way it needs to be. Like traditional TV with the weekly releases, you need to make a splash right away or run the risk of 1-2 seasons and being cancelled. People will give up easily when they cannot binge. The first 1 to 2 episodes are key with this style of releases.

Not always for everyone. Sometimes it takes me a few episodes to care and get involved with the characters. And sometimes, like in GOT, there's so much going on it passes by and im like, what just happened lol.

Breaking Bad was another series that took me a few episodes to realize, wow, this is good.
 
It’s almost as if Apple should not be wasting their time on something so far from their core competency.

All to appease shareholders who had nothing to do with making the company successful and who believe you can have infinite growth in a planet with finite resources.
 
TV Review: ‘For All Mankind’ on Apple TV Plus

This idea had the opportunity to become a really good sci-fi plot. What I wasn't expecting is a "workplace drama" lecturing the viewer on the affects of sexism in the workplace. Yikes.

Edit: I have no problem with strong female characters and bringing attention to real-world issues like sexism, but I get the feeling I'm still not in the target audience for any of these series.
You were right the first time. It's a lecture. The lecture presents itself by assuming you are a misogynist because you have a male sex organ.
 
You were right the first time. It's a lecture. The lecture presents itself by assuming you are a misogynist because you have a male sex organ.
Sexism against women was and is a real issue in various professions. Nothing wrong with depicting it.

But if a "workplace drama" about overcoming sexism is an accurate description, it really seems like they squandered an excellent sci-fi premise to the point that I've lost interest in the series.
 
You were right the first time. It's a lecture. The lecture presents itself by assuming you are a misogynist because you have a male sex organ.
You seem to have judged this show before having seen any more than the pilot. It’s obvious that you’re afraid of a show about gender politics because it threatens you somehow?
 
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