Opinion: Apple TV has nothing over Sky Q

[nebo1ss]

(Hypothetically) If Sky bought the rights to the Super Bowl and every NFL game and every baseball, basketball game, ice hockey game on TV, would you pay for it? (Assuming you are a sports fan)

This is what we are faced with in the UK. All the sports we love, the rights are pretty much owned by Sky.
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Congrats! Well I'm upgrading today so I'll find out exactly how much it is. As an existing customer, you get a better deal so they say.

Not from what I have read existing customers will pay between £349 and £399 for the box depending on which box they select. New Customer will pay less I thinks its like £50 less. I am a SKY subscriber, i have it only for sport.

I don't think it is a good idea to get in early on SKY Q i think the prices will drop significantly in six months time. The box is very expensive and the setup charge is ridiculous. The box is not competing with Apple TV or other streaming devices at least not at this time. From my prospective there is no must have feature on the new box for me. It certainly looks better but i will look at it again in 12 months time.

 

[AVBeatMan]

Not from what I have read existing customers will pay between £349 and £399 for the box depending on which box they select. New Customer will pay less I thinks its like £50 less. I am a SKY subscriber, i have it only for sport.

I don't think it is a good idea to get in early on SKY Q i think the prices will drop significantly in six months time. The box is very expensive and the setup charge is ridiculous. The box is not competing with Apple TV or other streaming devices at least not at this time. From my prospective there is no must have feature on the new box for me. It certainly looks better but i will look at it again in 12 months time.

I ordered a box yesterday. One "silver" box with one "mini". £149.

 

[LiveM]

I've just ordered SkyQ. My new monthly cost will be £120.24. For this I'll get the whole package, TV, Movies, Sports, Fibre Broadband, Line rental and calls.

I'm more interested in getting ready for Ultra HD content.

I'm personally taking over the budget in our home and after cancelling Sky this month, broadband and line rental are the next scams I'm going to cancel.

Our mobile plans provide ample Internet to connect our home. Total fees not paid will be about $300 per month.

 

[GadgetBen]

I ordered it yesterday.

Sky Q Silver £100.40 per month. £50 set up. Included Sky Q Mini to watch shows and recordings in another room with Wi-Fi signal boost, because the box acts as an extra hotspot. This includes broadband and my free evenings and weekend phone call package.

Was paying £80 per month for all the channels except movies.
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Totally different products in totally different price ranges. Sky requires a monthly subscription plus hardware costs and is a live TV service with on demand features. The Apple TV is primarily a media streaming and on demand set top box with no required monthly contracts or costs. Do you work for sky by any chance?

Not totally different products. They are both TV set-top boxes!
You don't actually think that Apple will keep providing content for free do you? That is, when they get enough original content.

 

[Richard28]

I'm very underwhelmed by the whole Sky Q thing - it's a locked eco-system that ties you in to sky content (most of which is utter trash) and a subscription.

I have a sky subscription currently, but actually buy the movies and sport packages on a as needed basis through NOW TV through my Apple TV3, but mostly watch Netflix and amazon when at home.. so my sky subscription hangs in the balance...

As soon as there is a good "live" broadcast facility on Apple TV4 with some kind of recorder to the cloud, better scheduler that ties all the app content together and ability to a la carte buy more content/channels on demand (without subscription) then closed ecosystems with high subscriptions like sky will be redundant.

If this all comes together (and it will in time) then I simply cannot see a future need for a sky box at all.

(Just wish the Apple TV4 had 4K.... that would be perfect)

 

[mikelj]

I ordered a box yesterday. One "silver" box with one "mini". £149.

Isn't that the subsidised price , if you subscribe to sports or movies, or have SKY broadband (£99 for Q Silver + one Mini, plus £50 installation fee)?

 

[AVBeatMan]

Isn't that the subsidised price , if you subscribe to sports or movies, or have SKY broadband (£99 for Q Silver + one Mini, plus £50 installation fee)?

Yeah, I already have the movies and sports.

 

[steve-p]

I've just ordered SkyQ. My new monthly cost will be £120.24. For this I'll get the whole package, TV, Movies, Sports, Fibre Broadband, Line rental and calls.

To me, £1440 per year just seems utterly ridiculous. The big problem with Sky Q is that it's still just another way of gouging customers so Sky can afford their overpriced content deals. I left Sky a couple of years ago, have no regrets, and it would take a miracle to get me back as a customer. They could start by halving prices though.

 

[LiveM]

It just amazes me that Sky is so stupid; it does not believe it is about to die.

Kodak, Yahoo, Nokia, Blockbuster, Blackberry - how many times do consumers look at these businesses with so much more intelligence than the executives in charge of them?

Kodak was not a film company, but it thought it was. Amtrak knew it was a transportation business, not a railroad business, and survives.

Sky has failed to appreciate that its profits were inappropriate, and has not invested them. It's like the central bank pumping money into the stock market to achieve stimulus rather than the government embarking on major infrastructure spending to achieve the same objective.

