Apple Reportedly Working On an Online TV Service

An anonymous reader writes: According to a Wall Street Journal report (paywalled) Apple is in negotiations with media companies to develop an online TV service. The service will include a bundle of roughly 25 channels, so less popular channels will have a very difficult time fighting for a spot. Most major networks should be present, although NBC's participation is dubious because of its ties to Comcast, which would be in direct competition with Apple's service. "If Apple can offer a comprehensive, albeit slimmed-down, bundle for $30 to $40 a month, that could force distributors to cut prices or eat into margins to retain subscribers. At Comcast, for example, average video revenue per user should be about $79.45 in 2015, according to UBS. Meanwhile, its programming costs per average subscriber should be about $39.60. Those costs may need to rise. That roughly 50% gross margin looks vulnerable."

Comments

Oh Look

[sexconker]

Oh look, it's THIS story again.
Let me guess - they're going to start taking gaming seriously in 2016?

Re:Oh Look

[Just Some Guy]

This isn't an Apple TV thing. From the article:

Apple declined to comment on the reports. But the Journal said its sources suggested the tech giant is aiming for a June unveiling, ahead of a September launch of the TV service, compatible with all devices running iOS, including iPhones, iPads, and Apple TV boxes.

That's a pretty big deal for a lot of people, and the rumors are that it'll be unveiled at WWDC. I like stories like this: plausible, and soon enough to be interesting.

Re:Oh Look

[sexconker]

This shit has been rumored ever since the introduction of the first Apple TV. It will at some point finally come to fruition, but it's about as newsworthy as saying the sun will come up at some point in the next 24 hours.

Re:Oh Look

[Anonymous Coward]

I live on a space station that never sees the sun, you insensitive clod!

Re:Oh Look

[reboot246]

But it looks like Apple is playing catchup to Sling TV. Sling TV is available now and for a cheaper per-month price. Apple is going to have to offer better channels than one could get from Sling.

Re:Oh Look

[Earthquake Retrofit]

Is that you Samantha?

Re:Oh Look

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple just needs to ensure their logo appears somewhere and they can charge a premium.

Re:Oh Look

[Just Some Guy]

But it looks like Apple is playing catchup to Sling TV.

Very true, but we already have and use an Apple TV. We have very little Apple-purchased content so it wouldn't be financially hard to switch to a different device (and I think we're out of HDMI ports so we'd more or less have to), but it'd be nicely convenient if we could get that content on what we're used to.

Yeah, we could do some AirPlay workaround but the Wife Approval Factor starts dropping quickly when that gets involved.

Re:Oh Look

[Lumpy]

Gaming is pretty damn serious. Steam brings me everything I want to play.

Plus they got HBO GO to work without cable, something that google and microsoft was unable to do.

Re:Oh Look

[NotDrWho]

they're going to start taking gaming seriously in 2016

They'll be introducing a console that only has one game, with a controller that only has 3 buttons. And Wired will run 2 weeks of articles on how it's the greatest console ever, and will CHANGE THE WORLD.

Re:Oh Look

[Rob Y.]

The main (presumed) benefit of this is that it will be cheaper than cable TV bundles. But, assuming you get your broadband from a cable company, how long can that last? Sure, today broadband is sold cheap as a loss-leader by the cable providers for their expensive TV bundles. But if they wanted to, couldn't they re-balance the cost so that buying broadband from them without TV becomes much more expensive than it is today? TV+Broadband customers would pay the same, but the itemized costs for each would be different so that the current cable TV bundle wouldn't be much more expensive than what Apple's offering

Or does net neutrality prevent that? I don't think it does, so the only way this would work is if some serious competition were to open up in the broadband industry. Google fiber, perhaps? Then Apple, Google, and yes, Comcast could all compete to sell you TV bundles over your broadband connection that you got in a similarly competitive market. Otherwise, Comcast holds its content hostage, Time Warner follows suit (if they're not absorbed by Comcast).

Gonna be like the ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

even though streaming video services have been around for years and years, apple will enter the market & suddenly everybody will be "WOW look!!! Apple invented streaming video! Amazing!"

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[NoKaOi]

even though streaming video services have been around for years and years, apple will enter the market & suddenly everybody will be "WOW look!!! Apple invented streaming video! Amazing!"

Apple essentially invented a new market, just like Starbucks did. Were MP3 players (and expensive espresso drinks) available before that? Yes. Could you download music before that? Yes. What Apple did that wasn't so readily available before was made a device that could hold tons of music and had the market power to negotiate contracts to make music available for purchase on iTunes. Apple (and Starbucks) made their market readily available to the masses - whether it being available to the masses is a matter of perception or of a superior, easier to use product is irrelevant, what matters to the market is whether or not people are actually buying it.

The streaming video market is already pretty big and available to the masses through Netflix and Hulu. What's not so available to the masses is being able to stream the major networks in "real time" (which really means not having to wait a day to watch a new episode on Hulu). Sure, there are options, but those options are not so readily available to the masses - again, whether it's perception or a difficulty of use for non-geeks is irrelevant, what matters to the market is whether people are actually doing it. People hang on to cable either because (1)Hulu/Nextflix doesn't offer them what they want, or because (2) they're afraid of change. For group #1, offer them what they want and make it easy to obtain (and cheaper than cable) and people will go for it.

