Apple Buys Older Shows for TV+, Stepping Up Netflix Challenge (bloomberg.com) 37
Apple is acquiring older movies and shows for its TV+ streaming service, aiming to build a back catalog of content that can better stack up against the huge libraries available on Netflix, Hulu and Disney+. From a report: The company's video-programming executives have taken pitches from Hollywood studios about licensing older content for TV+ and have bought some shows and movies, according to people familiar with the matter. The move represents a subtle strategy shift for Apple TV+, which launched in November with a lineup of original programs. The company plans to keep TV+ focused on original shows, and hasn't yet acquired any huge franchises or blockbusters for its back catalog, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the deliberations are private.
Courage (Score:3)
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It was horrible mindless filler. Please do not torture more kids with it.
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What we have done is AMAZING (Score:1)
"What we have done" is create a world where I can pay nothing for YouTube, or around $10-$14 a month for any one fo those options, watch it until I've mined all good from it, then cancel and move on to another bundle of video delights....
What we have done is create a world where I can have essentially unlimited entertainment for an order of magnitude less than the original cable cost for a handful of options I would actually want to see in a wildly expensive cable bundle.
The list you have here is exactly w
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Which is good when you just want to watch something but not nearly as smart when you want to watch something specific that all your friends are talking about.
Semi-obligatory XKCD: https://xkcd.com/606/ [xkcd.com]
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Just wait till these companies start buying each other up.
Oh, who am I kidding? Until Disney starts buying all these companies up.
There's price competition now. In 10 years, we'll be back to a choice between Disney and Apple. And they'll have negotiated a gentleman's agreement between them to make their contract terms and prices the same.
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There is a slight advantage with streaming which is that unlike linear TV you don't need to be subscribed when something is broadcast. You can do a different one each month and the entire back catalogue is available.
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Do people pay for multiple streaming services? If so, why? I cut TV out in 2008 and used Netflix until last year when we got Disney+ instead. People should continue moving away from TV and into other options; otherwise, they win.
Note: I don't consider Amazon a streaming TV service fee and use it, especially now, for almost all of my shopping as well as music streaming.
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I fail to see the problem here. I'm now capable of picking which selection of shows interest me and paying specifically for the "channels" offering those shows, which is exactly what we've been clamoring for all along. Or, if there are multiple services I'd like to use, I can switch between them on a whim thanks to the fact that I'm no longer locked into multi-year contracts. No one is holding a gun to your head, saying that you need to subscribe to every service, nor would most people even want to.
For the
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With those streaming services, I'm not being charged a monthly fee by cable companies for sports channels or ESPN [slashdot.org] when there are no new sporting events.
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People always say this but I'm only subscribed to two streaming services and I already don't have time to watch them. The cost is far less than cable TV's cheapest package which was basically nothing but ads and reality TV played on a schedule I couldn't be bothered to keep anyway.
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Consumers aren't to blame.
Corporate Greed is. No one is subscribing to all these. The more likely result is users binge-watch, cancel, move to next service, lather, rinse, repeat
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You are assuming that people keep all services active at all times.
If you are smart, you activate a service, watch what you want, and then turn it off.
I keep Netflix, Hulu and Amazon (Amazon is included with my cell phone plan, so I don't even pay for it) on all the time. That is 13.59 for Hulu, and 14.11 for Netflix.
I turn on CBS once Picard, or Discovery, or whatever new Star Trek is done for the season -- so I can stream it all. I turn on Disney+ and do the same. HBO for Westworld, Avenue 5, etc. And the
This Could Help (Score:2)
I received a year subscription of TV+ when I bought a MacBook Pro last year. Compared to Netflix, TV+'s interface is weird to navigate and more difficult than it should be to find what you want to watch. The tie-ins with Hulu and other services don't help either, in my opinion.
Regarding the programming, I've only watched three shows on TV+ so far; See, Servant, and The Morning Show. I liked See well enough. I thought Servant was a stupid, pointless, meandering mess. The Morning Show was good, but the drama
Apple TV+ needs UI help real bad (Score:2)
TV+'s interface is weird to navigate and more difficult than it should be to find what you want to watch. The tie-ins with Hulu and other services don't help either, in my opinion.
That's the thing, I think here you have conflated TV.app with TV+. iOS has links for any video content app where the TV app can get data about recently watched shows, or trigger something to be viewed in some other app... while TV+ is just Apple's own video service.
I watch all my video pretty much on an AppleTV, and I literally c
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Apple TV+ is just a channel within Apple's TV app. So if you're using an Apple TV you need to select the TV app and then find - somewhere - the list of channels and select Apple TV+ there.
