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. . . Do they pay or is it free promotion?

Sucking Up has its merits . . .

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Before they filed for Bankruptcy, Dubai had $9.1 Billion of Construction Works in operation daily. So how much pocket change do you think those workers had?!
 
It’s surprising how many of the Apple TV screensaver’s are of Dubai.
Do they pay or is it free promotion?

I'm wondering this myself. Quite frankly I find Dubai a very ugly city. Perhaps there are some nice places to see in the Middle East or Asia but even so they just don't appeal to me. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but I would much rather see shots of Europeans cities and countries. Or more of North America as well. I'm in Canada and there are tons of great places in Canada where Apple could get footage from for great screensavers. More national parks would be great as well. The under water shots are nice though. Either way there needs to be much more variety and the ability to choose which ones I would like to see.
 
I'm wondering this myself. Quite frankly I find Dubai a very ugly city. Perhaps there are some nice places to see in the Middle East or Asia but even so they just don't appeal to me. Maybe I'm just old fashioned but I would much rather see shots of Europeans cities and countries. Or more of North America as well. I'm in Canada and there are tons of great places in Canada where Apple could get footage from for great screensavers. More national parks would be great as well. The under water shots are nice though. Either way there needs to be much more variety and the ability to choose which ones I would like to see.

I think Dubai is one of the most beautiful cities, especially the nighttime flyover that Apple does with all the buildings sparkling like jewels. It’s really amazing. That being said, I agree with you that there needs to be more variety and I would love to see some shots of Canada. Australia too.
 
Most likely tied to the screensaver's curating team's taste. Whether or not you find that dubious or not I won't venture to discuss.

They could easily add more photos of Rome, Kyoto or Paris (all among the top UNESCO World Heritage cities).
 
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San Francisco have the most screen savers, which is not a surprise, followed by Los Angeles, Dubai is third among the cities, then follows London, New York, and Hong Kong.
I can't say it is a big deal, but I am curious to how Apple goes to procure these savers. I doubt anyone buys the Apple TV just for the screen savers, so there is very little return of investment.
 
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Is there a reason my thoughts go to dog whistles?

One can look for meaning in the most random of circumstances. In this case, I'd throw Dubai into the category, Cities With Dramatic Architecture. Not at all random, but probably not a conspiracy. Dubai clearly set out to make a splash of this sort (take that as a pun or not), and Apple is hardly the only one to pick up on it. Photogenic is photogenic.

I've lived most of my life near one of the classic, dramatic city skylines. Despite my local boosterism, there's plenty of room for other cities in my world view. In recent decades a number of other world cities have muscled into the traditional line-up, including Hong Kong, Taipei, and yes, Dubai. It's a big world, and there's room for more.

That's not to say that Cities With Dramatic Architecture is the only category worthy of a screensaver. However, all too often architectural sights outside of Western Europe and North America have been pigeon-holed into Great Antiquities, as if their countries/cities have have had nothing to add to the world for 1,000 years. Parthenon, pyramids, Taj Mahal, Imperial Palace/Forbidden City, Hagia Sofia, Angkor Wat, Dome of the Rock, Petra, Chichen Itza, Machu Picchu... They're all great in their own right, the historic cultures behind them well-worthy of recognition, but it's as if they've done nothing since.

Great Natural Wonders/Landscapes is a favorite of mine, for which Great Urban Parks is a fine complement. One could go on... there's plenty of eye candy out there, some dramatic, some subtle. Just keep it coming. The best antidote to claims of partiality is to "dilute" it with more good stuff.
 
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I bet one reason is copyright clearance. Some countries have pretty strict laws protecting the copyright in a building design that usually belongs to the architect, and thus any photography of the building (for commercial purposes) needs to be cleared and paid for. Obviously this tends to apply to new buildings.

I know a pretty famous example is the Eiffel Tower at night is tricky to photograph for commercial purposes because the firm that designed the lighting system protects that copyright pretty aggressively. It's also why often when movies are shot in Paris or London, most scenes tend to take place in the old parts of the city where there are no modern buildings protected by copyright, and any scenes with modern buildings need to be cleared and paid for. I there was a pretty good Wendover youtube video on this.

I wouldn't be surprised if Dubai said to hell with all that and would rather make it easier for anyone to shoot commercial video / photography in the city.
 
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I completely agree. BUT Love the Whale!!!! She knows she's going to be an TV4K Screen Saver and is performing for us. I would love to have a "hard copy" of that clip to hold on to for when her kind are gone . . . :mad:
I really love the Kelp forest of the coast of California. Amazing colours, fascinating views, like looking on an alien planet.
 
I'm wondering this myself. Quite frankly I find Dubai a very ugly city.
I think Dubai is quite a stunning city, very modern, clean and in its own way beautiful. However I have heard from friends that it’s horrible to walk around, the heat is stifling all year-round and it’s not really made for pedestrians. But I’d still like to visit it for three or four days.
I wonder what it will look like in 20 years.
 
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I'd personally love to see more animal animations. We already have a few underwater ones, but why not some land animals? birds? flyovers of migrating gazelles?

BTW the 'hide' option doesn't work on my ATV 4K. I told it to hide 'earth' but it still has the space flyovers.
 
Re-hashing an old topic here, but I feel like they've potentially missed a GREAT opportunity in many countries around the world during COVID to shoot more screensavers. They could have filmed some AMAZING scenes of empty cities, beaches, etc which are normally full of people. I got some great shots around Sydney in the first couple of months of COVID. I was still working in the city, and I'd be the only person walking down George St or Martin Place, QVB, etc., only person at the Opera House steps, or Bennelong Point. Would be surreal and awesome to have some aerial shots or walk-throughs of near empty cities around the world as AppleTV screensavers, or aerial flyovers of Paris, Rome, Sydney, and also some of our iconic "outback" scenes like Uluru, all sans tourists.

I'm growing tired of the screensavers - we need more variety. It's great to be able to choose what kind of screensavers you want to see, but I think I just want more to look at. I'd love to see Australia represented in the lineup of screensavers, but I'm a bit biased :)
 
I'd be happy if there were some type of nature screensavers that show land animals and not just sea life. Such as running deer, a herd of buffalo, birds, meerkats, etc. As in living screensavers not static images.
 
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I completely agree. BUT Love the Whale!!!! She knows she's going to be an TV4K Screen Saver and is performing for us. I would love to have a "hard copy" of that clip to hold on to for when her kind are gone . . . :mad:

Get the Aerial screensaver app for macOS... select the videos that you want to see/save... once they're downloaded, you can copy them to a safe storage location... the aerial screensaver app stores the videos at:

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I really hope the Humpback doesn't go extinct myself. We might learn the hard way in the 23rd Century if some space probe starts ionizing our atmosphere and disrupting our power grid if that happens!

 
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