Apple TV

 Apple TV is a TV connected box and, optionally, a subscription service called Apple TV+.

Apple TV has a history. If you trace it back far enough you get to Steve Jobs seeing the potential of Pixar animation studio. Apple got a direct connection to the world of Hollywood. iTunes became the software that connected the Mac to the iPod. It was also the place to download music, movies and TV. Eventually Apple made a box that connected to your TV and launched Apple TV+.

Today you can buy or rent TV programmes and movies. You can display content on your TV via an Apple TV box or an app on your smart TV. If that isn't enough Apple goodness you can subscribe to their TV+ service at £4.99 per month or through the Apple One subscription. Apple One being their subscription bundle.

A good number of people are paying nothing for this right now. Between free offers and trials you can try it all out for nothing. After buying an iPhone in 2020 I got a year free. A few days ago my LG TV gave me three months more for free. I suspect the aggressive use of free subs is allowing millions of people watch for free,

This will all settle down at some point but there is a reason for the service being "free" for so many. It's because it is different from other streaming services. Many people subscribed to Netflix because it had everything. Netflix was able to do this because it bought the rights to content at a good price. TV and movie studios didn't see value in streaming and saw Netflix as a opportunity to make money out of old content that they had made profit on already. Whether it be old episodes of Star Trek or comedy from the 1990s.

Later on this changed. Viewers started moving to on-demand models and content owners such as Disney, Paramount, and so on created their own streaming services. They had long running franchises of popular movies and TV they could show and attract subscribers. They moved from Netflix and opened their own storefront.

Amazon has recently purchased MGM for this reason.

Apple is on a slow burn route. It's Apple TV+ subscription model is relying on it's own original content. You can still rent or buy movies and TV from other producers. You keep them in a digital library and play them as needed. Subscribers will get Apple Originals. Content Apple create or specifically commission.

Apple are being quite ambitious. They have deep pockets to pay for this. Over time having original content that is exclusive can be an attractive proposition as long as it's what people want to watch.

Connected to all of this is Apple's service strategy. Apple wants to build it's ecosystem so you think first of Apple Music, Apple TV or maybe Apple Fitness.

The problem I have is that Apple is a clean living worthy service. It commissions things that no one will be offended by. Often drama, comedy and even science fiction is good because it's challenging. Other streaming services seem to delight in some things that part of the audience will hate, while another part of the audience will love. My observation is that the content of Apple TV+, so far, is bland but of high quality.

Keep your eyes out for free offers. There are plenty around. If you have an Apple product there is probably an offer on there right now.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Powershell Symlink to Onedrive

Image
I have more than one PC. To be precise, and overly pedantic, 3 Windows 10 laptops. All are slightly different and of various ages. One I use with a Windows 10 Insider Build to keep up with the next thing coming down the pipeline. On each, I do a bit of Powershell . Powershell is the latest generation of Windows command line tools. The Linux enthusiast would look down on the Windows command line of whatever generation but Microsoft has always provided command line tools. In the early days MSDOS was a command line OS. It did little but create directories (folders), copy, move or delete files. It ran “command.com” which some said was just a basic file system manager and way of loading programs into memory. It wasn’t difficult to disagree. Developers brought out alternatives to this such as 4DOS , literally “for dos”, by JP Software . They also produced 4NT, which enhance the Windows NT command processor and 4OS2. The latter was for the IBM OS2 Operating System of the late 80s and ea
Read more

Being progressive rather than universal

Image
Microsoft was not short of ambition for its tiled interface and One Windows strategy . Microsoft was doing what no other tech firm had done - uniting mobile to desktop/laptop PCs in one experience. Apple had two OSs available - IOS for phone/tablet and OSX for its desktop/laptop users. They were different and had different interfaces. Google had two OSs - Android for phone/tablet and ChromeOS for its Chromebook devices. Of course, even One Windows doesn't mean exactly the same OS but it does mean components have such similarity that the interface appears the same to users and, with little modification, apps can run on all platforms. Unfortunately, the app platform UWP (Universal Windows Platform) was hobbled from day one. Microsoft had a poor quality application store, ever-changing developer tools and standards and a Store that only worked (on the PC side) for Windows 8 and latterly Windows 10. While people used legacy versions of Windows such as Windows 7 and XP t
Read more

Identity as the new security boundary

 Not so long ago a PC was safe behind a firewall. The idea was that the physical infrastructure of a network would be enough. Anti-virus and anti-malware products sat on PCs to protect users. Then hybrid working came along. Digital nomads who could connect to networks from anywhere. New startups had users connecting to web based applications. People were bringing their own devices, tablets, phones, projectors and so on into the workplace. Security has now started looking at people. Microsoft call this zero-trust. You don’t just trust someone because they can login. You have systems that secure identity itself. There are three steps to identity security.  1.The credentials that give you authorisation. For most people this is an account identity and password. Often the identity is an email address or some public identity. This leaves the account secured by password. The strength and complexity of the password protecting authentication. 2. Authorization is the next step. What you can a
Read more