“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