And people don't want to spend hours and hours figuring out new shit (or driving more than 3 blocks to a coffee shop), which is part of making things available to the masses.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Applehu Akbar]

The idea of streaming may have been around for years, but the implementation sucks donkeys. I live in a rural area where I get my big-city broadcast channels through a major nationwide cable provider. If I miss an episode of something on broadcast, I can sometimes catch it after the next day or two on streaming, except when it's on one of the networks where I have to wait 8 days for no particular reason, meaning that before I can see my missed episode I have to wait until the day after next week's episode, or when it's on "verify my provider" and my cable company is never one of the six or eight you can choose from. That's if I'm lucky, of course, for some programs are just not available on streaming at all. For non-br0adcast channels that are carried by my cable company, I should be able to stream catchup episodes by logging in with my provider, right? So why is there still only a tiny list of verifiable providers that seldom includes my own?

What Apple can bring to a mess like this is a markedly better user interface. Because I pay for cable programming with transmission fees, and for OTA content wit commercials and retransmission fees, I have every right to view the content after scheduled broadcast. That's why I torrent everything they won't give me my rightful open access to. What I would like to see Apple do is just buy a vertical slice of about a third of Hollywood and force a unified access paradigm onto it. Make it easy to get BS-free access to the corresponding slice of total content, and viewers will find it so much easier to watch their chosen content that the rest of the industry will have to fall into line.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[jedidiah]

Streaming "real time"? Who fucking cares? This is 2015, not 1965. The only stuff where "real time" actually matters any more is SPORTS and that's already covered by a number of other options including what Apple is copying.

Apple has no advantage here. They aren't a prime mover. They aren't a better mover. They aren't even the first to offer this particular variation.

Also, if people can't handle new technology, Apple isn't really going to help them. They can just stick with their old cable subscription (or even an antenna). The Apple approach of "easy equals crippled" isn't really going to help here.

The "clueless rube" contingent in this context isn't even on the table here.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Yaztromo]

Apple essentially invented a new market, just like Starbucks did. Were MP3 players (and expensive espresso drinks) available before that? Yes. Could you download music before that? Yes. What Apple did that wasn't so readily available before was made a device that could hold tons of music and had the market power to negotiate contracts to make music available for purchase on iTunes.

Perhaps even more importantly, Apple made it dirt simple for the everyman to actually get their music onto their device.

I had an early MP3 player. It was from before USB was popular, and used a parallel port interface. Getting music onto it required the following procedure:

1. - Unplug the printer (after ensuring no print jobs were going)
2. - Plug in the custom parallel cable
3. - Run the custom software
4. - Hope that the custom software would actually work from the time you started it, to the time the transfer completed. The software for my MP3 player was notoriously bad, and updates were virtually non-existent.
5. - Find music you don't want on the device anymore and delete it
6. - Navigate around the file interface to find all the MP3s you wanted added to the device
7. - Transfer the files, and hope the software didn't crash during the transfer.
8. - It was completely up to you to organize your music on your hard drive. The device had no display, didn't work with any form of metadata like ID3 tags.

Contrast this with the original iPod, where iTunes took care of organizing all your music on your hard drive for you, made metadata handling easy, and allowed you to simply plug-in your iPod, wait for the "Do not unplug" icon on its display to go away, and unplug and walk away.

I had the opportunity back-in-the-day to experiment with a lot of MP3 players, and for almost every single one, it's bigger failing was in the software to get music onto the device. These devices were primarily pushed out by small consumer electronics companies that knew very little about software development; the software was often painfully craptastic. Some of the better ones did simply identify themselves as USB Mass Storage devices, but you still had to manually catalog and organize all your music (a task admittedly some people seem to enjoy; myself this is a perfect sort of task for the computer to do for me while I focus on more important tasks), and then sit and drag-and-drop music to the device.

It was the overall iPod experience that really made it excel. Apple took the time and care to make everything right end-to-end. The majority of the other devices just pushed out hardware, and paid very little attention to decent software integration to make the process seamless to the (particularly non-technical) end user.

Not to mention the fact that virtually no other MP3 player had an integrated store to make it even easier to put music on your devices -- I remember the days of ripping CDs, or scouring FTP sites known to host MP3s. Apple made both CD ripping and downloading (for a fee) pretty simple, whereas for most other MP3s, getting the music in the first place was your problem, and not one their software would tackle.

Yaz

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[jedidiah]

Major broadcast network shows are available everywhere. They're on Hulu. They're on network specific websites. They're on Amazon. HELL, they're even on iTunes.

Then there's PVR technology that's been with us for 15 years already.

If you can't manage with all of that, doing nothing more but change the transport layer of your cable service really isn't going to help you.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[jedidiah]

MP3 players arose in a time when PCs in general were still primitive. They suffered because of this. A lot of peripherals from that time were more difficult to deal with on a PC. It wasn't just MP3 players.

At that time, pretending that people didn't have anything besides a USB port (or Firewire port) was a double edged sword.

At that time, CD ripping was already simple. Buying ready made content was only a problem because of a sandbagging cartel.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Yaztromo]

MP3 players arose in a time when PCs in general were still primitive. They suffered because of this.

Which only reenforces my point that Apple came along, and won the market by introducing a device that didn't suffer from these issues. And a huge part of that was the end-to-end software integration that all the other device manufacturers ignored.

At that time, CD ripping was already simple. Buying ready made content was only a problem because of a sandbagging cartel.

