Television Needs To Be Reinvented, Says Apple SVP (businessinsider.com) 200
Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Service at Apple, isn't happy with the current state of how people watch TV. He said we currently live with a "glorified VCR," the interface of our current TV is the problem and we need to reinvent it. Cue pointed out a number of other issues he has with today's TV:"It's really hard to use [a cable box or satellite TV]. Setting something to record, if you didn't watch something last night, if you didn't set it to record, it's hard to find, it may not be available. There may be some rights issues," Cue said. "It's great to be able to tell your device, 'I wanna watch the Duke basketball game, I don't care what channel it's on.' I just want to watch the Duke basketball game. Today you got to bring in the TV, go through the guide, find which sports programs or whatever -- it's just hard to do."
I wonder... (Score:5, Insightful)
...if Apple has a new product to help with that
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
Unless they're buying out TiVo, they're already second to market... I haven't cared in a LONG time what channel or time my show is coming on, I just use the TiVo app on my phone to search for what I want and magically it appears on my screen. Want to watch a series? Not a problem! My TiVo will assemble all the episodes of that series on the DVR from any source it can get it from including recording it from air, netflix, amazon prime, hulu, etc. Full disclaimer: I have no affiliation with TiVo in the slightest... except I own one and it obviates the problem described above.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Funny)
Unless they're buying out TiVo, they're already second to market...
You're right, Apple being second to market has always left them as a loser in that market. iPod: "Less space than a nomad. Lame."
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Exactly! Look at how nobody at all bought ipods and iphones and how the Nomad is what everyone uses!
They are so freaking lame....
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...except the Tivo is no Nomad.
You're a MORON to imply anything of the sort.
Besides, the Tivo has been made obsolete already with streamers. Cook is 2 tech generations and almost 20 years behind.
He's like an archer attacking a landship.
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...except the Tivo is no Nomad.
Compared to he position of Apple today vs Apple back then - yeah, they sure don't come close to Nomad.
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The solution of course is everything on demand. The roadblock is legal issues aka licensing/copyright.
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I found the Tivo/DirecTV combo to be very easy to use.
Re:I wonder... (Score:5, Interesting)
For instance, it would show up on West Coast local channel (which I would get) standard definition, it would also show up on Central Local channel (which I don't get due to regional restrictions), and same for East Coast Local channel... Then all 3 of those same channels are duplicated as HD channels in the Guide as well. All 6 of these would be the current latest episode, and all 6 were at different local times due to time zone differences, however only 2 of those are a channel I get, and I prefer recording in HD when avail, so only 1 is the 'correct' channel/time. If the DVR recorded the wrong one, I would be greeted with a blank recording. That's why I think most DVR systems make you select the show and channel you want to watch, and it will stick with that.
Another issue, is when you add in the complexity of syndication for shows that have current episodes on major networks, and older syndicated episodes on various other extended channels (sometimes playing more than one episode per day for those syndicated episodes), and what you would end up is the DVR trying to 'guess' which is the correct version of the show you want to record out of a possible 6-12 different possibilities on various channels, time-slots, resolutions, and new episode/re-run episodes.
The cable companies don't make it easy, and neither do the channel networks. Depending on the DVR/Set-Top-Box you use, sometimes the guide is customizable to eliminate channels, but this takes hours to go through and setup on each receiver. Some, like ATT UVerse, won't let your customized list be used as the default, so it takes like 3-6 button presses to get to your customized guide list instead of the "All channels we serve from all packages" monolithic channel guide, which is horrible. Why cable companies still serve you SD channels when you subscribe to HD package is something I've never been able to figure out, other than it makes it LOOK like you are getting twice as many channels as you really do. All of this is frustrating from a human perspective, DVR's can only make it so easy before they start guessing at what you want.
