Apple's New Vision for Apple TV 'Less Ambitious' Than Before

[tbusby]

Which version ATV are you using with a Netflix that "barely works on it" anymore? I've never heard of such a thing and it sounds like utter ******** to me so I'm curious.

I watch Netflix almost every evening on the AppleTv with no issues. While the AppleTV could be better it is hardly in the state of it barely works. Not sure where you are coming from.

 

[hansonjohn590]

I don't also want to have to run a PLEX process somewhere to do transcoding. That just leads to all kinds of problems.

Such as?

 

[mw360]

Maybe I don't understand all this business but...
I do use my Apple TV just as a AirPlay device to play app content from my iPhone or iPad.
Rest - I'm not interested in that what Apple TV is for the offer.
Why don't Apple basically creates Apple store and all those content companies will write an app for it - sorted.

Not sorted. Because Apple do not want to make 30% on a free app when there's billions of $$$ of content streaming through those apps.

 

[Fishticks]

Rumors about "revolutionary" Apple TV have been around for a few years now.
Nothing came out.
Nothing is coming out.
Just vaporware.
TV is dead, and maybe Apple knows they can't do anything great on a TV screen.

 

[Wirbowsky]

Apple does not need to have a deal with the cable television companies.
They just need to open Apple TV so that we can get apps from the increasing number of content provider on the Internet.
I do not have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime... in my country but I have access to different one that have really great offers. They all provide access trough internet, so can be accessed by any smart TV with a browser, some of them even have apps for Samsung TV.

Apple just to have those on the Apple TV as those services already have agreements with cables.

 

[Solver]

Glad they are finally are taking Apple TV out of hobbyist status, while the rest of the world has been getting aggressively serious with games, education and media distribution in billions of homes.

 

[macs4nw]

Move forward with the actual content providers...writers, producers, etc. Open a studio!. Distribute original content, buy Netflix and AMC for crissake, continue to license AMC's shows to the cable providers. The distribution rights to Walking Dead alone would line up these old school utility companies rather quickly.

Get in the driver's seat and then you can get in the living room. If the established market foundation isn't flexible enough for you, build your own for the consumer.

The content creators/owners can't play ball, for now, due to the lengthy contracts they reportedly have with the cable/satellite companies, and after these come up for renewal, said creators/owners won't play ball with Apple et al, unless the latter can convince them a new distribution model, rather than the old tried and true, will be in their best financial interest, ie their revenue stream is guaranteed to be equal to, or better than, the deals they had with the cable/satellite crowd.

Moving forward with a new and basically untested --from their point of view-- distribution model, poses a considerable risk for these creators/owners, but with the public at large clamoring for changes to entertainment options, and the proliferation of video enabled devices such as smart phones, tablets and laptops, the pressure on content creators/owners may just nudge them to take a leap of faith, and embrace the new reality.

Failing that, an upcoming Supreme Court decision on 'broadcasters vs Aereo', if favorable to the latter, could completely change the entire tv content consumption landscape. Upstarts like 'Tablo' have an even better chance at legitimization, as their users provide their own antennae, to distribute the free, ota captured content thru the internet or a wifi network, to their own multiple devices.

Either way, I believe the days of cable and satellite company strangleholds on our entertainment options, are numbered. Their greed and inflexibility will sooner rather than later, relegate them to the self inflicted status of broadband providers, sans content distribution, or insignificance as far as content distribution is concerned, in the case of satellite providers. Technology will find a way around them.

 

[roland.g]

Hey Apple,

Why not just acquire DirecTV or controlling interest in Comcast, or both?

 

[69Mustang]

Three more words

Provide-Original-Content...
Instead of begging content providers for content, Apple needs to provide their own original content. Provide the next great show like "Breaking Bad" or "Mad Men" or name any other wildly popular show. This is the key to selling Apple TV's. Have excellent programs that can only be accessed on Apple TV. Just about every new TV sold can do what Apple TV does as far as programing is concerned. If Apple TV was ever a big deal it's not now. Wakeup Apple, take a few billion and get the best writers, directors, and actors money can buy. Have them create a ton of great new original content. Otherwise prepare for Apple TV to be mediocre at best and at worst fail miserably.

