“The Apple TV has a new app, called simply TV, that promises to help make sense of the 1600 video content providers that have apps on the platform,” Brian Barrett reports for Wired. “It looks useful and great, but it’s missing two key pieces toward becoming a truly useful streaming sifter: Netflix and Amazon.”
“Amazon’s absence is no surprise, given that Amazon Video has never been on Apple TV, and seems unlikely to show up any time soon,” Barrett reports. “Netflix comes as a bit of a surprise, though, as it’s long been a stalwart of streaming boxes, and was previously a participant in Apple TV’s universal search feature. The service didn’t appear in Apple’s presentation today, though, and the company has confirmed that it won’t be involved, at least at launch. ‘I can confirm we are not participating and evaluating the opportunity,’ says Netflix spokesperson Smita Saran.”
“Another caveat? While Apple showed off lots of live streaming through the app, including plentiful news and sports, most of those services require a cable log-in to authenticate,” Barrett reports. “The TV app should help declutter, but not cord-cutters.”
Read more in the full article here.
Pavan Rajam writes for The Rajam Report: As for why Netflix is opting out of this app, I have 2 theories:
• Netflix views usage data as highly confidential, proprietary information. They don’t even share this data with their show creators, so there’s no way in hell they would share this data with a partner who, it could be argued, is trying to disintermediate them.
• Netflix also doesn’t need help curating and personalizing their content library, they are already the best in the industry. Almost all of the other video apps need all the help they can get.
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: You should’ve heard the collective “Puleeze!” that rang throughout the hallowed halls of MacDailyNews‘ palatial headquarters when Tim Cook unleashed this one yesterday:
“And now, with the TV app, there’s really no reason to watch TV anywhere else.”
Hey, Tim, how about the basics like 4K support before making any more grand-yet-immediately-disprovable pronouncements?
The floundering around that Apple does with Apple TV is, uh… interesting to behold and testament to the bag of hurt that happens when the content gatekeepers haven’t yet been coaxed to play along.
SEE ALSO:
Apple unveils new ‘TV’ app for Apple TV, iPhone and iPad – October 27, 2016
The hyperbole Tim utters in these events is not even funny – just sad.
“We’ve been blown away by the photos people are taking.”
“We we’re so excited by this new MacBook Pro that we decided to make an ad.”
For two lame examples.
Tim: It. Doesn’t. Work.
Tim Cook: Running to where the puck ain’t.
Apple has been skating to where the puck was for a while.
LOL!!!
botvinnik✓ᵀᴿᵁᴹᴾ is a dumbvinnik✓Dᵁᴹᴾ.
botvinnik✓ᵀᴿᵁᴹᴾ usually is smart. But on this occasion is he dumb.
The ATV 4 is an expensive joke. There are much cheaper and better streaming boxes, hell, even free streaming websites.
The new Macbook Pro is comical. My wife has a 2010 MBP, I recently upgraded the RAM from 4 to 8GB and put in an SSD. That will probably be our last Mac, as Apple as a company being ran by Tim Cook is a complete joke.
I also have a 2012 i5 Mac mini that’s hooked up in my bedroom. I just use it as an appliance to stream content from the web. I have 3 systems (including my HTPC that I just built to run Occulus), that all run Windows 10.
Initially they were all on 8.1 but I am a casual gamer and decided to upgrade to Windows 10 to take advantage of the DirectX 12 benefits that are slowly starting to trickle into PC games.
Windows 10 is not bad if your are a techie; just run the Pro version so you can defer updates. Regardless of version, worst case scenario you can shut down the Windows update service altogether. Also there are a ton of programs to help you shut down the spyware and take back full control of your system.
My systems ridiculously faster than any Mac, replete with VR ready GPUs (GTX 1060, GTX 970, and AMD R9 290 respectively). Apple needs to get rid of Cook. He should’ve been booted years ago. I hope you believe posters now when they say he is lazy and incompetent. I know I sure as hell do!
So Netflix and Amazon missing in action so….
Are you really that much of a fool? Both Amazon and Netflix are two huge content providers if, Apple is going to be like everyone else and decide who they include and who they don’t it’s just another garbage service. I haven’t even use the AppleTV in well over a year
Netflix is a big player, not so much Amazon. Amazon prime member shows are a small percentage of their total shows
No, they are not missing in action. They are doing great without the Apple middleman.
The way Apple is floundering around trying to make an already stale ATV usable is rather embarrassing. These companies already have decent user interfaces and they don’t need Apple to get in the way. Especially when Amazon presents The Grand Tour in full 4k glory while ATV pushes … a TV guide.
