Apple (TV) Event today - 3/25/19

FastEddieB

FastEddieB

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Fast Eddie B
Apple will supposedly be announcing some sort of streaming TV service today at 10A Pacific/1P Eastern. Various ways to stream it if one is so inclined.

The details are unknown, but Apple has apparently lined up various content providers to allow Apple to offer a streaming service that aggregates various other providers for “one stop shopping”.

For those not in the Apple ecosystem, Apple has already taken steps to serve as an aggregator or gateway to online content, via its AppleTV and TV apps on the iPhone and iPad. Karen and I can sit down, launch the TV app on the Apple TV or one of our iPads, and immediately see the next episode of This Is Us, Star Trek Discovery, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Orville, The Good Fight or whatever shows we’re currently watching. We can click on them and be taken right to the show, with little or no thought as to whether we’re watching via Hulu, Amazon Prime, CBS All Access or Netflix. Yay! But the Balkanization occurs when subscribing to, and paying separately for each service, and maybe missing out on HBO and Showtime content we’re not ready to pay extra for. Boo!

Anyway, this was a dream of Steve Jobs. Of course, the devil is in the details, but I’m really curious as to what Tim Apple has come up with! ;)
 
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It is interesting to see what happens. I am waiting to see what they do for my Samsung TV.
 
We will see.

The real thing that's making streaming services suck right now is all the arguing between companies. To see all the shows you want you end up having to sign up for 3-4 streaming services. Then different devices won't support certain streaming services so you're swapping around devices based on what you want to watch. Some of the apps are just trash. Then of course I have to search 3-4 services to find out nobody is carrying that one show I'm interested in....

Some of this stuff is awesome, when you can issue a voice command and have your TV turn on and play the thing you want to see it's great. However because of fighting between the different app/device/service providers those slick features only work in certain circumstances. If Apple can actually solve those problems they might have something. Otherwise I'm not sure quite what they'll be bringing to the table.
 
It's interesting how the same old stuff comes around eventually. We had aggregators for decades in the form of Comcast, Dish, DirecTV, etc, which people loved to hate until broadband got to the point people could "cut the cord" and subscribe a la carte to separate services. I never did that because I never wanted to fool with multiple subscription services. I'd rather avoid the headache and just pay one provider (Comcast) to bring me my content.

Now, it looks like the pendulum is swinging back toward content aggregators again, the newest of which might be Apple.

I'm wondering if the whole "cutting the cord" thing was more trouble than it was worth? I would have liked to see Star Trek Discovery, but it was the only thing on CBS I would have watched (I don't watch that much TV) and it wasn't worth the headache to me to sign up for YAMSS (Yet Another Monthly Subscription Service) and have yet another account, password, credit card charge, etc, to worry with.
 
Agreed. I think the only show we’d like to catch up on is “Billions”, a Showtime exclusive. There’s some HBO content we wouldn’t mind having access to, largely documentaries.

But as I’ve said elsewhere, there’s virtually never a time when we don’t have something to watch. In fact, just choosing what to watch next is our biggest problem. And that’s a great problem to have!
 
I'll be curious but not hopeful. Like everything else Apple does, I expect it will be good but too limited and more expensive than any of the competition.
 
I wonder what real benefit this will have over other existing services. I have apple TV in my car and that's the extent of my apple situation. Maybe I can shop while I'm driving now but what else will i be able to do ?
 
cowman said:
The real thing that's making streaming services suck right now is all the arguing between companies. To see all the shows you want you end up having to sign up for 3-4 streaming services. Then different devices won't support certain streaming services so you're swapping around devices based on what you want to watch.
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Yeah, the fragmentation is really a bummer. By the time I pay for all the services to cover all the channels/sports/shows I'd like to see, I'm pretty much right back at the price to have a full-on cable subscription to begin with. And since I still need the cable company to provide me with internet, it's not a huge PITA to have the TV provided by the cable company either. I've cut the cord years ago, but to this day it's still a compromise - even worse really, since subscription prices have gone up and there's more fragmentation now than ever before.

I'd love to see Apple (or anyone!) fix this, but I'm not holding my breath.
 