Sure, you could pop open some piece of software and tell it to rip tracks from your CD player, resulting in a whole bunch of files name TRACK_XXX.MP3, but then you had to manually do the work of naming them, organizing them into an album, and getting them into your MP3 player (as your mp3 player-of-choice's sync software of the day typically didn't include its own CD ripping software). It was a chore. iTunes did away with all of this; it had a built-in CD ripper, it used CDDB (now Gracenote) to automatically tag track data, it uses a database to automatically categorize and organize music along multiple vectors.

Sure, the parts were there for other MP3 players, but getting them all integrated together was a chore, and not one likely to be undertaken by your average everyman. The iPod integrated all of these things together, making ripping your CD and putting it onto your iPod as easy as insert CD, press button, plug-in iPod, wait. It took the chore out of it, along with the need to get together all of the disparate pieces of software you'd need to do the task, as it was with other MP3 players. That is why the iPod won.

Yaz

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they are in those places. But they are not ALL in ALL of those places. Some are on Hulu. Some are on network specific websites. Some are on Amazon. Some are on Netflix. Some are on iTunes. This is what makes cord-cutting so difficult. If the things you want to watch are only available on certain services, then you have to subscribe to all services to view all the things you want to watch. Then the cost quickly catches up to that of the cable company that you just dumped, with the added pleasure of using several different services that don't mesh together and all function differently, limited time availability of most content, and no DVR functionality.

Tivo's latest update/replacement for Season Pass - OnePass - is very close to solving this, but the problems are that you still have to pay for the individual services where the streamed episodes are and streamed episodes are still in many case at least a week behind and only available for a limited time.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

> Apple has no advantage here. They aren't a prime mover. They aren't a better mover. They aren't even the first to offer this particular variation.

They do have the benefit of Pixar having done a reverse-takeover of Disney, kind of like NeXT did a reverse-takeover of Apple.
But with Jobs dead, and thus no longer the single largest Disney shareholder, it isn't as big of an advantage as it once was.

Plus, the video guys saw how Apple bent the RIAA guys over a barrel with the DRM monopoly in itunes. They learned that they are better off in a mult-distributor marketplace, so they will actively work against letting Apple (or any other company) achieve the kind of market dominance that Apple had with ipods and music.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

itunes is by far the most difficult method ive ever tried to use to put mp3s onto an mp3 player.

All the rest of them just show up as a drive letter & you just drop files into them.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

1. not all broadcast shows are on hulu or itunes or other streaming.. not all are on cable's on demand menu either... and itunes certainly isn't free, and neither is a lot of hulu's offerings, and if cbs's model takes hold.. it'll be a separate subscription for each network's internet streaming menu.

2. personally owned vcr and dvr products are all but obsoleted by cable companies digitally encrypting all signals, even ota broadcast channels.. so recording isn't free either.. it's at least an extra $20 a month to someone.. whether it's the cable company, tivo, or both.. even with pc hardware you're looking at a not-insignificant hardware expense plus cable card rentals. further, recording ota is difficult due to the lack of non-subscription based set top hardware to do it with.

we have 2 analog vcr, 2 analog pc tuners, 1 atsc/qam pc tuner, and one 2-tuner tivo.... recording used to be easy and inexpensive or free.... but all are obsolete now due to the fucking cable company... yes even the atsc tuner we were using for qam because we're in a valley and receive no ota signals at all without a 150+ foot tower which we can't have.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[fluffernutter]

Comparing the first mp3 player that was even pre-USB to Apple devices is not really valid.

The USB player I had at the time that the iPod came out was way easier to use. The player I had you could plug into any computer and simply copy a file. With the iPod, I needed to start iTunes, get the music into my iTunes library, and go through all kinds of options to sync. Furthermore, I had to have a dedicated system to sync from even though I use multiple systems, and I couldn't just copy any file and use it as a flash drive, I had to copy a compatible file that iTunes would recognize such as an mp3 or mp4 etc.

I don't know if it is still like that today, but I like the freedom of doing a plug in and copy with no application required.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Streetlight]

Yes, broadcast network shows are everywhere. They're even free on TVs attached to an antenna, provided the antenna can see the signals.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

So *manually* copying files around to archiac things involving "drive letters” is easier than just plugging in and letting it automatically sync?

Our mileages indeed vary.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[monkeyxpress]

I had one of the third generation iPods (no moving buttons). I'm an EE, and remember what tech was like back then. I mean, basically the iPod was amazing in its context. It had a big graphics screen when most products still had those old alphanumeric character displays. I remember it even had a white LED back light! That was just phenomenal back then. And capacitive touch that worked so well was a huge novelty. When I bought it I remember everyone in the office spent ages playing with the UI.

The thing was pretty revolutionary, though I mean in the end, that is like saying if you buy a really expensive luxury car it is going to be more impressive than a Toyota. But still, there was certainly something pretty cool tech wise about it and the original iPhone. I don't know why tech people try to deny this - I hated the hype and lock in but their products weren't stupid.