I believe that lists all the Apple TV+ content. I believe but am not sure, because the navigation in the TV app is freaking terrible. I legitimately am unsure if the very small amount of content shown is because there just isn't a lot on Apple TV+ or if it's being filtered based on who knows what. And if it is being filter
Weird.... (Score:3)
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Their navigation is more than weird. It is terrible.
- Apple mixes in their stuff with potentially linked account stuff. Even if you have no linked accounts. (Suggestion: Only show linked account contents I have linked to unclutter)
- Eventually you can find the button that filters down to just the Apple TV+ stuff, even then navigation is difficult.
- There is no direct way to see all the episodes available, you have to scroll through all their "new" content to see if an episode has been added. (Suggestion:
Is TV+ Apple's version of Zune? (Score:2)
I got this Apple TV+ for free for a year even after having tried, I didn't find a single worthwhile movie or series to watch. True, I'm not the biggest TV-consumer, but on Netflix and HBO I found sometimes stuff I enjoyed. I even found movies in the inflight-entertainment systems of most airlines. But Apple TV+ seems to be a total wasteland. Or they manage to hide the better stuff successfully by their user interface.
Is TV+ Apple's version of Zune?
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I got this Apple TV+ for free for a year even after having tried, I didn't find a single worthwhile movie or series to watch. True, I'm not the biggest TV-consumer, but on Netflix and HBO I found sometimes stuff I enjoyed. I even found movies in the inflight-entertainment systems of most airlines. But Apple TV+ seems to be a total wasteland. Or they manage to hide the better stuff successfully by their user interface.
Is TV+ Apple's version of Zune?
They wish it’s as successful as Zune. Apple TV+ is the about was successful as the Apple Ping social network.
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They wish it’s as successful as Zune. Apple TV+ is about as successful as Apple's iPod socks.
FTFY
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At least the iPod socks were available in different colours.
I mean seriously, socks for iPod? We need to talk about this. Why was that ever a thing? It means someone had this stupid idea, it got approved by the boss of whatever department, then approved by the CEO and made into an actual product and nobody complained loudly enough, or not enough people complained that it was a stupid idea and it was actually made and sold.
Think different indeed. What's next? iPhone winter coats?
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One important difference between AppleTV+ and Zune is that AppleTV+ is supported on a larger variety of devices than Zune's services were. Apple TV is available on Apple's own devices, but also on Samsung/LG/Sony/Vizio smart TVs, as well as Roku/Amazon Fire, and on most other devices (including Android phones) via a web browser.
So, they've got a pretty wide variety of devices that people might want to watch TV shows on. Now the only problem is that they don't have enough content.
Even for free, I never watch apple TV+ (Score:2)
I got Apple TV+ free for a year with a new IPhone. I never watch it. Same for my kids.
Is there any content worth watching?
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B-but... how about See! A fantastic sci-fi series where everyone in the future is blind due to a catastrophe and rivaling groups of survivors have gang fights on cliff sides where nobody goes over the edge! These survivors have post-apocalyptic archers (coz that's retro-tech and all) Blind archers with such awesome hearing that they can fire at the cliffside fighters and only hit the enemy!
That's quality+!
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When they showed the trailer for that, I knew Apple TV+ had already jumped the shark before it even launched.
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For All Mankind is excellent ... its really good SciFi/Alternate History stuff. The showrunner is Ron Moore who did the Battlestar Galactica reboot and also currently does Outlander.
The Morning Show was good ... the story kept my wife and I intrigued right up through the end of season 1. Season 2 should be very interesting to see where things go.
There was a pretty significant gap between the launch shows and the next wave and I think that hurt them ... I was in there every week watching the two shows abov
The best solution (Score:2)
Is to sign up for a free trial, watch all their original content in a week or two, and cancel before you had to pay. The same goes for Disney+
Hulu seems to be a bit more problematic when they're adding content all the time.
If I wanted to watch old tv shows and movies, I can't imagine there is much left for Apple that hasn't been picked over as exclusive content by all the other streaming services.
Balkanization (Score:1)
Rotating subscriptions (Score:2)
It is easy to lose sight of the subscriptions we do. I remember I realized I had too many, and decided to "rotate" them. Currently I have Disney+ and Sling. Later I might get a Netflix sub for a month to catch up. Occasionally they would do a free trial do over to lure back, which they don't offer too existing ongoing subscribers.
Overall my habits have changed. Instead of being an active subscriber to many major services, I enable them on a rotating basis. Once I have caught up with a service, there is no n
Everyone I know has it (Score:3)
Er... s/Apple TV/COVID-19/g
Sorry about that.
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I have an Apple TV (Score:2)
I have 3 Apple TVs. I have a free 1 year subscription to AppleTV+. My LG TV has Netflix and Stan [stan.com.au] already loaded. It also has Apple TV+ loaded.
Some time around 2011, Steve Jobs was reported as saying