Sky should first have realised it is a media company, not a television subscription company. It should have taken its monthly magazine as a seed to grow its brand and its operations at the same time; by now it should be an ISP and so much more. Its shareholders have their own experience in most of the ways (tradtionally industries) it should have invested and grown, but they are businesses with the exact same paradigm in their minds, who will also die if they do not operate on themselves.

As such, Sky Q is a missed opportunity. Apple, on the other hand, went from Apple Computer to adding media and software. It is trying to add cars and Apple TV is the basis of a further expansion into television with its own content there. Apple will survive even though it has always been dependent on a single product - it did not wait for that product's inevitable decline, either when that product was the computer or the smartphone/tablet.

 

[batfink]

How do I watch my iTunes library via skyQ?

 

[BarcelonaPaul]

It's a totally different market with the Sky audience really being the old style 'drip feeding TV' customers. My God, I can't believe people pay £100 a month to watch Sky along with all of those terrible adverts and sponsorship. I can't think of anything more downmarket.
Surely Apple TV is aimed at the younger, internet generation who create their own content rather than force fed what Sky wants its punters to pay for. Sky is 1990 and is the lowest form of entertainment for the undiscerning masses who are happy to pay to watch TV. It's vile.

 

[NeilHD]

I just cancelled my Virgin TV service as I don't really use it (they let me keep the Tivo on the basic "freeview" package for £2/month which is cool).

Nearly all my watching is Netflix or Now TV. Saved a bomb, so definitely don't see the need for Sky Q!

 

[rolsskk]

Sky Q Silver £100.40 per month. £50 set up. Included Sky Q Mini to watch shows and recordings in another room with Wi-Fi signal boost, because the box acts as an extra hotspot. This includes broadband and my free evenings and weekend phone call package.

So did anyone come to your home and do the install and configuration for you, or did you pay £50 for the privilege of self-install?

Not totally different products. They are both TV set-top boxes!
You don't actually think that Apple will keep providing content for free do you? That is, when they get enough original content.

They're wholly different, one is a subscription based box, the other is not. Additionally the SkyQ does not have an app store, nor the ability to play additional media, connect into other options such as HBO Now, Showtime, etc.

Sure, they're both set-top boxes, but that's where the similarities end.

 

[mikelj]

It's a totally different market with the Sky audience really being the old style 'drip feeding TV' customers. My God, I can't believe people pay £100 a month to watch Sky along with all of those terrible adverts and sponsorship. I can't think of anything more downmarket.
Surely Apple TV is aimed at the younger, internet generation who create their own content rather than force fed what Sky wants its punters to pay for. Sky is 1990 and is the lowest form of entertainment for the undiscerning masses who are happy to pay to watch TV. It's vile.

I own both. I'm 43 - am I having a mid-life crisis?

 

[rhett7660]

I own both. I'm 43 - am I having a mid-life crisis?

Don't say that, I am six months away from 43!!!! Now if you were 53 and driving a convertible red Porsche with a 22 year old lady in the passenger seat.....

 

[LiveM]

That's not a crisis.

 

[GadgetBen]

So did anyone come to your home and do the install and configuration for you, or did you pay £50 for the privilege of self-install?
They're wholly different, one is a subscription based box, the other is not. Additionally the SkyQ does not have an app store, nor the ability to play additional media, connect into other options such as HBO Now, Showtime, etc.
Sure, they're both set-top boxes, but that's where the similarities end.

Engineer is coming next week actually to install both boxes and reconfigure my WIFI. I wont be able to sleep over that £50 set up fee.

Also, you are wrong. SkyQ does have its own version (but very limited) of an app store where you can find Netflix and the rest. Basically all the worthwhile apps. The Apple TV app store is quite frankly laughable. Especially for a product basing itself around 'apps' being the future of entertainment. The only good apps are the TV channel apps which Sky already has. If I want to play additional media I use my 4K iMac or Sonos speakers with Apple music.

Who wants to watch HBO and Showtime? Are you reading what you're writing?

So no, they are not totally different products. Apple has introduced a set-top box offering inferior content. That is why it can't charge a subscription fee yet but it will. Sky have thought about what their users want - the option to view paused/saved TV content on your tablet. That is something that Apple should have thought of. You know, its called Handoff on other devices. Also, no 4K on an Apple TV product launched last year. Thats the worst part.

 

[steve-p]

Who wants to watch HBO and Showtime?

Considerably more people than would want to watch 95% of the channels carried on the Sky platform, I imagine.

 

[mikelj]

Engineer is coming next week actually to install both boxes and reconfigure my WIFI. I wont be able to sleep over that £50 set up fee.

Wow! How can any one say that the installation fee isn't value for money. For £50, not only does the 'engineer' leave loose external cables with no silicon grease applied, but they'll also bugger up your home network too.

Seriously though, it'll be interesting to see if the Q installations are performed by SKY employees or subcontractors, considering Q customers are supposed to receive premium support. Subcontractors make very little on each installation, so they have perform as many as they can in order to make a profit.