The trouble for Apple today is none of this new stuff they are doing (iWatch, iTV etc) has anything near the wow factor anymore. Sadly I suspect they are just going to head towards more defensive positions, where they lock you in more and more rather than entice you into the walled garden with interesting products. Jobs was a dick, but at least when he demoed that first iPhone the UI was pretty amazing. I remember the first time I played with it and it was nothing I had ever seen before. In contrast, watching Tim Cook try to whip up some fake enthusiasm for the iWatch was pretty tragic.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[jabuzz]

Maybe in the USA, but in the UK I suspect that Apple are effective locked out as the main TV channels (BBC, ITV, Ch4) all provide very good streaming services. Hell for £10 you can get a NowTV box (a cut down Roku LT) which gives you all those catch up channels, plus a very wide selection of paid for content.

Oh and the big driver in the UK for these things is sport specifically football (aka soccer) and between them Sky and BT have the Premiership all locked up for years to come. Oh and Sky of course are owned by 21st Century Fox so have guaranteed access to a large catalogue of movies.

It's like Apple Pay, not going to work outside north America.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

So *manually* copying files around to archiac things involving "drive letters” is easier than just plugging in and letting it automatically sync?

Our mileages indeed vary.

Yes you twit. You don't need to download proprietary software, you can use it on any computer, and you can use it on multiple computers without the worry of that 'automatically sync' -ing ability wiping your device when you have multiple computers in your house.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Lumpy]

Ahh the Mp MAN... that thing was a nightmare. Mine is in the basement somewhere rotting.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[AmiMoJo]

It wasn't quite like that though, was it?

The first iPod was a POS. Firewire and Mac only, lower capacity and higher price than the competition. Awful LCD display. The only real thing it had going for it was the scroll wheel, which was invented by Synaptic. It didn't sell that well, despite the massive Apple hype machine and reality distortion field, not least because most people didn't have a Mac so couldn't use it.

Eventually they did a version that supported USB, although not for charging. I had one, I could sync half my tunes but then had to stop and recharge before syncing the other half. If I didn't manually stop the power just died and corrupted the database, so I had to start from scratch. iTunes was Windows was awful, even worse than RealPlayer that previously held the title of shittyest software you couldn't avoid installing.

After a while and massive amounts more advertising the iPod did start to sell, now the market included Windows users (i.e. 95%+ of the population). It wasn't until even more time passed and Apple heavily pushed CD ripping, a multitude of P2P apps demonstrated that the music industry desperately needed to sell downloads, and the industry's own efforts failed badly that they were able to negotiate music sales through iTunes.

In other words, it wasn't some genius move to invent a whole new market, and at first they sucked at it. Nasty DRM, and rubbish (but shiny) hardware. Eventually the time was right and they were in the right place, for which they deserve some credit of course.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[serviscope_minor]

What's not so available to the masses is being able to stream the major networks in "real time"

Depends on the country. In the UK we can get the major boradcast channels real-time over the internet, iPlayer for the BBC being the most well-known example.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[serviscope_minor]

The first iPod was a POS. Firewire and Mac only, lower capacity and higher price than the competition.

Yep, less space than a nomad. On and no wireless either. Pretty lame, I reckon.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[ArcadeMan]

In contrast, watching Tim Cook was pretty tragic.

Fixed that for you.

Tim Cook is an excellent bean-counter and a master of the supply chain, but he sounds like a boring academic teacher even when he tries to fake emotions. His timing is slow and his tone is sleep-inducing.

When Steve Jobs was doing a Keynote, his timing was great and he sounded enthusiastic and amazed by what he was presenting.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Agripa]

Having AT&T U-Verse and no better options in a major metropolitan area, streaming almost anything is useless. NNTP and Bittorrent work great though.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one that's getting sick of Apple and their shenanigans.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Hulfs]

You know that the vast majority of people have no idea how to locate their music on their computer, much less where their mp3 player's mount point is when they plug it in or even WHERE on that mount point to put the music files. To say you thought doing this was simple means you're much more computer savy than probably 95% of the population.

To me, that's where the brilliance of the iPod/iTunes came it. You put a CD in your computer, waited 10 minutes for it to rip, plugged in your iPod and your music was on your player. At the time, there was NO other music player that came with software that made the experience of actually getting music onto your device so dropdead simple. You had to know how to do 2 things, and that's it...put a CD in your computer, plug your iPod in. That's it.

You and I might prefer to tweak all our encoding settings, curate our music directory structures, decide for ourselves exactly what should be on our devices...but the common, non-technical person doesn't care.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Yaztromo]

The trouble for Apple today is none of this new stuff they are doing (iWatch, iTV etc) has anything near the wow factor anymore.

I can agree with that, although in a somewhat qualified manner. Apple has always been pretty open that the Apple TV is more of a hobby device for them. It shows, especially outside the US where the app/"channel" support is pretty pathetic. Here in Canada, it's really only useful for Netflix and iTunes content (I bought one for my parents a few years ago after the last video rental shop in their town closed; my father, who is virtually computer-illiterate, loves it for renting movies). I own a lot of Apple gear (although not exclusively), but have avoided the Apple TV as other that Airplay, I can't figure out what I'd use it for (we already have three devices in our entertaining centre that can play Netflix).

I think for the watch we'll need to wait and see. I feel it could still go either way. It could be the next iPhone 1 (remember how the original iPhone had no app store, and the push was for HTML5/Javascript based apps?) and bring in enough early adopters to kick off a critical mass of users and innovation on Apple's part, or it could be the next Apple TV (a nifty device that most people don't really need or know what to do with).

