Earlier this week, I posted a brief history of Apple TV from concept (iTV), to initial release (1.0) to the update announced last week at Macworld (2.0). Today, I’ll look at what Apple got right, got wrong and what lies ahead for Apple TV.
The full post is after the jump.
When I wrote in December that Apple TV was sorely adrift, I offered these as my primary reasons:
- No NBC shows and only select shows from other networks.
- No shows available the same night they air on network.
- No all-you-can eat subscription plan for shows.
- Only limited movie selection.
- No movies available on a pay-per-view basis.
- No shows or movies available in HD.
- No DVR.
- No DVD, Blu-Ray or DVD-HD.
- No direct purchase. (You have to buy from iTS and then sync.)
Apple fixed four of these problems (4, 5, 6 and 9), could still fix two more (1 and 2), and has not demonstrated a strategic interest in the other two (7 and 8).
I’ll just go down the list.
1. No NBC shows and only select shows from other networks. There have not been any NBC-produced shows in the iTunes Store since they all came down late last year, but the fact that NBC Universal was included among the studios that will provide titles for the movie rental store is very likely a sign that Apple and NBC Universal are back on good terms. NBC Universal honcho Jeff Zucker sounds more upbeat about Apple now than he did a few months ago, and Steve Jobs said he expects Apple and NBC to patch things up.
I suspect Apple and the networks are waiting until after the Writers’ Guild strike is over to make any significant changes in the TV show offerings in iTS — because (1) online distribution of TV shows is at the heart of the strike, (2) there’s little programming right now to promote, and (3) the beginning of the TV season is a better time for Apple to kick of a major TV push.
2. No shows available the same night they airs on network. Again, there were no significant TV announcements at Macworld. Same-day online viewing will probably not happen this year. It would signal a strategic shift by the networks, which still present shows first on TV and then re-purpose on Amazon.com, iTS, their own web sites, etc.
3. No all-you-can eat subscription plan for shows. With so many people DVR-ing shows and watching them a day or two later, the same-night window may not be such a deal breaker for people to accept watching TV shows over Apple TV. Cost ($1.99 per episode) is a much bigger obstacle; who’s going to watch much TV at $6 or $8 a night? That’s $120 to $160 a month for 20 nights of TV. Cable is expensive, but it’s not that expensive.
If Apple is going to position Apple TV as a cable killer, there will have to be some sort of subscription offering for TV shows — maybe an all-you-can-eat offering for a network package (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX and WB) and add-on packages for cable shows or networks. I would rather see Apple TV completely flatten the network/cable model and treat all the shows the same; the major networks may be on board with this since they produce a fair number of the cable shows anyway.
Again, this makes a lot of sense for Apple and the nets to announce this fall if the Writers’ Strike does kill or substantially delay the start of the TV season.
4. Only limited movie selection. This will be largely studio-driven, and I hope the studios see the importance of critical mass. Netflix has 90,000 DVD titles available; Apple will start with about 1,000 movies for rental. That’s not enough, obviously. The studios will want to know how pirate-proof iTS movie rentals are before committing their full catalogs. Critical mass for me will be when I can name 10 movies off the top of my head and at least seven are available for rental.
5. No movies available on a pay-per-view basis. Done.
6. No shows or movies available in HD. Done. I will, however, be anxious to see how much content Apple offers in HD. Also, since tight bandwidth could frustrate movie viewing with the same buffering frustration you get watch video clips online, I will be interested to see whether users have smooth HD experiences. (The early reviews won’t hit until after Apple updates the Apple TV software in late January.) Apple promises “if you choose a standard-definition movie, you can start watching it in seconds,” but doesn’t say how long the lag will be for HD movies. Five minutes? Ten? An hour?
7. No DVR. This is what the whiners want, but it’s probably never going to happen. Apple and the studios are selling video content; you’re not going to buy this week’s episode of “Lost” if you can record it for free. (You might watch it on ABC.com, but that’s on your computer and with commercials.) Plus, Apple will eventually position Apple TV as a Comcast killer, and you won’t need a DVR after you cancel your cable.
8. No DVD, Blu-Ray or DVD HD. Scratch DVD HD from the list. I could see this happening down the road, particularly since 20th Century Fox is encoding FairPlay (Apple DRM) copies on its movies that can be ripped to iTunes. Although aDVD sale is a lost iTS sale, Apple presumably makes a licensing fee on the FairPlay copy.
9. No direct purchase. Done. I hope Apple markets Apple TV as a stand-alone set-top box that doesn’t need to talk to a pesky computer. If you have WiFi, the instructions for Apple should be: plug in, turn on, and watch. Apple.com’s movie rental pages says: “With Apple TV, you don’t need a computer to rent digital movies — you rent them directly from your TV.”
As a practical matter you almost certainly have a computer if you have broadband internet access, but that does not mean you want to fool with you computer to watch a movie on your HDTV. That is more complicated than plug in, turn on, and watch. Also, this is a standalone device like the iPod and not a brand extension of another Apple product.
I don’t think Apple TV is quite there yet for my taste, but the updates for Apple TV 2.0, including the price reduction of the base model from $299 to $229, will put it in play for a lot of movie-oriented consumers. I am an actively interested fanboy consumer of these sorts of things but not necessarily an early adopter.
I could see Apple periodically announcing benchmarks for the number of movie rentals available and sold the way it has with music. I will most likely wait until iTS has a decent selection of 1940s, 1950s and foreign films before I buy an Apple TV — Apple TV and Netflix will likely be an either/or for me — and I suspect a Long Tail of catalog titles will develop over the coming months.
1. I’d be more upbeat about NBC after their comments and they have a good cross section of broadcast TV.
2. Not really an issue. People are getting use to watching TV on their own time already because of DVR’s.
3. Not entirely true. You may watch 3 hours of shows every night but not 3 hours of new programing and the iTunes model of owning your shows means you can be responsible for your own re-runs (which is actually really cool with smart playlists). For me, there were 25 new full seasons of at 24 episodes each or about 600 shows. Now at $2 each that would be $1200 for a year of programing worst case. Season passes can knock about $200 off that price for me and I can purchase $50 gift cards for $45 at my big box store. so now we are talking about $900. I have direcTV, with a DVR and HD and I pay about $70/month or $840/year.
So, sure! re-runs will be light the first couple years, but eventually it will get very good. AND NO COMERCIALS!!!!!
4. Got to start somewhere and it looks like the flood is coming.
7. Well, if you really do purchase everything…It is a DVR and this becomes a moot point.
8 Blue-Ray is about movie rentals and we have HD video rentals. Sure, Blue-Ray is capable of higher resolutions but not really noticeable for most people. So this is moot as well.
That is how I see it!
My brother in law would really appreciate this post. We were not too long ago speaking about this. lol
Thank you for this good post. I really love this tv show. Can’t wait for the another season ! Keep up the good work with that