 

[nebo1ss]

I'm very underwhelmed by the whole Sky Q thing - it's a locked eco-system that ties you in to sky content (most of which is utter trash) and a subscription.

I have a sky subscription currently, but actually buy the movies and sport packages on a as needed basis through NOW TV through my Apple TV3, but mostly watch Netflix and amazon when at home.. so my sky subscription hangs in the balance...

As soon as there is a good "live" broadcast facility on Apple TV4 with some kind of recorder to the cloud, better scheduler that ties all the app content together and ability to a la carte buy more content/channels on demand (without subscription) then closed ecosystems with high subscriptions like sky will be redundant.

If this all comes together (and it will in time) then I simply cannot see a future need for a sky box at all.

(Just wish the Apple TV4 had 4K.... that would be perfect)

I got in on a special package that sky offered recently where I get the basic service and sports for £22.75 a month. I was previously using the Now TV box to order sports as and when needed so this is a good deal for me and i get to keep this price for 12 months. I am hoping that in 12 months time I can get BT sports on some sort of internet pricing deal I have high speed fibre at 1gig. My only disappointment with existing package is that HD sports not included.

 

[Hermes Monster]

Got the email a few days ago saying I could buy SkyQ - I currently pay £39 pm for Phone, BB, Sports, Movies and Family packs +HD. The new cost for SkyQ Silver would be £125pm plus a £200 set up fee (including moving to fibre 38mb) ...


....



....


BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

I'm ok with the £39 as it stands, but I watch less and less live TV, often finding it painful to find anything to watch. So now I use Kodi on my £35 FireStick, and when my contract ends I'll be paying £10-15 for an IPTV service via Kodi, £5 + LR of course, for Virgin to provide my Broadband (50mb).

I have the AT3 now, and was tempted by the AT4, but at launch it didn't do anything I didn't already have, but now you can sideload Kodi on to it I think I'll sell my FS and ATV3 and buy the AT4.

Sky may very well be coming up with new ways to watch, but it's what you're watching that sucks!

 

[SpinalTap]

Since no one else has mentioned it, Sky also plan on launching their Sky Q 4K UHD NowTV (aka Roku4) box later this year. I only subscribe to NowTV via my ATV in the summer months for cricket, so this looks like a more economic entry into the SkyQ ecosystem for occasional users that don't want a contract.

The caveat is that a good broadband connection will be required to access streamed 4K content.

 

[rolsskk]

Also, you are wrong. SkyQ does have its own version (but very limited) of an app store where you can find Netflix and the rest. Basically all the worthwhile apps. The Apple TV app store is quite frankly laughable. Especially for a product basing itself around 'apps' being the future of entertainment. The only good apps are the TV channel apps which Sky already has. If I want to play additional media I use my 4K iMac or Sonos speakers with Apple music.

You poke fun of the AppStore, but then you said earlier that the SkyQ has a very limited one. Let me know when you can access external media through the SkyQ box.

Who wants to watch HBO and Showtime? Are you reading what you're writing?

Those of use who don't want to pay month cable bills? Yes, I can read what I write, we're not as backwards as you think we are.

So no, they are not totally different products. Apple has introduced a set-top box offering inferior content. That is why it can't charge a subscription fee yet but it will.

You keep tossing around subscription fee, but I don't think you quite understand how that works. If Apple does roll out a subscription model for content, it's not going to lock you out from using the box if you don't have a subscription, unlike the SkyQ.

Sky have thought about what their users want - the option to view paused/saved TV content on your tablet. That is something that Apple should have thought of. You know, its called Handoff on other devices. Also, no 4K on an Apple TV product launched last year. Thats the worst part.

I've got that capability on all of my devices already. 4K is still a niche market, but you can hardly call that "the worst part" about the AppleTV.

 

[LiveM]

You'll find it hard to see any difference with 4k content. The reason the Apple TV needs 4k is for LAN content. Anything else is compressed too much. I'd rather save a few dollars a month and put it towards Apple Music.

As for subscription lock, that's not for all the apps, but a separate offering - think the Vevo app vs Apple Music.

 

[profmjh]

I got rid of Sky TV last year. I found the interface pretty clunky (long, long lists of things) and there were waaay too many channels, most of which were garbage.

I saved myself about £40 a month, including ditching the TV licence.

I now survive on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Now TV and iTunes. I have an Amazon Fire TV and a new Apple TV.

I use the Amazon Fire TV more than the Apple TV mostly because BBC iPlayer is vastly better on it. Netflix is the same on both. Now TV is only available on the Apple TV.

I don't subscribe to everything every month: it depends if something new has come out that I want to see, e.g. House of Cards on Netflix.

I have, however, spent a tonne of money on iTunes: mostly buying up my favourite TV series.

I'm not persuaded I've actually saved any money doing all this. I love not having to watch adverts (though the Amazon Fire tries to sneak them in which annoys me). I miss not knowing what's on broadcast TV and missing stuff.