Maybe the example given is easy to do, when you are talking about live sports games (all though, those get blacked out locally many times as well) that don't get reruns, are usually broadcast on single channels who have the contracts... But I don't think a DVR can know what you're intentions are by just saying, "I want you to record Big Bang Theory" are, just as another person wouldn't understand your intentions either without a bit more specific information, like SD/HD, what is your current channel package, new episode or rerun, it's playing in an hour, but you have another recording already scheduled, which show is more important to you? etc...
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Tivo is in a mad rush to somehow become a distant second place with no direct competitor.
I got DirectTV over a decade ago to feed a DirecTivo. On not being able to replace them as they wore out, one tuner at at time, I bought a newer tiro (Romio[?]) and switched to cable. (When asked why I was cancelling, I told him point blank, "Your DVRs suck." They are at least an entire generation behind in what they offer).
I quickly became underwhelmed by the new Tivo.
Where once it was easy to set a wishlist for all
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Yeah I have no idea what this guy is talking about, I have DirecTV and even if I miss a show I can go back like 72 hours to record it. If I want to record a Series I just type a few words into the Search box and when I see it I hit Record on my Remote two times (many ways to do it) and it always records every Episode without my intervention. The problems he describes seem to be related to Streaming.
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...if Apple has a new product to help with that
Perhaps, but Television re-invented is called streaming and Kodi and other devices beat them to it.... Sorry, forgot to drink the cool-aid... Apple will do it better....
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Kodi could definitely use improvement also. Searching leaves much to be desired, especially if you're looking for live events.
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"live events"? You're cute, like a smug Neanderthal.
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Kodi could definitely use improvement also. Searching leaves much to be desired, especially if you're looking for live events.
I'd be happy if they just made headless an official feature and not "go read the source and comb through 234087238723 forum posts if you're interested". Because right now I have two independent sets of metadata describing my media library, and it's dumb.
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It wouldn't be hard to do better than Kodi.
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It's open. Prove it.
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My proof is that no one outside out geek circles even knows what it is. But that's probably a conspiracy of some sort.
Re: I wonder... (Score:2)
CSB - I just taught a Kodi class to 50 adults who wanted it bad enough to demand that it be an authorized use of their continuing education funding. I didn't campaign for it and I didn't specially discuss anything more dubious than the Fusion Installer and Kodimaster repos. They can figure out Exodus and Sportsdevil on their own, but they were still glad to get the class.
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export DISPLAY=:0.0
mplayer -vo vdpau my_movie.avi
But then again what I consider easy and what most people do isn't the same.
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Eh, Kodi's just a front end. I use mplayer over SSH sometimes. There are dozens of other front ends people can use.
The real 'TV reinvented" is the auto downloaders like sickbeard and couch potato. I haven't known when my shows air since I went to college in 2001. Now it's add the show, I get notified when a download is done.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This is dumb (Score:4, Insightful)
The rights holders are the problem and will never allow this.
That's what they said about iTunes, and Apple found a way. So I wouldn't count them out here...
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The rights holders are the problem and will never allow this.
That's what they said about iTunes, and Apple found a way. So I wouldn't count them out here...
Steve found a way, not Apple. I don't think Apple will find a way.
Re: This is dumb (Score:2)
That was because they were getting hammered by peer to peer file sharing services like Napster and Kazaa, eMule, and and whole bunch of others whose name I forgot. Everyone was downloading their music illegally and CD sales were plummeting. The content owners are not going to allow TV to be reinvented unless they get paid off it. Before iTunes, people were getting their music free.. now they are paying $1.25.
Miss the show ? Pay. Want to watch old TV shows from the 80s? Pay.
Why do you think Netflix is having
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And until what you say comes to pass, there are still plenty of people getting whatever they want for free, just like it was with music. Eventually they'll figure out how people want to watch shows and allow them to pay for that, but until that happens I'm still going to watch things how I want to regardless of whether or not there's a way for me to pay the producers.
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Music is a closely held oligarchy and they didn't see Apple for what it was at the time. As soon as they figured things out, they immediately dropped encryption and opened things up.
