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Apple's Eddy Cue Suggests Apple Television Unlikely in Near-Term
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They could improve that, but I think it makes more sense to work from such a box rather than a television set, especially if they could work out better integration with other idevices and things. It sounds gimmicky, yet Apple does some gimmicky things that are well marketed at times. In terms of selling large displays, trying to pull Apple margins out of such devices usually results in cutting corners. Displays are one of Apple's biggest problem areas when it comes to getting the supporting electronics just right to make a reliable device with good longevity.
All companies look for growth opportunities. The bad thing is when they run out of ideas and try to grow profits by trimming costs. That arguably happens already, but I'm referring more to an increase in such behavior.
@charlituna "You have zero facts to back any of that up."
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Right...You know who I am. In fact, you know everyone's identity on this forum.
You'll see.
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Right...You know who I am. In fact, you know everyone's identity on this forum.
You'll see.
You can't watch Live TV without cable subscription....you just can't. That's the point.
Technically, there isn't much "live" television being shown, outside of sports. And sports you can (mostly) watch live streaming without a cable subscription, outside the archaic local broadcaster blackout nonsense.
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Well, I hope you're right. Not sure how they're going to get (eg) HBO to agree to that licensing, but if they have in fact done it, good for them and (most especially) good for the rest of us!
It's about the experience. NOT the price.
First of all, HSDarryl, you are correct. Anyone on this board (or users of Hulu, etc) that think TV will suddenly become free need to wake up! It's not going to happen. Cable companies are FORCED to sell every Discovery channel station as a package, or they get none of those channels. The cable companies aren't great, but they are only half the problem.
I know my Cable bill is $100 with FiOS. The problem isn't really the amount. The problem is that I don't get any value for that $100. I wouldn't mind paying Apple (or Verizon) that amount if they could improve the experience.
What I want:
I'm hoping Apple's latest rumor about partnering with the Cable providers is more along this line. I'm just not naive enough to think that TV will suddenly become free. I just want value for the expense.
First of all, HSDarryl, you are correct. Anyone on this board (or users of Hulu, etc) that think TV will suddenly become free need to wake up! It's not going to happen. Cable companies are FORCED to sell every Discovery channel station as a package, or they get none of those channels. The cable companies aren't great, but they are only half the problem.
I know my Cable bill is $100 with FiOS. The problem isn't really the amount. The problem is that I don't get any value for that $100. I wouldn't mind paying Apple (or Verizon) that amount if they could improve the experience.
What I want:
- Rid everyone of the DVR, CableBox, etc. They are energy hogs, the UI stinks, and it has so many limitations that I need an AppleTV, Roku, etc to overcome the problems.
- Apple should partner with the Service Providers (Comcast, Verizon, AT&T). Use their data centers. Turn every TV broadcast into a streamable broadcast. Verizon could still inject their own local ads (their revenue stream) as well as all the ads that pay for the content. Think of it as a very large multi-room DVR in the Cloud.
- The AppleTV is the only device I would then need at my house. No DVR. No worries that I forgot to record something. No wasted energy, noise, heat from a lousy Cisco, TiVO, Dish, or Motorola DVR. The Cable company loses my monthly rental of a DVR, but maybe they would charge me $5 a TV instead.
- By leveraging the Service Provider data centers, Apple shares the capital cost. But, they also share revenue. This makes strong partnership with the cable companies, not a loss of revenue.
- Do some slick "Broadcast" technology for popular shows (e.g. use the cable TV infrastructure. During a SuperBowl, that can be broadcast, not streamed.) Don't overwhelm the ISP network when it's not necessary.
- Make the guide "show centric", not channel centric. If I want to watch a cooking show, great, let me pick it and watch the latest. AppleTV downloads it just like a movie. All pausing, skipping is done locally. No impact to the ISP. Yes, it will still have ads. It's an unfortunate requirement until alternate revenue streams are created. And please don't tell me Google stuff is free. They are an advertising company. Everything is an Ad to Google.
I'm hoping Apple's latest rumor about partnering with the Cable providers is more along this line. I'm just not naive enough to think that TV will suddenly become free. I just want value for the expense.
Buy some content\providers
Although I think its fairly unlikey, I'd love to see Apple spend some of its warchest on acquiring a big content provider. I suspect they would avoid these, as it would be a worldwide solution. That being said:
Owning a company like Viacom or Disney would give them full access to a big catalog of valuable content that they could deliver thru their devices.
Once the hardware battles stablized, the true battleground will be over the content and who controls it.
Although I think its fairly unlikey, I'd love to see Apple spend some of its warchest on acquiring a big content provider. I suspect they would avoid these, as it would be a worldwide solution. That being said:
Owning a company like Viacom or Disney would give them full access to a big catalog of valuable content that they could deliver thru their devices.
