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I'm not getting cable anymore.... suckers.


MDN Word: ill, as in, the AppleTV is ill.

@Subculture - great idea, genius, now instead of paying for cable for 500 channels you pay to view every show using iTunes and AppleTV. And you have to pay to store them on your computer (each show eats up hard drive space to store them all)...whooops, time to buy another hard drive...
Oh and good luck watching live sports via AppleTV and the news and....

Yup, I think cable and satellite, as we know and despise them, are going to start to slowly fade, then just suddenly disappear.

I, and several 100 million others, simply do not want to pay for 150 channels so that we can watch the 15 that we actually want - period.

"Apple TV emerging as ‘a sleeper hit’"

I thought Woody Allen already did that.

eddie, not all of us are addicted to TV. if i didn't have kids i would do the same and end up spending less a year than i spend a month right now. plus, you get the tivo "whenever i want" benefits and the storage is far large so you can keep everything rather than trying to pick what you want to delete.

....and if they offer a cheaper subscription model for TV shows in the future, then what?

magic word "less" which is sometimes more.

Will a purchase of an iPhone be considered an iPod purchase for the sake of counting toward the 500 million units milestone?

MW = front, as in "Apple will stay way out in front no matter how they count the sales."

Yeah, Zune and Vista were off to a fast starts as well - bought by fanatics. It's way too early to judge TV. If you go into stores, the TV sections are relatively empty. I don't think this a bad sign. It will take time for the word to spread.

I just like typing .

  

hype runs the stock down, just look at it today. Everytime some analyst says its going great or some dumb columnist/commentator says it is doing phenomenal the shorts jump in and run it down.

Maybe the cable networks will finally wake up from their delusional stupor and offer more flexibility in the way they force feed you programming you don't want, then over-charge you for the stuff you do want. The satellite companies are at least half way there but they have a ways to go as well.

Why do I have to get "free" MTV and VH1 and the Country Music Channel when I would rather not have any of them. Putting together a custom channel line up should not really be that hard in 2007.

Except for sports and news, how many shows do you HAVE to watch live? (And no, I don't want to ever watch the Golf channel live or prerecorded.)

The whole "force fed" nature of cable and satellite is why I don't have either. Why pay $30+ a month when I only watch a few shows? It's better to buy individual shows or download them and then you can choose whether you keep them, burn them to DVD, or buy the DVD set later.

The stock isn't down because of hype about Apple. Many stocks are down, likely due to skittishness about CitiGroup's announcement. People and major investors take cash out of the market on news that may be suggestive of economic slowdown.

The main reason I have cable is not to watch TV, but to have a decent broadband connection. Until we get another way to get broadband which is more reliable and faster than DSL, I am stuck with cable and their high fees. Internet with no premium channels from Comcast is about $100.

marcos,

yes I agree, but the 'shorts' can only manipulate AAPL for very 'short' periods of time.

Barring some disaster - for example a collapse of the U.S. economy - AAPL is going to go up; and I'm convinced it'll double or even treble in the next two years.

@Mr. Peabody: "I, and several 100 million others, simply do not want to pay for 150 channels so that we can watch the 15 that we actually want - period."

No, you are paying for the 15 you actually want. All the other 135 are free.
And how is AppleTV going to allow you to watch those 15 channels you want and are you going to enjoy paying $2-$10 to watch each show from your 15 channels (for example, 4 shows a day via iTunes X $2 each = $8 a day X 30 days per month = minimum $240 a month to watch 4 shows a day).
And I sure hope you like to waste time going to iTunes everyday to select, pay, download, etc, etc and then watch via AppleTV.
Oh, yeah, don´t forget to buy another hard drive or two to store all those digital videos you paid for.
Guess you don´t like to watch the news, talk shows, sports when they are shown on TV.

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@shen: "....and if they offer a cheaper subscription model for TV shows in the future, then what?"
And if pigs had wings they could fly.
And blaming your kids for having to have cable TV service....lame. If you didn´t have kids you wouldn´t have to buy as much food or drive your car as much or clean the house as much or read books to them or play with them or take them to the doctor or school. Oh, what a hassle and financial burden children are. Have you thought of putting them up for adoption? Simplify your life, reduce your money troubles.

"Maybe the cable networks will finally wake up from their delusional stupor . . ."

Coincidentally, it will be the same day Windows become virus-free.

HMM.. what a shock. This is funny, but the media is so darn predictable aren't they.

Apple takes the iPod/iTunes model, and expands into movies (which now because of bandwidth increases, are seeing all the same file sharing problems), and journalists doubt it.

