Apple May Be On The Verge Of Kneecapping The Cable Industry. Finally.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/12/21/apple-tv-kill-cable/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

by AndrewWarner • 17 years ago

15 27 17 years ago

techcrunch.com

ezy2• 17 years ago

Netflix is much, much closer.

jasonlbaptiste8• 17 years ago

What makes you say that? Not disagreeing either.

houseabsolute2• 17 years ago

They're not moving fast enough and their On Demand offering is weak. If they don't watch out, someone is going to displace them.

ezy2• 17 years ago

That's somewhat subjective -- I've found Netflix's OD to be pretty good. At any rate, "weak" is less important than ubiquitous right now. Weak is easy to fix, you just encode more titles and perhaps upgrade your software. Netflix is on(in) almost every device that counts for home entertainment now. Not in the future, not waiting for some specialized device or deal... they are present and accounted for. All they need to do is start providing more recent content, and they are there.

Apple is essentially nowhere in this space.. AppleTV is it. And not many people bought into that (I did, and I was disappointed). Not only that, but apple offers no clear benefit -- netflix is at least cheaper than driving to blockbuster -- appletv has never been cheap to "rent" from and given the quality -- that's not really justifiable.

jsz0• 17 years ago

There's a big opportunity here for someone. Lots of people prefer the linear video experience. They want to flip channels and have content pushed at them so they don't have to think. The other piece that's been missing for a while on IPTV is live sports. Both MLB & NBA are now offering their league pass IP video subscriptions on the iPhone. MLB is on the Roku set top already. Between gaming consoles with IP video options, Smart TVs, and now more dedicated devices like the Roku player I don't think Apple can stay out of this market much longer. It's going to happen with or without them.

brisance• 17 years ago

Looks like Apple is going to leverage on MobileMe. If you're a MobileMe subscriber you will get an "all-access" pass to movies, video and audio content etc with no ads. On top of that you get email, webhosting, "Find My iPhone" features etc.

This is eWorld v2.0 as envisaged by Steve Jobs.

spicyj• 17 years ago

No way can they pay each network $3/month for the current MobileMe price of $99/year.

jasonlbaptiste8• 17 years ago

Do to the 50 inch screen what the iPhone did to the 3 inch screen. The device connected to my tv should be as open and capable as a computer, yet still fit the form factor. ie- an iPhone is a full fledged computer running a real OS. It just meets the form factor and purpose of a 3 inch screen.

What apps would you want to see on a 50 inch screen besides content (which is the killer app)?

protomyth• 17 years ago

games are almost always the killer app

stcredzero2• 17 years ago

Add pictures, social media, Facebook, twitter, cutesy pics with cats and inane captions. Take all the dreck of cable, but make it interactive and navigable. This will be 10X more addictive through variable reward schedule than channel surfing.

Add in real-time video chat so you and your cadre can MST3K commentary everything online at the same time. It's couch-potato crack!

jasonlbaptiste8• 17 years ago

I'm working on making a 10 foot ui type site with embedded heyzap games for fun for my HTPC. Different than the console games, but games none the less.

anigbrowl• 17 years ago

I'd argue that a Playstation 3 gets very close to your requirement list. So do most consoles, it just happens to be my favorite of the 3 in terms of design and usability. Both it and the Xbox have access to Netflix for streaming movies, which is a big plus.

You were asking about Netflix below. You might be interested to her I was talking to a film distributor last week, who mentioned that from their perspective video-on-demand and premium channel sales (as served by cable) are almost dead, and while they get fantastic analytics from iTunes movie downloads, they accelerated quickly and then plateaued. Netflix is becoming the revenue generator that distributors pursue prior to the end-user DVD sale for indies.

Obviously, the model is somewhat different for big-ticket films where broadcast will pay a premium for the premiere rights, and/or specialty films (eg cable channels MTV or VH1 are still good for music documentaries). But in his opinion Netflix is becoming the most important secondary market distributor.

jasonlbaptiste8• 17 years ago

Playstation 3 is very close, but it's not open enough. It's not nearly as easy as using a computer to navigate content or add apps. The UI for the PS3 is definitely closest though. Windows, Mac, or Basic Ubuntu just don't work for the living room.

Wow, that's really interesting that Netflix is that important for distribution. Well, moreso that it's that much ahead of the others. I really wish they would have the PlayReady DRM work on linux, not because of desktop linux being so popular, but the plethora of devices that could be built on Linux using Netflix.

GeneralMaximus2• 17 years ago

  The device connected to my tv should be as open 
  and capable as a computer, yet still fit the form 
  factor.

Beautiful, incredibly easy to use, tightly integrated with your Mac, but not open. Nothing Apple makes these days is open. OS X was the last product they made that was sort of open.

(And I say this as a die-hard Mac user.)

jasonlbaptiste8• 17 years ago

Sigh, I know. I wish AppleTV was a purely open platform. Let me throw apps on it, access websites I want, skin it, etc. The Mac Mini is the "real" appletv, except the interface doesn't work so well for a tv. Essentially here's what I want:

Put the mac mini, appletv, and time capsule in a blender. Appletv 10 foot interface, mac mini open-ness/computing ability, and time capsule size storage (TBs, not GBs).

schackbrian• 17 years ago

http://webkit.org/

Keyframe2• 17 years ago

xbmc, I can't live without it - I keep my old xbox (1) just for xbmc around, even though I have a HTPC and PS3.

jasonlbaptiste8• 17 years ago

Have you seen the new release with the confluence skin? It's really beautiful. I prefer Boxee just because it has the internet channels built in. I wish there was more participation when it comes to plugins. The stuff that boxee has could easily be made for XBMC.

stcredzero2• 17 years ago

It's amazing how sentences where [X] kneecapps the Cable Industry make everyone exclaim a little internal "Yay."

We are peons. We are resigned to it. Markets do not work for US cable.

(EDIT: Pedantic version: the US "cable market" doesn't work very well as a free market.)

noarchy• 17 years ago

So how is streaming HD going to benefit those of us crippled by monthly bandwidth limits? The cable companies aren't going to be encouraged to get rid of those, especially in the face of a new competitor that uses those very pipes.

And fwiw, I am in Canada, where ISPs have been imposing caps for a while now. If you're lucky, you live somewhere where you can buy service (without a monthly cap) from a re-seller (who themselves might be getting throttled by Bell, or whoever else it is).

Apple May Be On The Verge Of Kneecapping The Cable Industry. Finally.

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