Apple's Upcoming TV Service To Launch In Over 100 Countries In 2019, Starting With the US (macrumors.com) 42
A new report from The Information says that Apple's upcoming TV service that is in the works to showcase its original TV shows will be available in more than 100 countries next year. The service will launch in the United States in the first half of 2019, with a global expansion to follow later in the year. MacRumors reports: According to The Information, Apple's original content will be made available for free to Apple device owners, a rumor we heard earlier this month from CNBC. While Apple's content will be available at no cost, Apple will encourage users to sign up for television subscriptions from other cable networks such as HBO or STARZ. Apple has reportedly started negotiating with content providers about what it will pay to carry TV shows and movies, but programming is not expected to be the same in each country. It is also not quite clear how Apple content will be positioned alongside content from third-party services.
Another shell (Score:3, Insightful)
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$120/month vs $10/month?
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Traditional cable television services, such as Xfinity by Comcast, come with a selection of video on demand in addition to the linear channels.
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> a selection of video on demand
Which doesn't address:
> I can play them when I want to play them
If you think "a selection" is somehow addressing that statement, you need to go back to grade school.
For myself, it's its not on-demand, I don't watch it. I'm not alone.
Catch-up or binge watching? (Score:2)
I guess I need to understand your viewing model. Are you referring to catch-up, where subscribers can watch a half dozen episodes of each series that were most recently aired on a channel, or binge watching a whole season? I'll admit that VOD from the cable company leans toward catch-up more than binge, though last I checked, the catch-up selection on Xfinity On Demand was fairly extensive. Conventional wisdom is that Netflix and other over-the-top VOD services are better for binge.
Is there demand for, say,
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It's interesting that you want to drop cable, just to watch the same channels in a different way. Strange.
I don't think it is so strange.
The delivery of A/V content by a provider who has to install a physical media system (traditional cable) results in most communities selecting, at the community level, a single provider for that community. Everyone in the community is locked into that choice. Market forces are largely inoperative, and heavy regulation is needed (with accompanying corruption) to mediate pricing for content between the consumers and the provider. Battles over the content (puritans don't want
Yeah no (Score:2)
I'll take a chance and guess the free content won't last long, after the "introductory" period is over.
Should I run out and buy a used appleTV now, or will they even support this brave new initiative?
Netflix is spending $2 billion on new content. How much is Apple going to spend?
Other than that, it looks like Apple will just be taking a chunk of the money from 3rd parties like they do with everything else.
This should be good... (Score:1)
Will the shows have token heterosexual characters who are way over the top with their straightness?
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Will the shows have token heterosexual characters who are way over the top with their straightness?
Only the black and Hispanic characters. /s
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Does it realy matter, as long as the main plot pot is not "oh we ar gay/lesbian, whatwever" if the story is good what does the sexual orientation of the caracters matter? This is not an atempt at a troll/SJW
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if the story is good what does the sexual orientation of the caracters matter? This is not an atempt at a troll/SJW
Of course not. Just sounds like it though.
Apple becomes a TV network (Score:2)
Out of ideas about phones, Apple decides to become a TV network. Hey, doesn't this conflict with the strategy of selling phones for ever higher prices so there are fewer buyers?
Apple vs Netflix, I will bet on Netflix.
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Out of ideas about phones, Apple decides to become a TV network. Hey, doesn't this conflict with the strategy of selling phones for ever higher prices so there are fewer buyers?
Apple wins some, loses some. The Newton PDA wasn't so successful; the iPod Touch/iPhone as a PDA (among other things) has been a wild hit. Their personal computer business waxed and waned until they hit it big with the iMac and they became the personal computer of choice for "creative professionals." Their cooperative multi-tasking operating system was niche, their first attempt at pre-emptive multitasking (Copeland) was a disaster, but OS X has done quite well, putting a very usable and attractive graph
Netflix's missed opportunity (Score:2)
They should have allowed others such as HBO, etc. to sell premium packages on top of Netflix. They take a cut, and become the distribution platform, plus they compete with their own shows. They could have pulled it off, building a reliable streaming platform is not easy/cheap.
Streaming is fantastic, but having to deal with many apps and sites to get what you want is a usability nightmare, to the point tha
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I think Gabe Newell was right when he said piracy is a quality of service problem.
It certainly is, but at some point it becomes a monetary issue as well. I'm happy to pay to see Game of Thrones, the Expanse, House of Cards, and some of the other great original content out there, but I don't really want to shell out north of $100 a month in subscriptions to every streaming service, effectively paying multiple times for access to the generic stuff they all carry.
And sure, I also don't want to deal with all these damn apps, and I most certainly don't want to add another box. I've recen
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I think Netflix dropped the ball. They were the effective monopoly in terms of digital distribution. They should have allowed others such as HBO, etc. to sell premium packages on top of Netflix. They take a cut, and become the distribution platform, plus they compete with their own shows. They could have pulled it off, building a reliable streaming platform is not easy/cheap.
Neither is herding a bunch of cats who'd want their own pricing models, promotions, branding, recommendation and search algorithms etc. into one solution. That is, if they were at all willing to become a Netflix package even if they offered it. And who'd really like to be just "Netflix basic"? I bet they'd almost all hide behind some premium wall. I don't think you should underestimate how important the "if you got it you got it" business model has been for customer adoption. If it was a portal to be consta
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What will probably happen is the big ISPs (Verizon, Comcast, Time Warner, etc.) will shift from being the distributing platform of conventional cable TV to the distribution platform for streaming TV. The ISPs already have all the connections and experience with networks and they [literally and metaphorically] have a connection to the customers. The switch could be almost seamless.
no title (Score:2)
Oh joy, another cable channel.
There are almost more streaming sites than actual channels on my TV.
And it would cost like 10 times as much to get all of them.
Well maybe only a few times for the same amount of content.
Nope..... (Score:4, Insightful)
I am not paying multiple suppliers.
I don't subscribe to music services, Radio is free. I don't "rent" my music from iTunes, I buy CDs, everyone can go out of business, but my CDs will still play fine.
I also don't rent software.
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Fantastic. You did note that the service is free, right?
Divide device price by support period (Score:2)
A service that requires an Apple device is only free as long as your device remains supported. Then it costs the price of a new Apple device. For example, a new version of macOS drops support for Mac mini models older than about four to six years, causing people who bought a used Mac mini just for Xcode to have to buy a new Mac.
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I think I paid $160 for a gen4 Apple TV about 2 years ago. It's now worth about $80. That's $3.33 / month.
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A service that requires an Apple device is only free as long as your device remains supported.
I agree with your statement, but the costs seem to be low in this situation. Apple's costs for dedicated media devices are lower than general purpose computer systems. The original AppleTV shipped in March 2007; Apple dropped services to it in 2015. I have a gen2 AppleTV I bought in 2010; it cost around $80 (I bought a refurb model; I think the new models were $100 at the time). It is a multi-media streaming terminal that can access a variety of Internet-based content sources. It works and still has se
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Thanks BeauHD (Score:1)