Not that simple.
Apple has the money to do everything you suggested. Fact. After that, your premise goes down hill pretty fast. Let's look at what Apple would get for that enormous cash outlay.

1. Great/excellent programs - It doesn't work the way you think it does. For ever 1 great program, you have 40-50 that get cancelled or never make it out of production. All the studios combined release 4-5 legitimate hits a year.

2. Only available on ATV - Limited audience. Even if ATV sales tripled, the cost of content creation would make this a losing proposition. Or the content would have to be prohibitively expensive. Remember Apple, above all else, is a for profit company.

3. Great writers/directors/actors - Goes back to #1 - Having the best talent doesn't guarantee success. Never has, never will. Great content is not a formula you can just dial up by throwing money at it.

4. Apple manages money well. Most of their cost can be reliably predicted. Entertainment? No one know where most of that money goes. No one is really accountable. Apple is a very accountable company.

Apple is smart. Just make the puck better and keep it moving. Content providers don't need Apple. They already make money hand over fist. Unless Apple can show them a way to make more than they already do, they have no use for Apple.

 

[mccldwll]

Which version ATV are you using with a Netflix that "barely works on it" anymore? I've never heard of such a thing and it sounds like utter ******** to me so I'm curious.

Whatever "**********" was signifying, that was being charitable.

----------

Rumors about "revolutionary" Apple TV have been around for a few years now.
Nothing came out.
Nothing is coming out.
Just vaporware.
TV is dead, and maybe Apple knows they can't do anything great on a TV screen.

Of course. That's it. Nothing to see here. Move along.

 

[jimsowden]

Imagine if this were 2007, and it was Apple's "less ambitious" vision for the iPhone? It's a shame apple isn't able to push through challenger products any more.

 

[AppleScruff1]

I'm curious, how many of you have separate providers for internet and TV?

 

[69Mustang]

Either way, I believe the days of cable and satellite company strangleholds on our entertainment options, are numbered. Their greed and inflexibility will sooner rather than later, relegate them to the self inflicted status of broadband providers, sans content distribution, or insignificance as far as content distribution is concerned, in the case of satellite providers. Technology will find a way around them.

You're right. But they realize it as well. That's why companies like Comcast are acquiring the content providers. I don't think many forum members realize just how much Comcast really owns; especially regarding content. They are way more than a cable provider. Worse, if they get their hands on Time Warner (and Time Warner wants it), the 800lb. gorilla becomes King Kong.

 

[Hastings101]

Steve wasn't a messiah... He was a man. There will be better and there will be worse.

Unless you can prove without a doubt that he wasn't a messiah then you better be quiet. He gave us Apple and modern technology and showed the world the true meaning of love. May he forever shepherd us even from the next life. Amen.

 

[mccldwll]

"Apple's plans for its revamped Apple TV have been scaled back..."

or

"Apple's plans for its revamped Apple TV were misreported and we retract our story."

Misreporting by "The Rupert Murdoch Owned Wall Street Journal". Surely, you jest.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Failing that, an upcoming Supreme Court decision on 'broadcasters vs Aereo', if favorable to the latter, could completely change the entire tv content consumption landscape. Upstarts like 'Tablo' have an even better chance at legitimization, as their users provide their own antennae, to distribute the free, ota captured content thru the internet or a wifi network, to their own multiple devices.

The Aereo case is about local networks (the "big 4 or 5") only (no cable channels). The biggest benefit of Aereo is not having to install an antenna or rabbit ears; instead they install it somewhere away from your home, capture and convert the signals to something that can be streamed over the internet and you get the free signals via your broadband connection. Nice? Yes. But the only "win" in that for us consumers is not having to install an antenna to get free network programming.

In some- maybe many? cases- we already have something like this. Hook your local cable up to your TV and do a channel scan. It may very well find your local channels in HD without you having to have a cable subscription at all. If you subscribe to cable broadband, odds of this are even higher because the cable will not be disconnected somewhere outside of your home. If this works for you, who needs an Aereo?

But if Aereo does win, then what happens?

