“For Apple to make the most of its peerless products, experts say it will need to improve relations with the folks who create the content to run on them,” Peter Burrows reports for BusinessWeek.
“At Macworld, studios including Disney and News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox are expected to announce support for a new iTunes movie rental service. Fox and others are also expected to make their newest releases available at iTunes, something only Disney currently does. But Apple is clinching such deals in part because of its newfound willingness to compromise, say sources. Apple has agreed to increase the wholesale price it pays to studios, from $14 to closer to the $16 they get when they sell a DVD to Wal-Mart, say people familiar with the negotiations,” Burrows reports.
“It doesn’t help that Apple’s newly introduced Apple TV, designed to send movies wirelessly from the home computer to a TV, has met with criticism for having poor resolution and offering access to movies only through iTunes. ‘In the music business, [Jobs] made a confusing situation simple,’ says Abe Peled, CEO of set-top box software maker NDS Group, which is 72%-owned by Rupert Murdoch. ‘With video, he is trying to make a simple solution difficult. People don’t need one more box on top of their TV sets.,'” Burrows reports.
MacDailyNews Take: “People don’t need one more box on top of their TV sets,” says a guy who sells software for non-Apple set-boxes who may or may not be worried that Apple’s box won’t be added next to his box, but instead replace it. Thanks for the newsflash, Mr. Burrows. Why don’t you just post Abe’s press releases verbatim next time? We know, we know, that’d be more work than you put into this article. And Apple TV is capable of high resolution, it’s Hollywood and/or Apple who have to bring the high def content to iTunes. Don’t incorrectly blame the hardware.
Burrows continues, “Of course, Apple could always adapt to a new paradigm in music or video distribution, but it may well require a greater degree of cooperation than Jobs will abide. Says a media titan who recently approached Jobs about exploring ways to work together but didn’t get far: ‘Steve doesn’t want partners.'”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Navy Tim” for the heads up.]
“Steve doesn’t want partners,” says one guy — sorry, nameless “media titan” — who perhaps had nothing of value to offer? Apple seems to partner perfectly well when they want to do so (examples: Disney, O2, CBS, Fox, AT&T Wireless, Google, etc.). Have fun trying to find “experts” in Burrow’s report who “say Apple will need to improve relations with the folks who create the content.” We can’t find any “experts” in Burrows’ article, unless, if by “experts,” Burrows means “Apple’s competitors and spurned suitors.” The one independent-seeming fellow in Burrows’ article who might be labeled “expert,” eMarketer analyst Paul Verna was quoted as saying, simply, “Everyone is flexing their muscles to prove they don’t need each other. But the truth is, they do.”
Randian, Why did you post ” GEORGE SOROS is an “ass without peer.” ” I find this to be way off topic while saying that Murdoch is an ass is within bounds since he IS a media mogul … while Soros is not and does not control movies, television and radio stations.
If you want to inject political bull**** into a conversation .. please go elsewhere.
Apple is great because it doesn’t play by all the established rules. However, it does play a “game.” Apple’s game looks several year further out than most of the other players, to define new markets (or redefine poorly established ones). The others play the “me too” game, which Apple specifically avoids. The others also play the “feature count” game, which Apple also tends to avoid. For those reasons, it is unlikely that Apple will release an “all-in-one” do everything set-top box. Instead, it will try to make Apple TV and iTunes into a solution that meets many of those needs.
Apple has had to fight for every inch of their existence since the companies inception. They know how much a bad relationship can cost them and they have little patience for small talk. Apple has flourished with little help from the business community or the press by simply making a better mousetrap and letting folks with open minds make the right choice. Their brash behavior is not just aimed at their business partners. It extends to their employees and their customers as well. Yet it seems when you unravel each story of rude behavior on Apples part you uncover a logical business decison at its root. ‘Lets all get along’ is a wonderful human concept, but stifles innovation and efficiency in business.
“And Apple TV is capable of high resolution, it’s Hollywood and/or Apple who have to bring the high def content to iTunes. Don’t incorrectly blame the hardware.”
God damn it! Stop protecting Apple’s shortcomings! It does NOT support trueHD and hence it’s useless. It does NOT support XviD/DivX so all the movies you already have aren’t playable on it.
The appleTV sucks ass, mac mini is the only way to fly!
Looking forward to the keynote
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Sorry, but I’m going to have to not partake of the kool-aid on this one. Apple TV is the least successful of its recent products out there, even Steve referred to it as a ‘hobby’ instead of a ‘business’. And a lot of it has to do with what was mentioned in the article. I don’t want another box to watch stuff on iTunes that a) doesn’t replace something else and b)costs 3-400 bucks.
Either put in at least a DVD optical drive or DVR capabilities to it, and let me plug in an external hard drive using USB for storage. As it stands, AppleTV is a ‘close, but no cigar’ product.
And you know, Apple could always adopt an ’embrace, then extinguish’ approach with the product. They could get the content on the boxes, and then see their negotiating power increase with the content producers as more and more people flock to it.
Yes, I agree that people don’t need another box on top of their TV or in their media stack. What would it take for Apple to change AppleTV so that it is not a box added but a box that replaces? Not a partnership with companies that go to the extreme to limit the abilities of users to control, timeshift, and use the content that best suits their lifestyle.
In a nutshell, the AppleTV needs to be able to capture and record content from a variety of sources. Become a DVR. Add a small finger-sized receiver, digital converter like the EyeTV to the AppleTV and a software interface for recording broadcast, cable and digital video signals as well as convert old analog signals to digital. And possibly add a drive (blu-ray or combo) that allows users to convert the DVD collection and store it with their other digital media and that’s it. Simple.
I suspect that one of the major things holding Apple back from making AppleTV an insanely great product of managing media is the partners in the movie industry who do not 1) want users to be able to copy their current DVD to digital and 2) do not want Apple to give users the ability to do basically what the VCR did in its day – timeshift content by recording and storing it.
Sounds like they may have started with the price of movies to buy in iTunes. No way I’m paying movie studios $14-16 for a movie and wait to download it and not have a DVD case and…
meh, you get it.