I honestly wish I could a la carte every network/channel and I'd be happy. I get the local news free OTA, so that's no biggie, but I don't watch 90% of the channels or content offered by Amazon or SlingTV. The nice think about most subscription-based streaming services is that they don't care if you start/stop service every other month. Whereas the big cable/satellite providers want 2-yr contracts and all sorts of setup/installation fees every time. Get me a streaming service (Apple or otherwise) that can let me choose which dozen or so networks I want to pay for and put it all in an easy app and I'd sign up.
 
I had it on the background while I was working on other stuff so I might have missed something but it looks like the big announcement was they have an apple credit card now. I guess they're going to have a streaming service but from what little I saw it looks like just another streaming service, nothing really new or exciting.
 
SoonerAviator said:
I honestly wish I could a la carte every network/channel and I'd be happy.
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Likewise. We upgraded to Fiber Optic for internet and TV about 2 or 3 years ago and like everything, the prices have gone through the roof. When asked if we could a la carte a few channels, they said that wasn’t offered. Truthfully, there’s only a few channels that I care to watch, and ironically enough, those channels are only found in the top tier packages—go figure!

We looked into streaming services like Hulu and Amazon, but didn’t like the idea of not being able to watch everything live.
 
Ryanb said:
Likewise. We upgraded to Fiber Optic for internet and TV about 2 or 3 years ago and like everything, the prices have gone through the roof. When asked if we could a la carte a few channels, they said that wasn’t offered. Truthfully, there’s only a few channels that I care to watch, and ironically enough, those channels are only found in the top tier packages—go figure!

We looked into streaming services like Hulu and Amazon, but didn’t like the idea of not being able to watch everything live.
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Hulu with Live TV will let you stream everything live (except AMC, which was the deal breaker for us). DirecTV Now was a good option, but they just screwed themselves by deciding to increase prices 25-50% for less content. Sling TV seems like a good deal, but no local channels, so you'll need an antenna for those. I have a SiliconDust HD Homerun, so we'll be using that for CBS/ABC/NBC live, and probably switch to Sling for the rest. We're using DirecTV Now right now, but their quality has gone straight down the toilet over the past couple of weeks (started right after they announced they were jacking our price up 25%), and keeps getting worse. I'm dumping them.

The nice thing is, unlike cable or satellite providers -- switching is quick and easy.
 
Wow! Quite the production.

A lot to process. AppleNews+ for $9.95/month includes 300 magazines - including Flying.

A game subscription service. No price given.

An Apple credit card through Goldman Sachs and MasterCard.

Things got fuzzy for us at the TV end. Expanded TV app to include other subscriptions, such as Showtime, HBO and cable offerings. And a TV+ subscription - with no price given - to include lots of original content from Steven Spielberg (Amazing Stories), JJ Abrams, Ron Howard, among others and - ta daa! - Oprah!

Anyway, quite impressive, and it will take a while to take it all in. Regardless, should be a money maker for Apple.
 
DaleB said:
Hulu with Live TV will let you stream everything live
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Hmm. Will have to check into that. I was under the impression that live TV couldn’t be streamed through it.
 
Ryanb said:
Truthfully, there’s only a few channels that I care to watch, and ironically enough, those channels are only found in the top tier packages—go figure!
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I was an early adopter and cut the cord back in the 90s. This is the main reason I did it. I was tired of paying for all the religious/shopping/etc. channels that I never wanted to watch. Of course, they didn't have streaming services back then, so I was stuck with Blockbuster for a while.
 
DaleB said:
We're using DirecTV Now right now, but their quality has gone straight down the toilet over the past couple of weeks (started right after they announced they were jacking our price up 25%), and keeps getting worse. I'm dumping them.
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What quality problems have you had? When we signed up last summer the audio quality was awful as was non-live content, but since both of those are quite good. We are considering dropping them for another reason (besides the cost increase): the DVR cannot be relied on to record anything. Customer support tells you to reinstall the app for whatever device you are using. They get very quiet when you ask them how the end user app can effect a cloud-based DVR and even if that was the case, do they expect me to reinstall my laptop web browser that I also use to access DTVNow?

A working DVR is key for us since we never can watch anything live.
 