Now the music industry is a cautionary tale for everyone else.
Also, there were no comparable legacy regulations or contracts in the music industry to get in the way. There's still a lot of "cruft" in the video industry to get past.
Re:This is dumb (Score:5, Interesting)
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That's what they said about iTunes, and Apple found a way. So I wouldn't count them out here...
Only because the music industry was totally oblivious to what would happen when they let Apple control the DRM, the same way IBM let Microsoft control the OS. They had to drop DRM because they were being buttfucked by Apple who used their market power to sell cheap music and expensive iPods and all their customers were locked in since FairPlay protected music wouldn't play anywhere else.
The motion picture studios have never been that stupid, even long before iTunes they controlled CSS on DVDs, they control
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There's still some hypocrisy though. I agree with them for music - I would also agree with them for TV and films, but I'm not hearing the same level of pressure from them.
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You're probably right that Apple won't broker deals like they got with record companies. They don't necessarily need to. Cable-only is slowly dying out, and more production studios are going to have to jump ship to streaming services (either their own or make deals with larger companies). All Apple/Google/Roku/Amazon have to do is build the platform and convince the streaming companies to support it.
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The rights holders are the problem and will never allow this.
They probably will. Apple here is talking about this being a UI issue. Sounds like they are coming up with a new AppleTV type device except instead of searching each individual service for something individually, it will search all of them. Or rather, it will search the ones that cooperate with Apple and those that don't will lose out. I bet one of those bits of cooperation will be being able to buy a subscription to a service you don't already have or even getting something ad hoc, when the search finds so
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It's dumb for another reason.
Talking to your TV to control it is already covered in the Samsung TOS, they keep everything said, typed, channels watched and this is for your benefit as it helps speech recognition and the TV to better know what your saying or wish to do; and it hasn't turned out well.
Samsung Warns Customers To Think Twice About What They Say Near Smart TVs: https://tech.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Samsung SmartTV Customers Warned Personal Conversations May Be Recorded: https://yro.slashdot.org/story. [slashdot.org]
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Apple is using cable wrong. (Score:2)
Your cable DVR uses voice commands for that stuff... You just call Comcast on your phone, press 0, then just keep saying "Duke basketball game" until it appears on your TV.
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And you need it on comcast as the channel map is an F* mess. Also cinemax HD is next to Disney channel HD.
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And you need it on comcast as the channel map is an F* mess. Also cinemax HD is next to Disney channel HD.
The kids need to learn about the world faster these days.
Alternatively... (Score:3)
Alternatively, you could just ditch the TV altogether and go read book.
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I did this all while you were watching TV [atlasobscura.com]
But seriously, WTF do I need a separate APP to stream each goddamned channel?!!! The function is standard, the endpoint just changes.
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I heard it's either in the Game of Thrones series of Wheel of Time.
(If it's not, you can tell me when you've proved in in 2018.)
already been reinvented (Score:4, Insightful)
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Apple's never going to have another iPhone success. It's reasonable to believe that no product like the smartphone is ever going to spring up again.
But people still spend huge amounts of time in front of their televisions, whether it be cable, over-the-air, streaming services, consoles, whatever. Being able to take more control over that space, build a better experience, and put yourself between content and viewers still promises to be lucrative, even if the solution won't be technologically groundbreakin
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Netflix is a philosophy, for sure, and it's definitely had an effect on how we watch TV. I think what Cue (and pretty much everyone else who's looking at "reinventing television") is asking is "how do we take the mindset Netflix has created, and make it bring it in and work across all television content?" And then, inevitably, "how do we profit off of that?"
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It's really not that complicated.
It is and it isn't. The technology is already out there. The cat wrangling's coming from dealing with the myriad of rights owners and distributors, as other slashdotters have already said. Bringing everyone and everything into the fold.
After that, just having a slick interface, exclusive content, and as wide a range of non-exclusive content as possible. Also, provide a catalog of everything ever made even if you're not offering it (perhaps at an additional cost?) so that I can make a master queue of everything I ever want to watch.