If you are a movie buff, you’re going to buy 4k gear and use the services that support it. Which rules out the ATV. And you won’t drop $3k on a MacBook Pro with consumer processors when any 4k television has impressive streaming ability built in, or a Roku does more for less $.
I know that MDN will never get off its high horse on 4K, and this Christmas I am sure many more people will get a 4K screen of some sort, however I still don’t see any content thats worth a flip.
Some 4K content looks really cool perhaps, but the quantity is not there and I don’t see it coming for a quite a while, not to mention, how many of you that are dreaming of 4K, don’t have a internet connection fast enough to stream it. Or haven’t run out and bought a 4K player because they cost almost as much as the TV, to watch the handful of so so titles in 4K
The quantity is there. Netflix now has a lot of 4k content. Just scrubbed through the list- it was lengthy. Not meaning to sound combative but look it up, before saying such things.
OK, nice, Netflix based on my search has 26 – 4K titles and you pay more to watch them, and you need a relatively fast internet connection to watch 26 titles of programming, some of which aren’t really worth watching, it all depends of course on your programming preferences..
Not sure which list you’re looking at. I’m seeing over 70 titles. I only pay 4 dollars extra a month- 48 dollars a year to watch literally hundreds of hours of 4k content and the list is growing rapidly.
Looked at multiple lists, the most I can see is maybe 56 titles across TV shows, Movies and documentaries.
Based on my watching preferences, there are 8-10 shows that might be worth a watch, some of it is a waste of bandwidth, Pee-Wee, some comedians.. why is that better in 4K? Even at 70, thats a drop in the barrel in comparison to the slews of movies and shows that aren’t in 4K, and aren’t worth the expense of up converting to watch if it added anything to it at all. And many programs are not being filmed, taped, whatever you prefer in 4K.
So as I see it, its still way premature to jump on the 4K bandwagon, though a new 4k set will probably the picture look better.
I still don’t understand the seeming incompatibility between an excuse for why Apple is not supporting the latest technology (4 or 5k video in this case) and eliminating technology it says is extinct (like the headphone jack).
Either Apple is a forward looking company that was right to preemptively kill the floppy, DVD, and headphone jack (among others), or it can wait until they dies a long, drawn out, bad actor death (like the fax). But you can’t keep making excuses for why Apple is not supporting 4 or 5k video on the AppleTV by saying “there is not enough content to merit it.”
Either it’s a company that sees the future and skates to where the puck is, or it’s not. It can’t be praised for trying to be both conservative and progressive/proactive at the same time.
AppleTV’s new App without Netflix and Amazon Prime (Prime has plenty of Emmy nominated and Award winning content!) is just kind of pathetic. Combine that the dumbest remote they’ve ever made, and you clearly have not “cracked” TV.
I’m still waiting to see what Steve Jobs meant by that because it ain’t there, or anywhere near looking “cracked” to me. :-\
I totally agree – 4K isn’t needed also if they go to 4K we will all reach the data limit that causes us to be throttled to a slower speed which will be no good for anything.
You might not want 4k. That’s fine, but a growing number of people do. Dismissing 4k is dismissing a changing market. For people like me who have 4k TVs, obviously as paying customers, we will be looking at content providers who are addressing this emerging standard, as opposed to the ones aren’t. I’m not telling you to like 4k, but you can’t tell someone who does to not like it and to not actively seek it out.
Either you’re on a cellular connection for your ATV or you should be switching your ISP if you’re reaching data limits.
NOT moving to the “big city” for better speed!
That’s your opinion and you have a right to it but, MDN is correct. Apple is wrong they should’ve never released an Apple TV that doesn’t include 4K a capability.
4K is not a huge big deal by itself, but 4K plus HDR and/or Dolby Vision is IMHO a huge deal. Not many TVs support this yet, but I have one and I believe it’s a big deal. The shows Amazon and Netflix are putting out in HDR/Dolby Vision look amazing. The UHD discs that utilize HDR and Dolby Atmos look and sound incredible. Apple should be at the forefront of this fighting to make iTunes THE place to build a movie library the way that it already is for music. It’s too late to compete for standard HD content, but to all of those like me who appreciate the best technology has to offer (which is why I’ve always been a Mac user) we are just now starting to invest in building new movie libraries and would love to do it through Apple this round. I hate I am back to buying physical media. I refuse to support VUDU and others because their UI is just horrible and my TV can’t send the Atmos soundtrack to my receiver. I need a 4K AppleTV that supports modern sound formats with a fast growing iTunes library behind it.