Once the hardware battles stablized, the true battleground will be over the content and who controls it.
I am pretty sure, that on most systems you can block those channels from the UI so you don't even see them. But really, why do you care what is on stations you don't watch? They don't cost you anything, more importantly, they subsidize your cable so you don't have to pay as much. You should be grateful they exist, and that you don't have to watch.
Thanks for the response. I heard somewhere that the average cable subscriber pays something like $130-$300 a month for service. And I agree that there's no chance an ala-cart $30/mo tv/internet/cloud service would work, but it doesn't have to. The tv market is so ripe for change its rotting on the ground. I'm pretty sure that people will pay a lot for an improved experience. We're almost as addicted to tech as we are cars, at some point you can put a high value on tech services. (I have friends who are broke and unemployed, and the first thing they do when the lose/break their iphone, is go and buy another one.)
It would be a long term play, but it is going to happen in our lifetime. Perhaps there will be some government subsidy.
Tim is an efficiency and labor expert. If anyone could accomplish the task it'd be him.
I don't see a seamless pleasurable tv experience happening without faster internet.
This article is interesting:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/petercohan/2012/08/21/will-google-fiber-waste-28-billion/2/
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
osaga, your smart reply is probably lost on many here. Note how many posts are missing the concept that a major change to the "as is" will involve more- not less- expense from us consumers. Instead, most of the dreamers think that there is some kind of huge discount available if they could just buy only the channels they want, ignoring that all those other channels wouldn't exist if the ad revenue wasn't there from the commercials we never have to watch.
That ad revenue subsidizes our cost. Kill off the channels we never watch and we kill of that subsidy. Stop flowing the money to the studios that make the stuff we do want to watch and the stuff we want to watch can't be made.
Instead of seeing 190 channels "I never watch" as forced upon us, we should see them as "bonus" channels that help subsidize the cost of the small number of channels we do watch. And if we would prefer to only see the channels we like in our on-screen guides, set up a favs list of only those channels. That's al-a-carte without killing the golden goose (which with other people subsidizing our programming is not just golden for the cable companies).
That ad revenue subsidizes our cost. Kill off the channels we never watch and we kill of that subsidy. Stop flowing the money to the studios that make the stuff we do want to watch and the stuff we want to watch can't be made.
Instead of seeing 190 channels "I never watch" as forced upon us, we should see them as "bonus" channels that help subsidize the cost of the small number of channels we do watch. And if we would prefer to only see the channels we like in our on-screen guides, set up a favs list of only those channels. That's al-a-carte without killing the golden goose (which with other people subsidizing our programming is not just golden for the cable companies).
Not at the moment. But Apple hasn't finished their turn. Who knows what they might be thinking and working on.
Throughout his career it was his one-of-a-kind personality that convinced people to work at Apple or partner with them. Terror, charm, Jedi mind tricks, call it whatever you want. He had a knack for it.
I'm not saying it would be super easy, but Jobs had his way of lining up content providers. Maybe Tim Cook will be more easy going and personable in his own way.
Is that a joke? I have netflix. There is some good stuff on there and a "ton of stuff I never watch" too. The dream is "whatever 'I' want," which is not all available on Netflix. Where's the live sports I watch? Where's the local HD channels? Etc. So I have Netflix and DirecTV andTV. Between all 3 of those, I have the ability to watch "whatever I want." [...]
Very good points. I too would like whatever I want, and I'd gladly pay more than Netflix' monthly fee. As long as I could *not* pay for channels I never watch. (And yes, it was sort of a joke. Not a good one obv.)
In a perfect world, Apple will be able to cut deals with all the content providers. That could take a long, long time. The movie studios and TV studios would need to be as desperate as the record labels were in, say, 2003. Which could eventually happen, if the same sort of rampant piracy of content happens.
Then there's live TV. Apple has already done live streaming proof-of-concept events like the McCartney concert. They'd need to cut deals with the powers that be in the sports world, performing artists, record labels, TV networks (for news etc.), local TV stations, and who knows what other entities.
That live TV content would be recorded by Apple, stored on their servers, and available immediately for pre-recorded streaming. No need to make your own recordings, no DVR feature needed on any future Apple product. Just buy or rent or subscribe, then stream from iCloud.
And then there are all those international markets. Apple would need to do deals with the major content providers and TV networks around the world.
And then there are all the cell carriers to deal with. All around the world. Because I think Apple will try to leapfrog all that copper / fiber / satellite infrastructure. And that will take "real 4G," the successor to LTE (which is really the last, best implementation of 3G technology.)
That's a whole lot of negotiating to do. But, like I said, it would happen in "a perfect world."