Exactly.
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This was said about the iPad.
And the Macintosh.
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Netflix doesn't do sports, nor does it have to deal with the complexity of local blackout rules.
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I think reinvent means ditch blackout rules for starters.
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Even the league streaming services are stymied by local blackout rules.
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Which should be considered discriminatory. They're discriminating against you based on where you live.
blackouts, lack of channel choice, forced hardware (Score:3)
sports blackouts, lack of channel choice, forced to use and rent there hardware or pay outlet fess.
Are the real things that need to be fixed.
Also the pay TV distributors that cram ad's on each F* page of the guide need to go as well.
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sports blackouts
OMG yes. I bought my wife an MLB.tv season pass because she loves watching baseball. What do you get for $109.99? Every game on TV except the ones in your home market. You can watch the Twins suck any time you want, so long as you don't live in Minnesota. Oh, and no postseason: that's a separate subscription.
Who the fuck came up with those ideas? I'll be damned if MLB ever gets another penny from us.
It's not about needing to re-invent, its 'control' (Score:5, Insightful)
What the summary sounds like (Score:2)
All TV should be pay TV, and you just rent the programs you want to watch when you want to watch them! Come on, doesn't that make more sense?
Yeah, no thanks. I don't know about the rest of you, but my version of 'cutting the cord' involved installing an antenna on the roof and not paying anything for TV ever again. I'd rather not watch anything at all than ever have to pay for TV shows. I also mercilessly scoff and mock the whole idea that using a TV and a program guide of any kind is 'too difficult' and that it needs to be simplified; are we really becoming so dumb and slow that we can't even figure out how the TV w
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and not paying anything for TV ever again
You still pay, though. You pay through having to put up with ads and being beholden to the OTA channels' scheduling. Time is money, and you pay with your time.
are we really becoming so dumb and slow that we can't even figure out how the TV works? I know I have no problems with it, what about you?
We've simply gotten to the point that we're questioning why we should tolerate a television model that existed since 1950, when more or less all other media has moved on.
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> You still pay, though. You pay through having to put up with ads and being beholden to the OTA channels' scheduling.
No you don't. That's the easiest kind of PVR to put together yourself. Or you could just buy one. Either way, there's no cable card nonsense to contend with.
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That's the easiest kind of PVR to put together yourself.
Because when I imagine "reinventing television to make things as convenient as possible" I imagine everyone building themselves an HTPC/PVR to work around existing inconveniences.
Make everything pay per view (Score:2)
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so $1 hr for PPV movies? events? sports? sounds like an deal!
I have no problems at all (Score:3)
I just go and grab the torrent if I missed it.
What needs to change is BULLSHIT copyright laws.
Clueless Apple SVP (Score:4, Insightful)
>> "It's great to be able to tell your device, 'I wanna watch the Duke basketball game, I don't care what channel it's on.' ...which is exactly what I've already been doing for years (and for $0.00 give or take a few watts) with my Linux-based media PC that is running MythTV and plugged into an OTA antenna.
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Its not just myth/linux, many providers boxes do this already. I.e. on my dish box I can go to search, type in duke, on the right hand side listed under sports is 'Duke blue devils' which I select, then have an option of which sport I want, select basketball, hit record all games. Many tv providers already provide what he says you cant do and much more
Content owners (Score:2)
Uh,content owners want to overcharge you for that. I mean, they know you are desperate to see some show so why not make some money off that? It's like buying bottled water after Katrina. We'll sort of, but without the malice.
They know you want it, so why not make some extra money off that? Why not charge you for the convenience of watching it later?
The only reason VCR is allowed is because the Supreme Court forced it on the TV networks.