FastEddieB said:
We “cut the cord”, getting rid of DishNetwork, 3 or 4 years ago and in spite of a few hiccups, have no regrets.
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For me it's an economic issue. I need to spend $$$ to get decent speeds on DSL. Turns out DISH is cheaper than upgrading my DSL line to a sufficient speed to cut the cord.
 
flhrci said:
Apparently they did not market their big day well enough. Overshadowed by Apple.
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That's because there are more Apple owners and investors than Aviation/Garmin owners.
 
DaleB said:
Hulu with Live TV will let you stream everything live (except AMC, which was the deal breaker for us). DirecTV Now was a good option, but they just screwed themselves by deciding to increase prices 25-50% for less content. Sling TV seems like a good deal, but no local channels, so you'll need an antenna for those. I have a SiliconDust HD Homerun, so we'll be using that for CBS/ABC/NBC live, and probably switch to Sling for the rest. We're using DirecTV Now right now, but their quality has gone straight down the toilet over the past couple of weeks (started right after they announced they were jacking our price up 25%), and keeps getting worse. I'm dumping them.

The nice thing is, unlike cable or satellite providers -- switching is quick and easy.
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We currently have Amazon Prime (because we're Prime members anyway) which is mostly for streaming Amazon Original content for the kiddo (cartoons/educational stuff) and the occasional movie although their selection has gone stagnant over the past year. As I mentioned we also have SlingTV which is mostly for some movies and sports programming. We have an AirTV (essentially a tv guide/DVR for OTA channels) which ties into SlingTV so that there's no jumping back and forth on the TV/AVR inputs and it combines everything from OTA and SlingTV into a single programming guide. The AirTV also makes it easier because we can use one antenna to send signal to multiple televisions (2-tuner or 4-tuner versions) in case the wife wants to watch something in the bedroom while I watch a different OTA broadcast in the living room.
 
Last time I had traditional TV service it was DirecTV and their prices had climbed well in excess of $100. There was nothing on any of those channels worth nearly that to me, especially given that most of the channels had commercials on them anyway(why am I paying for TV service with commercials)?

IDK if they've come down much from that, I see ads for much lower all the time but I remember their scam used to be a really reasonable intro rate that went way up after the first few months-year. They'd have to be offering something pretty compelling at this point for me to have the least bit of interest.
 
Ryanb said:
Hmm. Will have to check into that. I was under the impression that live TV couldn’t be streamed through it.
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Regular Hulu does not live stream, but Hulu Live TV does. Hulu does a decent job for us, but I do not find them to be real user-friendly when it comes to navigating around their service. I do not find it to be very intuitive. But we make it work.
 
As an aside, how we watched...

32523703897_52be92ceca.jpg


No internet at our TN digs, yet.

Cellular to our iPad Mini 2, then to the Vizio via Apple’s Lightning to HDMI adapter. A little clunky, but it works!
 
Anymouse said:
I was an early adopter and cut the cord back in the 90s. This is the main reason I did it. I was tired of paying for all the religious/shopping/etc. channels that I never wanted to watch. Of course, they didn't have streaming services back then, so I was stuck with Blockbuster for a while.
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I did without any kind of cable or satellite TV for about ten years, and was doing just fine, UNTIL Game of Thrones came out on Blu-ray, and I bought the first season and got hooked. Back then, there was no way to view HBO without going through a cable provider, so I thought I'd add TV services to my Comcast internet, but then cancel after GoT Season 2, return the box, and just renew it each time a new GoT season started (yes, I was that hooked on just GoT). But, I ended up just keeping the damn thing and DVR'ing a small number of things I wanted to watch.

I could probably do without it again if I had to, but with the final season of GoT about to begin, I'm sure I'll be glued to the TV on Sunday nights again.
 
atbroome said:
What quality problems have you had?
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Buffering, stuttering, streams stopping then jumping several minutes (missing scenes of course), video quality suddenly going to low-res for a minute or two, channels just flat refusing to stream at all until we force kill the app and restart. This is on a Fire Tv Stick 4k with good Wi-Fi and a 1Gbit/sec Internet connection. It's not the network, and it's not the Wi-Fi signal, and it's not the hardware, because EVERY other streaming source (Amazon Prime, Netflix, AMC, Hulu) ALL WORK perfectly.

Looking forward to getting my antenna signal sorted so we can try Sling.
 
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