Do you pay Aereo something to "rent" their antenna and signal conversion service? If yes, why not just put one up yourself and avoid the rental?

Like any magical, cable-replacement solution, does Aereo depend on using broadband pipes typically owned by the very same cable company that likes their television service revenues "as is"? Yes. Why we seem to ignore how the scenario of the masses cutting the cable cord but still entirely reliant on cable broadband would (actually) play out is beyond me. Do we think a Comcast, etc would keep broadband rates "as is" while allowing others to take their cable TV revenues? It seems many of us do believe that. Can we not see the future in tiered data pricing per the example set- and readily accepted by the market- in broadband wireless? It seems we can't. Instead, we imagine cable broadband rates remaining unlimited* and at about current pricing while an Apple, Aereo or others are allowed to just take the big cableTV subscription revenues even though all such alternatives are entirely dependent on that very same CABLE-OWNED PIPE.

Some of those major network heads have already said that a victory for Aereo would lead to them quitting the local broadcast business. In other words, they kill the free broadcast model and probably turn those channels into another paid (scrambled) cable channels. Would they actually do this? If the profit motive supports it, yes. And such a move would make Aereo useless (just as Aereo has no ability to share ESPN or any other cable channels) while also stripping away the ability of those who have put up their own antennas from continuing to get local programming for free*.

 

[ph0rk]

Which version ATV are you using with a Netflix that "barely works on it" anymore? I've never heard of such a thing and it sounds like utter ******** to me so I'm curious.

I have an appleTV 2 (720p) and the Netflix UI is slow and clunky compared to that on a midrange smart TV (Samsung F6300 series). Also, buggy as hell on the appleTV. I had an apple TV 1 before, and the 2 is much better, it still has a way to go to be a smooth and snappy set top box experience.

As an aside, Netflix on the smart TV isn't as polished as Amazon prime instant video on the smart TV, but that's a different story.

 

[ronwasserman]

Provide-Original-Content...
Instead of begging content providers for content, Apple needs to provide their own original content. Provide the next great show like "Breaking Bad" or "Mad Men" or name any other wildly popular show. This is the key to selling Apple TV's. Have excellent programs that can only be accessed on Apple TV. Just about every new TV sold can do what Apple TV does as far as programing is concerned. If Apple TV was ever a big deal it's not now. Wakeup Apple, take a few billion and get the best writers, directors, and actors money can buy. Have them create a ton of great new original content. Otherwise prepare for Apple TV to be mediocre at best and at worst fail miserably.

BTW - Breaking and Mad are remarkable shows. The major networks, the cream of the crop and highest paid, all passed on these shows. It was the risk taking cable network with the lower paid visionaries that rolled the dice on these productions.

TV shows have about a 2% success rate. You would not believe how many pilots are shot yearly, very expensive, a few are aired and most fail. Apple would never recoup. Netfilx will never actually recoup on their productions, it's just a way to get subscribers...which really hasn't worked either.

 

[Exponent]

Such as?

• You need to have a machine capable of running PLEX always on and active on the network,
• then it has to be fast enough to run PLEX on 1080p high-bit-rate content,
• then it has to be not doing some other compute-intensive task that a server might be called upon to do,
• then you have double the traffic on the network since the PLEX machine is pulling data from the NAS and then re-encoded data is going to the box at the TV,
• then you have double the traffic on the network since the PLEX machine is pulling data from the NAS and then re-encoded data is going to the TV dongle,
• then you have the inevitable degradation in quality that happens when re-coding, or the hiccups that happen when changing container systems.

Sincerely,
Mr. Been There Done That

 

[scoobydoo99]

If Steve were alive, he would have gotten the deal done. He's probably the only one that could have gotten that deal done though.

^^this

Of all the times over the last couple of years that people have said "if Steve were around...", THIS time it really is true. Steve had the charisma, persuasiveness, and saavy to not only get the potential partners excited about the next big thing, but he could make them feel like they would be missing out if they got left behind by Apple. Just like with the original iPhone deal with AT&T, the providers that rejected Apple ended up regretting it.

Without Steve, this endeavor didn't have a chance.