Too Many Other Things to Do (Score:2)
What with Netflix; both streaming and DVDs, YouTube, 4 different MMORPGs I alternate between (Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, and Champions), weed being legal for recreational use in this state (including being able to grow up to 4 plants at a time), a huge backlog of totally free classic books sponged off Gutenberg; getting into various little projects that we have talked about doing all our lives, enjoying engaging in unimportant discussions on forums like Slashdot and elsewhere, and even com
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I think it's just the geezer generation we need to get rid of. We've already started to replace them and they're MUCH better with technology.
Duh? (Score:2)
it's just hard to do
Duh? We all know it sucks. What's actually hard is fixing it. Fix that, Apple.
Cry me a river (Score:2)
Awww, are AppleTV sales too low for your shareholders liking?
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Bingo.
It does need to be reinvented (Score:2)
Let me summarize (Score:2)
Like pretty much everything coming out of Apple these days, this translates to:
"You have money you're not giving us. And even worse, you're giving it to someone else, you Satan worshipping devils. And equally bad, you're doing things we can't keep a record of to sell to advertisers. How dare you keep secrets from your deciduous overlords!"
Well duh get to work! (Score:3)
If only Apple made something to change the interface to television, oh I don't know, an Apple TV...
Stop complaining and start coding!
BTW Comcast X1 [multichannel.com] is gaining a lot of useful features, such as "Team Reminders" for sporting events, "People Also Watched", Custom Playlists for DVR, etc.
Dump channels (Score:2)
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why? (Score:2)
I don't mind guides (Score:2)
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I'd be a lot happier with Hulu if they didn't plaster the local station logo in the corner of the screen, which is somewhat distracting for me.
Other than that, I feel that TV has already been rebooted just fine. I have a massive on-demand selection that I can watch at any time for a reasonable price. And no commercials at all, as I value my own time. I cut the cable a decade or so ago, and don't miss it at all. You can sign up for half a dozen streaming services and still you're probably paying equal to
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If Apple wants to create a compelling streaming service, they'll have to compete with existing services out there. I'm happy to take a look and see if it's worth a subscription. But since I have consoles that run any streaming app just fine, I can't imagine myself wanting any hardware they could possibly offer.
Sounds to me that they are trying to come up with an iTunes for steaming services. When you're looking for something, it will tell you which streaming source has it and they'll probably make it real easy for you to pay for what you want an get it.
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How about no commercials on the channels that I pay for. I haven't had cable TV for a long time and you would think that I don't see commercials anymore but cbs, cw, nbc, etc... have a lot of their prime time shows available to stream for free with commercials... but if upgrade to something like cbs on demand and start paying I expect it to be commercial free.
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Netflix is a channel.
Hulu is a channel.
Channels are merely distributors. Wholesalers. Once (and for OTA channels still) defined by their broadcast spectrum, now some defined by their URL. OTA (ATSC) channels, limited by technological constraints to around 8 per broadcaster.
Not much has changed really, though Netflix works like your on-demand cable service, just TCP/IP instead of QAM, and you really didn't care.
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Netflix is a channel.
Maybe it's a transatlantic thing. But if you talk about channels here, nobody will ever, ever think you are talking about a website like Hulu or Netflix. It's a synonym for 'TV Station' here.
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I think you're mistaken. Perhaps you mean the 80s?
Because in the 60s ads were everywhere. Most TV programming was sponsored by some company or other. "Today, Tide laundry detergent brings you ..." followed by lots of product placement ads for Tide. Let's just say they made sure you know who paid fo
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Sure, but at least they were honest about it. Additionally, it wasn't a full 1/4 of the show like today's ads.
I don't know for sure what the 60s were like, but in the 70s hour long shows were over 50 minutes long. Now they're 45 or less.
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Now bout we re-boot how TV is served up today and go back to not having the words in the corner of the screen, animated things while the show is on, and lighten the commercial load
I only see ads on TV when I travel. Why do people put up with that stuff?
TV reinvented is Netflix original content: one monthly fee, worldwide unified distribution, no ads. Very easy to find what you want to watch, too. The same UI would work fine for live events, too.