Where are guys like Thurrott and Dvorak now? In a state of denial of course.

Speaking of which, put one of my favorite entrepreneurs, Mark Cuban, in the camp too..

Eating crow.

(for obvious reasons, not exactly an unbiased source there..)

"now instead of paying for cable for 500 channels you pay to view every show using iTunes and AppleTV. And you have to pay to store them on your computer (each show eats up hard drive space to store them all)"

As always, depends on what you watch.

My weekly "Must See TV" list includes Heroes, 24, and Lost. A season pass to 24 is $44.99. Heroes is $42.99. Lost is $34.99. Grand total to watch all three shows: $122.97.

Where I live, basic cable is $44.95. Add in a DVR (so I can watch the shows anytime, just like with iTunes) and it's $54.90 per month.

Now, if you figure that the regular TV season runs, say, from October to May, that's eight months. 8 times $54.90 is $439.20. So it would definitely be cheaper--if all I really care about are those three shows--to buy them on iTunes versus getting them from my cable provider.

Oh, and by the way, you don't have to pay to store them. There's this thing in iTunes called the delete button where you can delete things. You can also back them up onto DVD if you don't want them eating up your hard drive space.

"Oh and good luck watching live sports via AppleTV and the news and...."

Live sports, you're correct. Though ever since I got my DVR, the importance of "Live" has diminished. I'll usually use my DVR's buffer to hold the show and fast forward through the "boring" parts. For example, watching (American) Football, I'll fast-forward through all the stuff between plays and just watch the plays themselves. That said, there's a comfort value to Sunday afternoon football so I agree with you that live sports would be one thing that I miss.

News? Well, let's see. There's ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and FOX news podcasts. Also BBC, LinkTV, Global News Network, and Sky News. I think news is pretty well covered. For local info, I suppose I could go to my local stations' website.

The only reason I see a potential for AppleTV is watching ones own videos they have made. Download your home videos to the computer watch via AppleTV on the big screen.

But then how many times does one want to watch home videos????

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I find it curious that not one poster here even has an AppleTV.

PETER<<<<<
aND you like to spend all that time downloading those shows?
And you only watch 3 shows on your TV?
Why have a TV, just watch it on your computer.

So why haven´t you sold your DVR? And you obviously have cable so why haven´t you stopped it?
Do you even have AppleTV?

The one thing no one has mentioned is renting series on DVD. It is far and away the best bang for the buck. Blockbuster charges $20 a month for online rental. It's close to "on-demand", no commercials, good quality, and each DVD is a coupon for an in-store rental. We've watched 5 seasons of Sopranos, 5 seasons of Alias, the first season of Battlestar Galactica, the first season of Rome, and we're on the 5th season of 24 right now. The only problem I see is that we may eventually run out of decent content to watch!

I'm just about ready to cancel my cable, except I like the nature channel in HD, as well as comedy central and all the Law & Order and CSI shows. I pulled the plug on the home phone, but I'm not ready to for cable yet (but I think the day is coming).

just to make it clear...stocks were down from the FOMC meeting minutes today. it was good news for forex but wall street's looking for a cut and ben's not giving them one for quite awhile...at least it looks that way at the moment. spring housing #s will show the way

@Eddie the one

I never said I was paying for TV shows and movies from iTunes......

And I don't watch live sporting events....

And my cable provider only provides 150ish channels for $90ish a month....

And GBs are cheap....


MDN Word: miss, as in I think you missed the point.

- Rentals
- HD content
- Live events (Sports & News)
- Move movie studio's onboard

Live streaming is going to proove to be the biggest challenge, so until then, it will truly act as a stay-at-home DVD or HD DVD player. Not bad, but will and can be so much more.

@Subculture: "I'm not getting cable anymore.... suckers."

Yeah, I guess that statement of yours is not real clear. Thought it read you are not getting cable anymore.
But then you say you are.
And if you aren´t watching live sports do you watch old re-runs of sporting events?

And high-def via iTunes Apple is not going to be here for quite a while....and I just can´t wrap my head around wasting the time to search and download tv shows from the web that I could just record off the TV to the dvr for free.
I don´t watch TV much, but when I want to watch it I want to watch it now, not first download it (wait, wait, wait) then appletv it.

And buying dvds is so much better...and if not buy, rent.

RSS is already changing the way people watch TV (torrents), AppleTV is an extention of this as a bolt-on to iTunes which delivers content to you.

