Samsung Smart TVs Will Support Apple AirPlay 2 and iTunes Videos in Spring 2019 (venturebeat.com)

If the late 2018 deal that brought Apple Music to Amazon Echo speakers wasn't surprising enough, Samsung today announced a similar partnership with Apple for 2018 and 2019 Samsung Smart TVs: support for iTunes movies, iTunes TV shows, and AirPlay 2 will be coming in spring 2019. From a report: The deal is all but unprecedented for Apple, which has historically restricted playback of iTunes videos solely to its own devices, including Apple TVs, iPods, iPhones, iPads, and Macs, with no support for competing media players such as Roku, or various smart TV platforms. That said, PCs running iTunes have been able to play iTunes videos, and the company has allowed third-parties to license both AirPlay and AirPlay 2 for years. According to Samsung, a firmware update to 2018 Smart TVs will add a new iTunes Movies and TV Shows app in more than 100 countries. AirPlay 2 will become available on Samsung Smart TVs in 190 countries around the world. There are lots of unanswered questions about this iTunes deal. The Verge: Is Apple going to allow Samsung's smart TV tracking to snoop on iTunes viewers? Smart TVs are notorious for tracking what people watch, but Apple's entire brand is privacy. What usage data will Samsung see from the iTunes app?

Samsung smart TVs run Tizen, Samsung's wacky custom operating system. Is Apple building a Tizen iTunes app? Is there a Tizen team inside Apple? Or is Samsung building this app? Who will be in charge of updating it and fixing bugs? Smart TV apps are not known for being updated well or very often.

Comments

Forget about the details

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing I want to know is what guarantee both Samsung and Apple give me that this will keep working for the lifetime of the TV, lets say 10 years? Also considering future altercations between them, that may, or may not, end up in court.

Re:Forget about the details

[pslytely psycho]

It's Apple and Samsung. I can easily see them bricking devices via updates due to a court ruling not in their favor in a fit of spite.

Re: Forget about the details

[jrumney]

Airplay is DRM over Wi-Fi.

Tizen

[markdavis]

>"Samsung smart TVs run Tizen, Samsung's wacky custom operating system."

Um, it isn't "wacky" nor really "custom". It is a Linux distro developed by the Linux Foundation. You know, one of the most important supporting organizations for one of the most important and widely used operating systems in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Tizen can also run Android apps (with a compatibility layer). It is true that Samsung is the only one who is making LOTS of use of it right now. And since Apple already supports Android for iTunes, it shouldn't be a huge feat to make it run in Tizen.

https://support.apple.com/en-u...

Not that I am a fan of iTunes, but I can see where having such support would benefit both Samsung and Apple.

I wonder

[93 Escort Wagon]

This reminds me of the situation with Apple’s Time Machine network backups - they allowed third-party support, then eventually killed off the Airport line of routers (which had Time Machine support baked in).

If Apple is loosening the reins on its AirPlay streaming, it makes me wonder if they’re planning to kill off the Apple TV soon.

Re:I wonder

[tlhIngan]

This reminds me of the situation with Appleâ(TM)s Time Machine network backups - they allowed third-party support, then eventually killed off the Airport line of routers (which had Time Machine support baked in).

If Apple is loosening the reins on its AirPlay streaming, it makes me wonder if theyâ(TM)re planning to kill off the Apple TV soon.

They allowed third-party support for ages - most NAS devices for years have support for Time Machine and this was not a new thing. Apple only cancelled their Airports because the home router space is becoming much too crowded - why spend $200 on an Apple when a Netgear supporting the latest and greatest can be had for $150?

It's why Apple existed the monitor business as well - plenty of companies making really decent monitors for half of what an Apple monitor costs basically means there's no justification to buy an Apple monitor, and the fact that monitors are pretty much commodities now means Apple can't really innovate or improve in the area. An Apple 30" monitor was great back in the day when everyone was stuck with 15" and 17" monitors, but with 24" 1080p monitors becoming ultra common and 28" 4K monitors are practically everywhere, there's no room for Apple to compete.

For the AppleTV, AirPlay was something Apple licensed ages ago - practically all networked AV receivers support it today, and many new ones support the latest AirPlay2 protocol.