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You don't need TV. But the companies that profit off TV need you to watch TV. And if the way to do that is to "reinvent" it...
Wait. People still watch TV? (Score:2)
The ad-ratio and crap-content-to-wothwhile ratio drove me off it long ago.
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I don't think Apple wants to use proprietary connectors. In the past, they have fully embraced standard connectors, when those connectors were good enough. They ditched ADB when USB came out, and they ditched FireWire when USB got fast enough to transfer video.
What they won't do is use a standard connector if they feel that all standard options are compromises. When they felt the need to move away from the 30 pin iPod connector, they felt that the USB options were insufficient (not fast enough, not enough p
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I don't think Apple wants to use proprietary connectors. In the past, they have fully embraced standard connectors, when those connectors were good enough. They ditched ADB when USB came out, and they ditched FireWire when USB got fast enough to transfer video.
What they won't do is use a standard connector if they feel that all standard options are compromises. When they felt the need to move away from the 30 pin iPod connector, they felt that the USB options were insufficient (not fast enough, not enough power for charging tablets, and most importantly, not reversible), so they developed Lightning to solve those shortcomings. I think if USB-C had existed at the time, Lightning might never have been developed.
Except that lightning has transfer issues as well. It cannot send 1080p video at 30FPS, let alone the 4K video that it's camera can shoot.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with multiple ports on a device. I love having separate micro USB, micro HDMI and audio jacks so that I don't have to buy overpriced adapter cables. Hell, put all three ports on the bottom so that it can be docked the same way.
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I don't think Apple wants to use proprietary connectors.
LOL. My office is all Apple and every workspace is a mess of proprietary adapters and the only purpose they serve is to connect Apple products to other Apple products.
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What they won't do is use a standard connector if they feel that all standard options are compromises.
The only compromise I can see with the 3.5mm jack is that Apple see people buying headphones from any old place. No cut for Apple. That kind of compromise? What's wrong with the 3.5mm jack? It's a lot better than bluetooth, I can assure you there.
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Actually, real OTA stuff is trivially easy to deal with with PCs and consumer electronics. The lack of encryption makes things easey peasey and terribly reliable.
It's the encrypted cable stuff and proprietary on-demand and pay-per-view that's difficult to handle.
Although all of that stuff has already moved to streaming.
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I watch PAL content on my HTPCs all the time. In the old days, international DVD players were no big thing. This kind of stuff has been done already and for a pretty long time.
It's like subtitles on streamers. Companies making gear just have to think that it's worth bothering with.
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> Then we can spend 45 minutes programming the DVR and brag about it.
The last season pass I added took 5 minutes. If it takes you longer then you're really retarded.
Re: Advertising/Commercials Killed TV (Score:2)
Without commercials TV shows would have to be purchased.. this would make it more expensive. In addition, consumers will have no means to know about useful products and services. Without that, product sales will reduce. When there is less trading, there is less employment. When there is less employment few people can afford the TV shows. This will cause TV show revenue to decrease, resulting in poorer quality tv shows.
Anyway what I am saying is that I hate advertising as much as the next guy but long term s
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Tell that to Netflix.
And to my $70/mo "basic cable" bill (of which only about $20 is 'taxes and fees' -- wtf?!).
I don't mind paying for what I use; that's fine. What I do mind is that the content providers are so entrenched that they can charge far more than their content is actually worth. I also object to both paying for cable, and being saddled with a ridiculous number of commercials, some of which actually play over the program I'm trying to watch!
Enough is enough. I'm moving in a couple of months; I
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Since the Tivo was released back in the last century, there is NOTHING I view as linear. This includes "live TV". The great beauty of a recording is that you can skip through it and ignore the fluff. This includes commercials. This includes commentary. This includes tedious aspects of some sports.
I even know someone of the older generation that specifically likes to watch his baseball games like this now.
It's GREAT to start a "live" event far enough long that you will never catch up to the commercials.
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I kinda like higher resolution and more consistent color.