If you deny that fact then you dont 'get' what AppleTV is about.

Everyones watching habbits are different. There will always be room for live broadcasts, but you can bet the house that the future of TV is RSS feeding you content. Apple saw this ages ago, put it into the friendly content delivery system they already have in iTunes - BOOM! - Apple TV.

Z

MDN word: Later, as in if you dont get it now - you WILL see it later.

@Eddie the one

I'll try and make sure I'm not getting lost in translation:

-No cable. Period. (I'm not sure how you inferred that I did an about face, but I digress...)

-No live sports. (Is it hard to believe I couldn't be bothered to watch, live or not?)

-All content I do watch is downloaded from the internet via torrents. No searching, I already know where to look. In fact, I usually have what I want to watch ready to go before it even airs (the beauty of living on the west coast).

I agree that buying DVDs isn't a bad move, but even those I like indexed digitally via iTunes.

To each his own, but everyone who has watched media at my place (right now via a mac mini), has been amazed at the experience. Having all my media at the click of the apple remote has blown people away. It's the way things should be. If someone wants cable, hey, who am I to stop them. When I said "suckers" I was refering to the cable companies for over-charging for their product. Broadband internet where I live is half the cost of full cable from the same company, and that doesn't even include the HD or premium digital channels.

So now I'm paying 1/3 the cost while getting a better experience.

So "subculture" all your video downloads are illegal.
Great. LOL. Feel proud, dude.
That really helps Apple and the artists,actors,companies that worked to make their living creating those video products.
A big thank you for stealing from all us creative people out here.

Can we all come to your place and steal things out of it we want to have?

Yep, they are "illegal". After years of over paying for that content, I have no problem with copyright infringment.

Years ago I said that if they'd offer music at a fair price, I'd pay for it. Guess what? 99c a song is a fair price. So now I buy my music again. Calling downloaded TV shows that are free-to-air illegal is a bit dubious anyways. Movies? Ya, that's clean cut illegal. When someone gives me fair value for one time viewing, then I'll pay. I'll pay happily as I'm paying now for music.

subculture> #After years of over paying for that content, I have no problem with copyright infringment.#

So do you also go into grocery stores and shoplift after years of overpaying for one-time use of food? Macs are high priced - you steal them, too?

And downloading TV shows is stealing, too. The TV companies sell them to cable and other TV providers to resell (via cable service). If they are free, why doesn´t Apple offer them for free via iTunes?
Theft is theft no matter how you want to justify it as the "overpaying victim". My momma always told me if you can´t afford it, you don´t need it and you surely don´t need to lower yourself to steal it.

Remind me never to invite you to my apartment, I´d have to search you before you leave to see what you stole because you were tired of overpaying for it somewhere.

"subculture> #After years of over paying for that content, I have no problem with copyright infringment.#"

Over time if nobody pays, nobody develops content. I hope you like the look of dumb home videos on YouTube as your sole source of video entertainment a decade from now.

bullshit "Truth". People made music and put on plays long before there was a way to profit off it. And people would still do it even if there was no way to profit off it, because people have to do that kind of thing. It's part of human nature. Real artists would do it for free. People who just do it for the money don't create art, they create garbage. And where did this notion that you should have to pay for every single thing you see and hear come from? Oh my god, I watched that TV show and I didn't pay anybody! I feel so dirty! ZOMG I just STOLE!!!

Wow. After reading some of these comments, I bet some of you guys get a DVD and don't let any of your friends or family watch it with you or borrow it from you, because that would be stealing. It's amazing how successful the movie/music/tv studios have been in convincing the masses that everything anyone sees should be paid for by that individual, and anything else is immoral.

I'm glad to see some people get it and some don't (that's from my point of view mind you). I actually really like the debate and the differences of opinion.

Truth and Stella talk about me "stealing". Let me correct you on that point. Make no mistake, copyright infringement is not theft. It was so put by the supreme court back in 1985. Copyright infringement is copyright infringement. Wrong? Legally yes, but the theft of a physical product can never be equated to copying of material.

When you steal a physical item, you are depriving the company of ever realizing income from that particular item. Copyright infringement does not necessarily do so. Anyone partaking in copyright infringement does not deprive said company from realizing profit from a customer who was going to buy the same product, because there is no physical limitations to such a product. So no, I don't go into a store and steal physical items.

Again, I don't believe there is a debate on the legality of the situation. Just a moral debate on whether some companies deserve to be penalized for there past behavior. As long as we can keep the discussion civil, then I really do welcome opinions opposite to mine.