But more importantly, the AppleTV is working in a space that is under-developed. As long as Apple feels they can bring innovation into it, the AppleTV will be around. And given the primary competition is Roku, there's still plenty they can do.

Re:I wonder

[thegarbz]

If Apple is loosening the reins on its AirPlay streaming, it makes me wonder if they’re planning to kill off the Apple TV soon.

Personally I hope they kill iTunes.

Re:I wonder

[jabuzz]

AppleTV is working in a space that is under-developed. You need to get out more. There is Roku, FireTV, random boxes running Kodi, Chromecast and oh all those smart TV's that have the likes of Netflix, Prime Video and other streaming/catchup services baked into the TV.

On the other hand Apple exited the home WiFi just as whole home mesh networking with roaming between access points took off.

Amazing...

[Anonymous Coward]

It looks like apple has finally cracked TV!
By rolling over and giving up.

Why not?

[gnasher719]

Apple doesn't build TVs. So they are not going to lose customers to Samsung with this. On the other hand, it improves the value of MacOS and iOS and their usefulness for Apple's customers. I can't see any reason why Apple wouldn't do this.

Re:Why not?

[SeaFox]

Apple doesn't build TVs. So they are not going to lose customers to Samsung with this.

You mean, except those people who were buying an Apple TV to use with their Samsung TV, and now now longer have a convincing reason to buy the expensive Apple streaming device?

Re:Why not?

[MikeDataLink]

You mean, except those people who were buying an Apple TV to use with their Samsung TV, and now now longer have a convincing reason to buy the expensive Apple streaming device?

Nope. That Same-sung TV my have access to iTunes, but it won't run the boat loads of other apps the Apple TV does. Apple will increase iTunes marketshare without affecting the Apple TV sales, because the target audience would have never purchased one in the first place.

Re:Why not?

[thegarbz]

Apple doesn't build TVs.

No, they build very expensive gadgets that plug into TVs and offer this functionality. They will lose customers to Samsung with this.

Why bother?

[Excelcia]

Why bother with any of this? Samsung smart TVs actually work really well as dumb TVs too. Don't give it network access, and it's a great dumb TV that will work very well with anything I hook up to it.

I very much prefer any "smart" device that I own to be under my control, not be a black-box listening device in my home, thank-you.

Re: Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually In the 43" size TCL uses better panels than Samsung and are 15% cheaper.
Samsung's panels aren't really capable of reproducing 10bit color, and the color curves are weird. There is quite a lot of artefacting on Samsung TVs

Re:Why bother?

[gnasher719]

Is it indeed listening?

AirPlay 2 is just a technology that lets you stream video and music from Apple devices to any receiver implementing it, with provisions that allow sound to be synchronised precisely between two devices, and a stereo signal being properly mixed by two devices.

The most well-known AirPlay 2 receiver is Apple's HomePod which _can_ listen (but will only listen when you speak the magic words "Hey Siri" and even then will filter out automatically everything from others present), but that's absolutely no requirement.

Re:Why bother?

[ChatHuant]

Is it [Samsung smart TV] indeed listening?

Indeed it is (and it doesn't even need AirPlay for this). I posted this before, but here's how you can disable some spyware - until they change this in the next mandatory update (for your own good, of course).

Note that even the most restrictive settings won't disable all snooping - if your TV is connected to the Internet it will report on you.

Not the older smart TVs models?

[antdude]

Since they have apps too. :(

Re:Traitor Drumpf must hang.

[jamesborr]

Is this really on topic?

Re:Traitor Drumpf must hang.

[pslytely psycho]

No, that idiot posts the same shit on every article. Just the recent incarnation of shit posters. At least it's short and doesn't reply to itself over ten or so posts like APK or super-long drivel like the GNAA or ASCII swastika posts.
Trolling used to be an art. Now it's just 'how big of a dick can I be to everyone else.'

next they'll allow pc's

[sad_]

next step is allowing pc's to run macos, since apple is no longer interested in timely releasing new workstations and they are basically just pc's anyway.
their main selling items are portable devices (phones & tablets) and they want to kill off the personal computer.

Or Apple could...

[imcdona]

I dunno... add industry standard Miracast support to the iPhone.