But you're right -- neither have much of an immediate "wow" factor. The only devices they seem to be somewhat hitting with "wow" is with their new laptops -- I do find it pretty hard not to be impressed by the latest MacBook, and look forward to getting my hands on one in a store to check it out. That, however, is a different market than their consumer electronics like the iPhone, and isn't going to drive the same sort of uptake as the iPod and iPhone did.

Yaz

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Anonymous Coward]

The most hilarious thing about watching Tim Cook give a keynote is when he tries so hard to emulate the Steve Jobs tone of voice. It just comes across as corny and fake; forced. At least Jobs came across as genuinely believing the BS he was peddling.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[fluffernutter]

You asked on a technically inclined board, you got a technically inclined answer. All I can say is, even my parents know where their files are and are able to copy them manually. I don't understand how people could not know how to copy a file.

Re:Gonna be like the ipod

[Yaztromo]

The USB player I had at the time that the iPod came out was way easier to use. The player I had you could plug into any computer and simply copy a file.

Which is fine if you want to listen to one song. But most people prefer to listen to multiple songs.

So you've been using your media player for a while, full of music, and you decide you want to change what you're listening to. You can't just sync in a new playlist like you can on the iPod -- you wind up having to manually delete the songs you don't want in there, make sure the directory structure is correct, and then move in all of the songs you want to add.

And hope that you only ever want to organize or select songs based on album, or perhaps artist. You don't easily have the option of selecting songs off your hard drive by genre, or perhaps by decade, unless you've pre-organized your music in this manner (in which case, adding songs by album or artist is probably going to be impossible, unless you've manually maintained some huge directory full of symbolic links to organize your music along multiple vectors simultaneously). Again, doing this is ridiculously simple on the iPod, but it's a chore on media players that just present themselves as a mass-storage device. You wind up doing all the things that a computer is good at handling by hand.

And that's fine if you like that. Some people like chores. I know some people who love sweeping their floors. I'll stick to my Roomba. There are tasks that machines are simply better at than humans are, and if you like to do those things yourself, more power to you. I'm not trying to put down your choice of device, but don't fool yourself into thinking that it's easier than plug-and-play synchronization (and if you had to "go through all kinds of options to sync" an iPod, you were doing it wrong).

Again, this is one big reason why the masses flocked to the iPod. For most people, dragging music around in a UI to load up their device is boring busywork that wastes their time. The iPod only ever asked them to plug it in, wait, and go.

Yaz

Buying in on day one

[Just Some Guy]

I am so, so ready to be done with Comcast. I'd pick this up in a heartbeat to get away from their ludicrously priced packaging (I don't want to rent a DVR just so I can watch baseball in HD!). Toss in the unbundled HBO subscription and this is close to my cord cutting dream.

Oh, and NBC? I'll be subsidizing this by dropping my Hulu Plus subscription. Don't for a second think that your programming is so valuable that I'll pay extra for it a la carte. This would be an excellent time to make nice with Apple and get over yourself.

Re:Buying in on day one

[Lumpy]

Sadly you will stick with Comcast because you have no other choice for broadband internet.

Re:Buying in on day one

[pkinetics]

Similar up here for me. I'll sooner pay the broadband monopoly over the nickel and diming charges that go for cable service.

You want HD service, you have to pay the higher DVR rental fee for it.

But what if I don't want DVR? Sucks to be you.

Can I have DVR without HD? No.

Can I have the HD package without all the other fluff packages? No.

Can I connect a personal recorder without the cable box? No.

F-U!

Re:Buying in on day one

[Lumpy]

"Can I connect a personal recorder without the cable box? No."

Yes. you need a cablecard ready recorder.

There is your reason

[surfdaddy]

People said that it was bad to let Comcast (a cable company) buy NBC. THIS story is exactly the reason why. No NBC because "Apple would be competing with Comcast"? FCC, DO SOMETHING about this obvious conflict of interest.

Re:There is your reason

[Anonymous Coward]

But then NBC could get in bed with the Republican-ruled Apple corporation which would be even worse. This is the better situation. NBC still has a lot of Microsoft influence left over which really stabilizes their news coverage. Without that, then you might be right that letting Apple rule NBC via binding contracts that leave them nearly out of business would be better, but it isn't. That's just how Republicans do.

Re: There is your reason

[Anonymous Coward]

How would you call apple republican ruled when Jobs and Cook are so left leaning that they are just left of Stalin?

Re:There is your reason

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow you think Tim Cook is a Republican? And I thought Steve Jobs reality distortion field was strong. Take out Mike Assad donating to himself, and the overwhelming number and dollar amout swings way left. Apple Affiliated Donations

Local weather / news also included?

[Anonymous Coward]

No advertisements, plus local weather and news, plus ability to stream anytime you want? Any of those missing? then no thanks...

Re:Local weather / news also included?

[Anonymous Coward]

ability to stream anytime you want?

And to any device I want.

If this is some locked in shit that only works with Apple's devices, then no thanks. Who wants to be limited to a single vendor like that?

Re:Local weather / news also included?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, I'm already being reamed by various "subscriptions", and so are most of you, in the US.
The _only_ way that I would pay Apple maybe $40 a month, is if all the commercials are stripped out from the content.
There are too many other ways to get content for free, and some are as simple as hanging a coat-hanger off of the chimney, and running some cheap RG-59 cable down.
And I wouldn't even need an Apple thingy to watch it.
Oh, I like Apple; I have since the II days. In fact, I'm huntinpeckin this out on a current MacBook Air.
But there is _no_ way that I will pay Apple _another_ ~$40 a month to watch commercials.

