Apple original content

[Andrew Kimery]

I think Apple’s first big misstep was not rebranding the iTunes store a decade ago (or whenever they started offering movies and TV shows). If the store was called The Apple Media Store (or something like that) then you could have Music, Movies & TV Shows, Apps, etc., all under that umbrella. On the flip side, iTunes had great branding at the time so I’m sure they were loathe to lose that momentum.

Another confusing thing, and this isn’t Apple’s fault, is that many TV/cable networks now have their own apps in order to watch their content which just muddies the waters more. Ex, if I want to watch the Green Arrow TV show on my device I have to download the CW app. Yes, it’s an app, but the only thing the app does is let me watch free TV shows… so what’s the best heading to put it under? Apps or TV?

If Apple ever offers a skinny bundle cable subscription it will get even more layered because now if someone wants to watch Green Arrow they can either buy it from the iTMS, watch the most recent episodes for free via the The CW app, or watch it live (or on DVR) using their skinny bundle.

I think this is why the ‘holy grail’ of this mess is to put all the different stores in the background and focus on search. I go “Hey Siri, I want to watch the Green Arrow TV show” and Siri will just find Green Arrow regardless of what service it’s on. Microsoft has been doing this for a while with the Xbox and Xbox One, but I don’t think the results factor in OTA or cableTV.

[Craig Seeman]

[Andrew Kimery] “If Apple ever offers a skinny bundle cable subscription it will get even more layered”

Of course you can now buy a DirecTV subscription with 100 channels and view on their AppleTV app
https://directvnow.com/appletv#

BTW I watch Green Arrow on Netflix App on AppleTV

[Charlie Austin]

We have yet to see where the new streaming video will go, maybe they’ll change Apple Music to Apple Media.
But currently, it’s basically exactly the same on any Apple device:
On iOS Devices:
A-Go to the App store to get apps
B-Go to the iTunes Store to rent or buy movies/tv shows and buy music
C-Go to Apple Music if I want to listen to my music or stream stuff.
D-Go to iBooks for stuff that’s printed

On tvOS:
A-Go to the App Store to get apps
B-iTunes store is built in so… Click the appropriate button to rent/buy movies/tv shows
C-Go to Apple Music to stream music or link to my Library to listen to music
D-Go to iBooks for stuff that’s printed

On macOS:
A-Go to the App Store to get apps
B-Go to iTunes, and click on the Store tab to rent/buy movies/tv shows, or buy music
C- Go to Apple music to stream music.
D-Go to iBooks for stuff that’s printed
Bonus! in macOS iTunes I also backup and manage my iOS device(s) content and apps.

Would definitely be nice if Apple apps (or any all apps with iBooks or ATV content had a link to it in the help menu or something, but it all seems pretty logical to me. You really want everything in one place? That’s why iTunes is considered to be a mess on macOS right?

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~\”It is a poor craftsman who blames his tools.\”~
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~\”The function you just attempted is not yet implemented\”~

[Craig Seeman]

[Charlie Austin] “You really want everything in one place? “

That’s I mention the Mall concept. I need to get from one place to another or at least know that a complimentary item is in the next store.

They’re starting to do that to some extent between iOS and tvOS. If you download an app on one that has a complimentary app in the other, you’ll see that when you go that “store.” I think it can be done better because, currently, you may not know such complimentary exists until you happen to go into the other store. I think you should be alerted in tvOS that the complimentary iOS exists. When you get to iOS store you see it (I think that happens now).

So I download FCPX in Mac App Store there should be “passage” to iBooks to get the Manual.
When i buy Telemprompt+ for my iPad in io Store I should know they have a complimentary version in Mac App Store.

The challenge with music/video content is that I should look for Movie X and know whether I can get it as Buy, Rent or, Subscription and I should be able to watch on the device of my choice, iOS, tvOS, macOS. The problem in executing that gracefully may involve how they’re licensing. Buying and Renting Music is in a different place than Subscription and that complicates it in my opinion.

[Bill Davis]

And it’s going to get worse before it gets better.

I currently have access to 4 paid content subscription services. Some shows show up on all of them – some on one or two – some are exclusive to only one – and some shows I hear about and would love to watch show up on NONE of them – only via Pay Per View.

Plus the local area services are now getting into the act. My local cable provider Cox Communications, has their Contour Streaming service. Half the time when I watch something on it it’s free. But if I elect to watch something more recent and verypopular (e.g. Guardians of the Galaxy) – BOOM – Commercials appear every 20 minutes in the stream.

The whole thing is a massive MESS out there.

NetFlix has the best model, IMO- but if you decide you want to access something NOT currently on their feed you’re schrooged. It’s a kinda a hybrid push/pull model. You get to “pull” the content you want – but only if they’ve “pushed” it first!

Creator of XinTwo – https://www.xintwo.com
The shortest path to FCP X mastery.

[Craig Seeman]

[Bill Davis] “I currently have access to 4 paid content subscription services. Some shows show up on all of them – some on one or two – some are exclusive to only one – and some shows I hear about and would love to watch show up on NONE of them – only via Pay Per View. “

At least regarding finding all this, Apple is probably hoping that the Apple TV app will be the “Mall” where you can find it. They’ve got a ways to go and I’m not sure it’ll get where we’d want it to be. You’ll have to have all the separate subscriptions, rentals, purchases, etc. but, in theory, you’d know where you need to go to get what.

My own guess is when Apple adds Original Video Content to Music, it’ll appear on the Apple TV app as well… and they’ll start to think about a unified system. Otherwise they’ll deepen their own fragmentation in which Original Content is in Music on iTunes but NOT on the Apple TV app. Personally I think they’ll have no choice but to sort this out if they want to maximize reach.