It’s worth mentioning that with 4K and HDR older films can get remastered and look amazing. The new Macbbok Pros and iPhone 7s already support P3…are 4K+ They may even be able to display in HDR… Apple should not wait until their is a market… by then it’ll all be too splintered for them to care much.
If I remember correctly, MDN was deadset against 4K as a feature in Apple TV, now they seem to have finally seen the light. It’s amazing what a year can do.
You do not remember correctly – or you’re just a liar.
MacDailyNews, November 12, 2015:
It’s not about discerning individual pixels, it’s about the level of detail. Owners of 4K Ultra HD displays know that you can quite easily see the difference between one and a 1080p HD display because you are simply presented with more visual information and you can see the difference in the detail.
On our 65-inch Sony 4K Ultra HDs vs. a 65-inch 1080p TV, the difference in clarity and detail is stark. The only people who claim you can’t tell the difference are those who don’t yet have 4K TVs.
Apple should have future-proofed the Apple TV with 4K capability and no amount of apologists will be able to change the fact that, to the general public, Apple looks to be greedily setting up planned obsolescence with the current Apple TV by omitting 4K capability.
After all, if Ultra HD doesn’t matter, why do iPhones shoot in 4K and why have iMacs been upgraded to 4K and even 5K models?
Now, cue the inevitable “4K doesn’t matter” comments from those who don’t yet own 4K Ultra HD TVs. We remember hearing the same exact type of comments when HD TVs first hit the market.
Go work on your memory / truthfulness issues, “Roy.”
OK, my memory ain’t quite what it used to be. But tell me, if I remember correctly, I also banged your mom and she really liked it, “son”.
Brutal Truth, I AM your father.
I find that I agree with MDN sometimes. Always on Friday afternoons at beer-thirty…
…and from the idiocy of your previous drunken posts, your clock is frozen at “beer-thirty.”
lol, joking.
Botty, this is Melvin”s dad. Don’t make me go JD on you… 🙂
No offense taken.
okay, it must be difficult to raise a homosexual son with all these bullies about.
Gonna drive me to Amazon, Tim. We already got Prime. Worse- gonna drive my creative Peet’s to Surfaces… how depressing. Say something!!!!
So let me get this straight. This is suppose to be my new hub. Do I have access to all of my movies in my iTunes database? Not just those that I’ve purchased in the Apple Video. Store. No? And yet they are all in my iTunes database and this is suppose to be my new hub. Come on Apple! My iTunes database is your database! Why did you not include that? Is it all about money or pleasing the customer?
^^THIS!!^^
Why can’t Apple search my movies and TV shows on my hard drive? Why do they always point to renting/buying streaming media? Why don’t they support DTS audio tracks. 2016, get a grip, Apple!
I watch my movies (not from itunes store) all the time on my ATV. If they are in itunes (which they are) and I can see my computer library from my ATV (which I can), I can watch any movie there.
My only complaint is that I dont have all the features of an iTunes Store bought movie, such as Closed Captioning, even though I have the subtitle file on my computer. (that works great using VLC Player on my 4K 27″ Monitor).
Then what’s the point? 90% of my Apple TV movie watching is Netflix..then apple..then YouTube..and Crackle when I want to watch vintage Godzilla 😉
For the love of Steve, don’t ever acquire Plex Tim. It works really really well (and is about the only reason I’m using an AppleTV in the bedroom).
This all a bag of hurt, because the cable companies want it to be that way.
They want to make Apple’s experience more complicated because they want you to go to their devices to watch TV. Plus they get you to pay a monthly fee just to have the device. If you own a TV, and your TV can view that content, you still have to pay a device fee for the connection.
It’s getting worse all the time and we are effectively paying a corporate tax on top of a commercial supported enterprise.
The only thing that’s still commercial supported free, is OTA. You pay once for the TV and then watch on a schedule. If you have a TIVO, you can time shift but have to pay for the guide data. But I think that’s worth it.
No matter what, these companies are driving customers towards pirating, because it’s more convenient, let alone cost effective. (ignorijg legal issues)
We need to have a video based subscription, just like Apple Music, where we get to watch all we want, what we want, when we want, commercial free. But the video hinsidtry has to crash before we can see that happen. The music industry basically collapsed, and now they are willing to take what they can get. Same needs to happen to video.