Bundle

[Anonymous Coward]

When, o Lord, when, will they finally understand.

I do not want a "bundle" of preselected crap.

I want to choose my own crap, ala carte. If I only want ONE piece of crap, then that's all I'm going to buy from you: ONE piece of crap. I want to be able to stream my crap anywhere, any time, to any crappy device (which by the way I probably bought at one of your crowded crappy crap stores in a crappy mall).

Oh, and since I am PAYING YOU to provide me with this service, I will not suffer through even one crappy advertisement while I watch my crap. NOT.EVEN.ONE.

I will gleefully ignore any/all crap services that do not perform to my exact specifications.

Re:Bundle

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for demonstrating the Nirvana Fallacy

Re:Bundle

[Anonymous Coward]

That would be interesting if GP was presenting a logical argument. Instead, GP was stating his or her position as a potential customer.

Re:Bundle

[jedidiah]

The only one committing a logical fallacy is YOU.

He is not comparing this new Apple nonsense to some unobtainable ideal. He's comparing it to what he can already use TODAY.

I guess that makes your argument a false strawman.

He can use a plethora of streaming options that already constitute "Nirvana". He could also use well established PVR technology.

The ads really are a showstopper. I think the last time I had to sit through cable ads was back before Steve Jobs returned to Apple.

Re:Bundle

[Anonymous Coward]

They're trying to sell people even stupider than you. By volume, there are millions. Those are the millions of triple play users they want. It's shitty, and life is shitty. Accept it, and live a life with less stress.

Re:Bundle

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want to say that the cable companies have said they weren't against selling channels a la carte but can't do so due to contract clauses. If the cable companies say no we don't want to package your channel in package x then the parent company will say something like you can't have abc, abc family, etc on your cable network.

Re:Bundle

[dj245]

When, o Lord, when, will they finally understand.

I do not want a "bundle" of preselected crap.

I want to choose my own crap, ala carte. If I only want ONE piece of crap, then that's all I'm going to buy from you: ONE piece of crap. I want to be able to stream my crap anywhere, any time, to any crappy device (which by the way I probably bought at one of your crowded crappy crap stores in a crappy mall).

Oh, and since I am PAYING YOU to provide me with this service, I will not suffer through even one crappy advertisement while I watch my crap. NOT.EVEN.ONE.

I will gleefully ignore any/all crap services that do not perform to my exact specifications.

It's pretty much like that now with most shows. You can buy each episode for 2 or $3. Whatever the % of shows that distribute this way, it is only going to increase as time goes on. This isn't an assault on that, just further options for people who prefer the certainty of a fixed budget (rather than a variably one) and think 25 channels is just the right amount of channels.

Re:Bundle

[aralin]

Actually, that is the problem. You can only get let's say ABC, TBS, HBO and FOX. And only some of the shows. If the show is from NBC it will be on Hulu and thats ads only or if the networks don't select the show from their catalog, well it is not there. They decide. Their content right? Well I don't like to be forced into a platform to watch my content. I don't like to be said, this show is only on Amazon Prime and that is not on Apple TV so you gotta go and get another gizmo to watch this. I'd like the networks to decided whether or not they make their content available and what is the price. Then let all the delivery services compete based on their various models. They can present the content to me and the price + whatever delivery fee they charge and let me decide if I pay it or not. Maybe I will like Comcast's Xfinity, maybe I will like Apple TV. Who knows? But I don't like the content to be tied to a particular delivery mechanism. That is something that should be illegal at the very least in case of monopolies like Comcast, etc.

Re:Bundle

[Anonymous Coward]

You are reading far more into the GPs statement (as you frequently do), then you go on to present blatant falsehoods. Ever wonder why no one takes you seriously?

Re:Bundle

[BadgerRush]

The success of Netflix contradicts you.

People (including myself) want their crap bundled, and their expensive premium stuff ala carte. Bundling cheap crapy stuff doesn't make it more expensive, instead it makes it cheaper, the problem is when content providers create bundles with the expensive stuff, then customers pay premiun for something they don't want.

Basicaly, bundling cheap things by cost is a good practice. What is bad for the consummers is bundling by theme while mixing the premium stuff with the crap, this way the customers can't "shop arround" for the cheapest content (E.G. a sports fan have to buy the expensive package with ESPN, there is no option to buy only a crappy sports channel).

Re:Bundle

[AmiMoJo]

It does seem odd that they would opt for a bundle rather than something like like Netflix, with individual shows available for streaming without ads. Aside from being a shitty deal it would put them in competition with cable and satellite providers, and probably get them into legal wrangles over rights. If people start using it like cable they will run into their broadband data caps.

Re:Bundle

[pkinetics]

My initial thought is the only way to support channels not considered high demand. Is there really enough demand to sustain MTV and whatever idiocracy they pass off as entertainment?

The other side of the coin would be a bundle like NBC and NBC Sports Network.

Roughly 25 channels for up to $40?

[aaron4801]

In a couple months, SlingTV will have around 20 channels for $20, then be able to add on from there with various options. Apple will get some subscribers just for being Apple, but if they don't have some exclusive content, they'll just drive awareness to the existing, cheaper competition in the IPTV market.

Re:Roughly 25 channels for up to $40?