----------

BTW - Breaking and Mad are remarkable shows. The major networks, the cream of the crop and highest paid, all passed on these shows. It was the risk taking cable network with the lower paid visionaries that rolled the dice on these productions.

TV shows have about a 2% success rate. You would not believe how many pilots are shot yearly, very expensive, a few are aired and most fail. Apple would never recoup. Netfilx will never actually recoup on their productions, it's just a way to get subscribers...which really hasn't worked either.

Getting subscribers IS how Netflix recoups - they don't have advertising revenue!

And yes, it has worked spectacularly. From CNN:
"Netflix's blistering rate of growth continued in the fourth quarter of 2013. More than 2.3 million new American households signed up for the streaming service, its best quarterly performance in three years."

2.3 million times 8 bucks a month is a helluva recoup, I'd say.

 

[charlituna]

This is so disappointing.

If it is true. Frankly I don't take the WSJ as a source to be trusted at face value. They were saying that Apple and TWC were going to be partners in this new Apple TV the day before the Comcast buy was announced. Given that was in the table it is highly unlikely Apple would have signed any type of deal with TWC as it would be Comcast's choice to go along with it and they likely wouldn't. If WSJ had any clue they would have known this.

----------

I want:
iCloud with unlimited storage, let iCloud record all channels for you to your own iCloud space. Go to a particular day of TV programming by using Time Machine for iCloud TV. Streamed to my iPad. Easily search for an episode by typing in "Breaking Bad s03e12" in Spotlight. Only $99/year.
.
.
.
and I also want to touch Olivia Wilde.

Or ya know, just allow us to pay for the same streaming that iTunes in the cloud does already. With or without the download buy. Akin to what Lala.com did with their ten cent music tracks

----------

or..... it could just be an analyst over at WSJ that has made something up because his sources are no longer getting fed direct information from Apple R&D.

Hmm Jordan price quit before he got caught?

 

[scoobydoo99]

I'm curious, how many of you have separate providers for internet and TV?

TV? Why would I have a TV provider?

 

[TsMkLg068426]

Forget about cable companies Apple do the next best thing and become the next Netflix or Amazon Prime and start having you streaming service just imagine Apple streaming less buffering and more steady HD I sure would love to have it with Apple Cloud service would not mind paying $40 year.

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

If it is true. Frankly I don't take the WSJ as a source to be trusted at face value. They were saying that Apple and TWC were going to be partners in this new Apple TV the day before the Comcast buy was announced. Given that was in the table it is highly unlikely Apple would have signed any type of deal with TWC as it would be Comcast's choice to go along with it and they likely wouldn't. If WSJ had any clue they would have known this.

Do you not remember that Apple's original iPhone service partner was Cingular who- at nearly the last minute- was bought out by AT&T. Can we not see the parallel here?

----------

Forget about cable companies Apple do the next best thing and become the next Netflix or Amazon Prime and start having you streaming service just imagine Apple streaming less buffering and more steady HD I sure would love to have it with Apple Cloud service would not mind paying $40 year.

So what you're really saying is unlock everything for $3.33/month ($40/12) in the iTunes video store and you're in? Even more simply, bill us at about half of what Netflix does but give us the mix of Netflix-type content as well as many of the latest & greatest shows in HD too.

And Apple is interested in doing this at the lowest price available why exactly?

And the content providers will want Apple to take it's 30% off the top and then take a massive haircut vs. everyone else why exactly?

I fully get what's in it for us consumers. Why would all of the other players- even Apple- want to do this?

 

[barkomatic]

Do you truly see Apple, a company that is very specific in where they focus their time and energy, purchasing TWC and becoming a content owner and managing a cable TV network?

Yes, actually. It's not good enough to deliver new hardware with a shiny OS anymore--its providing access to content. There are a number of smartphones and tablets that are just as advanced, and at certain times of the year even more so--than Apple's devices.

Apple already manages content in iTunes and has experience striking deals with content providers. As for TWC, Apple buying it doesn't mean that they couldn't run it independently using the professionals that already work there. It's about gaining access to the content.

Anyway, its all conjecture. I don't Apple is going to go that route either--but it would be amazing if they did.