[Andrew Kimery]

[Craig Seeman] “The challenge with music/video content is that I should look for Movie X and know whether I can get it as Buy, Rent or, Subscription and I should be able to watch on the device of my choice, iOS, tvOS, macOS. The problem in executing that gracefully may involve how they’re licensing”

For playing back on different devices there might be licensing restrictions (i.e. you can play it back on a computer or mobile device, but not a TV), but for search I don’t think licensing would cause problems with that. Up until recently Microsoft had universal search on their video game consoles. For example, if I did a search for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine it would look at all the services I had available to me (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, Xbox Video, etc.,), return any relevant hits, and allow me to chose which service I wanted to watch the show on.

When they recently overhauled their search feature though the universal search disappeared and now searches only returns hits from Microsoft’s first party stores. Kinda blows and I’m hoping universal search will return.

[Bill Davis] “NetFlix has the best model, IMO- but if you decide you want to access something NOT currently on their feed you’re schrooged. It’s a kinda a hybrid push/pull model. You get to “pull” the content you want – but only if they’ve “pushed” it first! “

I’m more a fan of Amazon’s model where you have access to your subscription media and rent/buy media side by side. Netflix does have a better browsing experience though.

[Tim Wilson]

[Andrew Kimery] “Netflix does have a better browsing experience though.”

Ah, but Roku has the best search experience!

Load up all your favorite apps, including Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, the TV-network-specific apps (CBS All Access, HBO Go, Disney, etc etc), your favorite niche stuff (Documentary Depot? TED? Sure, why not?), et. al., and Roku searches over 100 of them all at once, listing price, whether subscription is required, all kinds of stuff.

Crazy amount of control, too. For just one example, you can set an alert for when a specific title becomes available for free, when something new from your favorite actor or director becomes available, all kinds of stuff. It really is insane.

This is obviously not unlike the Microsoft game console universal search, but really, truly souped up, and rapidly expanding. The feature rolled out in early 2016 with just a handful of channels, and jumped from 50 to over 100 a few months back.

Here are more details. It’s from the Roku blog, which they’re assuming you’re reading in order to keep up with the rapidity and breadth of the updates. This isn’t even the most impressive or best-illustrated description. Just the latest.

I’m skipping over stuff like streaming 4K/60fps/HDR for under $100 (and yes, it looks stunning) because I’m only talking about search for the moment…but this is another example of where folks who are focused primarily on what Apple is up to are not just years behind what’s happening in the rest of the world, but years behind ????, for no good reason. There’s nothing about this that any Apple user will find difficult or disorientingly foreign….except for the whole notion of tech that’s open, innovative, and sparks constant discovery. Hey, THOSE were the days, amirite? ????

[Tim Wilson]

[Scott Witthaus] “[Oliver Peters] ” you gotta wonder whether the post teams for such shows would be “encouraged” to use Apple hardware and specifically FCPX.”

If the check is big enough, the production company will make that happen.”

True, but that might also be a first. Apple has always been pretty ecumenical about such things. Tools for the task and all that. Pixar was for a long time pretty much an all-Avid editing house, even when Jobs was president of the company. I certainly never got the impression that Pixar were being encouraged to use Macs.

That was a dozen years ago or more, so things may have changed. Does one of you know?

Although I can add a tangential geezerly observation. I’ve mentioned that my father was one of Apple’s original operations guys. Steve hired him in 1979 first to run the Dallas-area manufacturing facility, then all of US manufacturing, then running sales, distribution, and the channel. He built Apple’s retail operation from the ground up, and later invented the Apple store. Clever dude.

Back in 1979, 1980, even after the introduction of the Mac in 1984, it’s not like there was Apple-based software for ANY of this. Dad used what was available, and when Steve saw an IBM PC on his desk, fired him on the spot. Dad started packing his office without raising a fuss, because Steve fired people on the spot all the time. He meant it, too…but in this case, came back later and said to my father, there’s really not ANYTHING that runs on an Apple that can do this? No Steve, there’s really not. You have a company to run, and I have operations to run, and we have better things to do with our time than bang our heads on this kind of thing. The expense to develop something in-house would be astronomical, the timeframe to drive external development is too long, and has none of this has anything to do with our real goals. How about I get back to work on THOSE?

And so it came to pass. Steve told my father to unpack his stuff and get back to work on his IBM to build Apple’s business.

I wouldn’t want to say that Steve carried that lesson forward to his experience when he returned to Apple years later, and rather than bug out on what kinds of computers or software Pixar was using, left those decisions in the hands of people who had much higher priorities…but hey, he might have.

And while Tim Cook is a different manager in pretty much every way — and a better manager in pretty much every way, imo — I don’t get the impression that there are a lot of areas where he’s more tightly wound than El Jobso was. Quite the contrary. I’d think that this is near the bottom of the list of considerations, if it’s on the list at all.

I do think that if there are Macs anywhere in the production mix, though, that ProRes would be a no-brainer for sure….

[Andrew Kimery]

[Tim Wilson] “That was a dozen years ago or more, so things may have changed. Does one of you know?”

A year or two ago some AEs and editors at Pixar had a panel discussion at EditFest LA and they were still on Avid then so I’d assume they are still on Avid now. Mac or PC Avid? I don’t know. I assume all their 3D animators and render farms are still PC.

Along the same lines, when Apple first started having mobile POS ‘terminals’ in their stores they weren’t on Apple hardware until the iPhone becoming powerful enough for that task.