[Overzeetop]

Sling won't work for anyone with more than one household user, though. Apple will probably allow simultaneous streaming to any device in the "family."

And it's apple. Paying extra is part of the chic.

It's about a Dick called Steve and

[Anonymous Coward]

portraits a manager being a major a$$hole in his company while being idolized by the outside masses.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious.
Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

So long netflix, amazon prime, and (LOL) google tv

[Anonymous Coward]

My body is ready.
Take me, Apple!

Wake me up when it's available outside the US.

[Yaztromo]

On the other hand, maybe that's a bad idea, as I may then have to sleep forever...

This is why, even though I do own a bunch of other Apple gear, I don't own an Apple TV. The Apple TV "channel" selection here in Canada is pretty pathetic. And while we do have a variety of online streaming services at our disposal (Netflix, Shomi, Cineplex Store, NFB, and probably a few more), none of them are available on the Apple TV, other than Netflix (indeed, many of them aren't available on ANY devices outside PCs (Windows/OS X, and sometimes Linux), or phones/tables (running iOS or Android)).

Honestly, the only thing the Apple TV potentially has going for it is Airplay support, which would allow me to use my iPad to stream stuff to the Apple TV, or to use as a secondary wireless display for my MacBook Pro. It's cheap enough I might buy one someday just for AirPlay, but otherwise the online services are sufficiently pathetic outside the US that it makes it hard to really get excited about.

Apple needs to spend more time in international markets like Canada in getting more content. Or they should just open up the device to 3rd party developers ala iOS, and permit "channel apps". All of the big networks in Canada already have iOS apps for streaming and watching shows online; porting these to the Apple TV should be trivial, and would open up a huge world of possibilities. I already have the HDMI interface cable for my iPad so my wife and I can watch content we may have missed, and so my wife can watch TV from her home country -- being able to do something like this directly on the Apple TV would be greatly welcomed (that, or have more such apps available on the PS4, which is already part of our entertaining system).

Yaz

Re:Wake me up when it's available outside the US.

[ArcadeMan]

In Canada, the only notable services we have are the iTunes Store (of course), Netflix, Crackle (if you like watching the same ads over and over even in the same breaks), Crunchyroll (if you like anime). There's also YouTube and Vimeo.

Re:Wake me up when it's available outside the US.

[Yaztromo]

In Canada, the only notable services we have are the iTunes Store (of course), Netflix, Crackle (if you like watching the same ads over and over even in the same breaks), Crunchyroll (if you like anime). There's also YouTube and Vimeo.

I think you might be selling Shomi and Cineplex Online a bit short. Both seem to be fine services -- what is really holding them back is a near total lack of device support, making it more difficult to integrate them into the living room (or in the case of Shomi,needing to be a Shaw or Rogers customer).

I recently cancelled my 90 day free Shomi trial. It's more geared towards TV binge watching it seems -- while it has movies, its selection is sparse, and in some cases duplicates what Netflix already provides. I'm not much into TV shows, however my wife may have watched it if it had actually been available on any of our smart entertainment devices. They technically support cable boxes from Shaw and Rogers, but that doesn't include much in the way of browsing; you have to use another device to find what you want to watch, flag it, and then find it on your cable box's "On Demand" section as a saved item. Perhaps even more stupid, the service just started three months ago, and the only other non-PC and non-phone/tablet device they support is the Xbox 360. Way to aim for last generation there, guys!

I've never even used Cineplex's offering, even though it looks like a pretty decent service overall. Again -- the device support just isn't there for set-top devices, although it seems to be better than Shomi. They also support the Xbox 360, the Roku 3, and some LG and Samsung smart TVs.

Then there is the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Nearly their entire collection is available to watch online (http://www.nfb.ca) -- over 2500 films. I was surprised to learn that they do have some device support (Roku, LG Smart TV, Samsung Smart TV, Panasonic, Google TV, Opera TV, Philips). No Playstation (or Sony TV/BluRay player) or Apple TV support, unfortunately.

The CBC would seem to be ripe for this sort of streaming service. Their iOS app already has a full compliment of all of their shows and original programming available to watch free on-demand, as does their website. They also have streams of all of their radio stations, again for free. I'm rather surprised that nobody has done the footwork to get their content on their devices (beyond PCs and iOS/Android mobile devices).

So I'd argue that the content is there -- it's the device support that sucks. It's all over the place. You might get two or three services with a Roku, but for others you'd need an Xbox 360. Apple Canada should be pursuing more of these sorts of connections. It's bad enough we don't get many of the US service like Hulu here, but it feels nearly criminal that we also don't even get was access to the existing Canadian services either. The services are there -- it's the lack of widespread device support that is hurting them.

Yaz

Re:Wake me up when it's available outside the US.

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Canada. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that Canada is a tech backwater that is a few years behind the US when it comes to this sort of stuff.

Re:Wake me up when it's available outside the US.

[ArcadeMan]

I think you might be selling Shomi and Cineplex Online a bit short. Both seem to be fine services -- what is really holding them back is a near total lack of device support, making it more difficult to integrate them into the living room (or in the case of Shomi,needing to be a Shaw or Rogers customer).

What's holding them back is that this is the first time I even hear about them at all. Probably due a total lack of device support, as you say. The fact that you need to be a Shaw/Rogers/Whatever customer is just plain stupid, it's like they don't understand how the Internet works at all.

So I'd argue that the content is there -- it's the device support that sucks. It's all over the place. You might get two or three services with a Roku, but for others you'd need an Xbox 360. Apple Canada should be pursuing more of these sorts of connections. It's bad enough we don't get many of the US service like Hulu here, but it feels nearly criminal that we also don't even get was access to the existing Canadian services either. The services are there -- it's the lack of widespread device support that is hurting them.

Exactly. I'd love to have a "CBC app" on my Apple TV, if only to watch Corner Gas again.

and apple will have to deal with the ISP's that

[Joe_Dragon]

and apple will have to deal with the ISP's that own the media / have there own TV system.

If stemming gets big then the caps will come down.

Very true

[SuperKendall]

I'm planning to get HBO. It's a little expensive but I like some shows they have now, and they have a good back-catalog.

The Apple package I'm pretty dubious about though, partly because it's anchored by broadcast networks I never watch, party because as you say - package.

I'm still hoping that when it comes out there's some non-bundle kind of deal for individual channels, even if more expensive... let networks sink or swim based on their own efforts, not riding on the coat-tails of the popular.

$40 is about $30 too much.

[darthsilun]

I dunno, I guess I'm the long pole. I hardly watch any OTA TV. I don't have cable TV, but I do have cable broadband.

Netflix streaming, a bit of Hulu, and bootlegging BBC iPlayer satisfy 99% of my viewing needs. I can get some of Comcast's streaming by virtue of my cable broadband.

Every time I visit my dad I flip through 300+ channels of crap and find nothing worth watching. Do people really pay $100s of dollars a month for this?

What's Apple going to bring to the table that all of the above doesn't give me? That's better than 300+ channels of crap? A superior viewing experience? Rounded corners on my 55" Sony XBR TV? Hookers and blow perhaps?

TV has jumped the shark. Now get off my lawn.

What a bargain

[msobkow]

I get my DSL (5Mbit) and IPTV (SaskTel MaxTV) for $62 a month. Spending $30-40 just for video streaming seems a rather high price to me -- especially as they've already said they're unlikely to be able to carry all the major US networks. (Of course my package is focused on the Canadian networks, but it also gets "the big 4" from the US.)

At $40/month, that would leave only $20/month to pay for a 10Mbit or better internet connection for streaming the video (my 5Mbit link is data only -- the *actual* link is 25Mbit, but 20Mbit is reserved for video.)

I can't believe the price gouging that goes on throughout most of North America.

Free bandwidth too?

[The_Dougster]

My ISP gives my entire family 200Gb per month. Streaming TV all the time would eat this up in a couple days. I'm not impressed.

This is like renting me a car, except I can't get any fuel to drive it with :(

They are striking while the iron is hot

[Anonymous Coward]

izombies are glued to their screens anyways, why not stream some easily torrented media, charge the double, and show commercials on top of it.

So they gonna remove the BS?

[Snotnose]

Hate when I watch a scify movie and a character sez "fuxor", and they not only silence the word but distort the mouth of the offending character.

Double that for shows like survivor, that distort asscracks and such.

For Fark's sake, if you're going to show it, show it, don't edit it. If you're going to edit it, don't show it. I'm not a kid, I'm an adult watching an adult show. Treat me like an adult, or I swear to god I'll cut the cable and y'all can wonder why pirate's bay gets better ratings that your OTA ratings.

Re:So they gonna remove the BS?

[vomitology]

...and when they look up at us and ask why, why did we pirate the shows, we'll look down at then and whisper:

torrent shows asscrack roffles

First work on a decent TV box

[iamacat]

Current one is 5 years old. No stick form factor, no 4K or 3D, no Siri, no Facetime, no HDMI-CEC, no apps/games, AirPlay drains mobile device battery life. To really generate excitement Apple would need to release something ahead of the times to makes us forget they churned out the same lame box for last 5 years.

Re:First work on a decent TV box

[Overzeetop]

That 5 year old box kicks the ass of every stick, and most pucks, for UI responsiveness and wifi/streaming stability. The content may be mostly medieval but the box performance as a content viewer, from the user's perspective, is excellent.

Note: I use the ATV we have for two things: ESPN and Plex, neither of which are actually Apple (ESPN requires I have a package from Comcast, the only local cable provider, and Plex requires I hijack the DNS and Trailers app). And yet both work better/smoother on my n year old ATV3 than the Roku, Chromecast, Samsung SmartTV embedded, and FireTV stick I own - all of which are newer than the ATV.

Re:First work on a decent TV box

[ArcadeMan]

No, the current one is only a few weeks old. They lowered the price during the keynote!

Re:First work on a decent TV box

[cosmosinfra]

wow it's great this you did. if you want to see my website : http://www.cosmosinfra.com/

Re:First work on a decent TV box

[iamacat]

Oh well, maybe its good for streaming video from a dozen sources preapproved by Apple. You Plex hack is out of reach of an average consumer and requires an always on machine as a server. Don't you want other things that came out since then? If you had to keep only one box, would you choose Apple TV?

Not a done deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though I think Apple is trying to work on a internet based TV service. I think the deals are very hard to negotiate. Those that think this will kill the cable industry don't realize that many people have internet access through their cable TV provider. If anything, what will eventually happen is that cable companies will find ways to move profits from TV service and into internet service of which many people don't have many good options to obtain internet services. Thus, I see much higher internet costs down the road and people cut the cable TV cord, but maintain the internet one.