apple subscription service – Apple TV Hacks

Report: Apple TV 4 to be announced on September 9th

tomek — Sat, 08 Aug 2015 15:20:48 +0000

Following his previous report that the new Apple TV will be announced at Apple’s annual September event, BuzzFeed’s John Paczkowski now says that Apple is planning to held the event on September 9th.

Sources familiar with Apple’s plans tell BuzzFeed News the company intends to hold a special event the week of Sept. 7, with Wednesday the 9th being the most likely date.

The long-awaited Apple TV 4 is expected to be unveiled at this event:

Multiple sources familiar with Apple’s plans say Apple TV is currently part of the company’s fall event.

Apple TV 4 is expected to be slimmer than the current-generation model and feature Apple’s A8 chip, a new, “drastically improved” remote with touchpad, more on-board storage, an improved operating system with support for Siri voice control and a long-awaited App Store.

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Apple’s subscription internet-TV service, that was initially rumored to debut this fall alongside the new Apple TV, is now scheduled for Q4 or, more likely, even 2016 release, according to sources.

Back in March, we learned that Apple’s HDTV project had been dropped in early 2014 in favour of Apple TV 4.

Read more about Apple TV 4:

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Apple TV 4 with Siri and its own App Store to be unveiled in September

tomek — Fri, 31 Jul 2015 00:16:51 +0000

According to BuzzFeed’s John Paczkowski, a reputable source for Apple news, Apple is planning to introduce a new Apple TV model at its annual September event.

Sources familiar with Apple’s plans tell BuzzFeed News that the company intends to announce its next-generation Apple TV in September, at the same event at which it typically unveils its new iPhones.

At the September event, Apple is expected to release an Apple TV SDK.

Apple’s subscription internet-TV service, that was initially rumored to debut this fall alongside the new Apple TV, is now scheduled for Q4 or, more likely, even 2016 release, according to sources.

Back in March, we learned that Apple’s HDTV project had been dropped in early 2014 in favour of Apple TV 4.

Read more about Apple TV 4:

Be sure to follow Apple TV Hacks on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ for all the latest Apple TV-related news.

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Apple progressing in talks over its streaming TV service

tomek — Tue, 14 Jul 2015 16:24:47 +0000

Apple is moving forward with its Web TV service as talks with main networks are “rapidly gaining momentum”, The New York Post reports. According to The Post, Apple is currently in talks with ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox and it wants to launch the “as-yet-unnamed” service as soon as the late fall.

“The platform is ready and it rocks,” said one source.

Sources say that Apple wants to offer on the service local live TV feeds streamed on any Apple device.

Cable channels, including Discovery, will likely be part of the package as well — “as will ESPN, if Apple gets its way, sources said.”

The price of the service has not yet been decided. According to the “industry sources” it may range from $10 to $40 a month. The Wall Street Journal reported back in March that it will cost $30-$40 a month.

Apple is also expected to launch the next Apple TV model in the fall, with a slimmer profile, new operating system and interface, support for Siri and its own App Store.

Yesterday, Comcast unveiled its live Web TV streaming service called Stream.

Be sure to follow Apple TV Hacks on Twitter, Facebook or Google+ for all the latest Apple TV-related news.

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Apple wants to include local stations in subscription service, might delay the launch

Roshan — Mon, 25 May 2015 06:02:29 +0000

We already know that Apple is preparing their own video subscription service, and it was speculated to get launched in June at the WWDC 2015. However, a recent report by Re/code suggests that the launch might be a bit delayed, thanks to Apple’s ambitions to include local programming in the streaming service.

As originally reported, Apple’s subscription service will come with over 25 channels including ABC, CBS and Fox, and would be available at a monthly subscription fee of $30-$40.

But Apple apparently thinks this won’t be enough to lure in cable customers, as local stations would still need a cable connection. In order to encourage complete cord-cutting, Apple is taking it to the extreme by wanting to include local US stations in the streaming service.

This doesn’t look so odd to come from Apple as we reported recently that Apple halted their entire ultra-HDTV plans just because they couldn’t find a ‘breakthrough’ feature to compel users to switch.

However, addition of local channels to a subscription service of this magnitude is better said than done. For most cable operators, they only have rights to broadcast the channels and not the rights to the contents itself. Which means, Apple needs to engage individual stations separately to get their rights, and that takes time.

Business executives have told Re/code that Apple hasn’t started any such negotiations yet. A similar situation faced by HBO Go took them around 2 years to get the streaming rights to local channels. So it seems Apple is at least a few months, if not years, away from adding local stations to their subscription service.

At this time, Apple has two choices: to launch the service without local contents and add it later on or to delay the launch of the service itself. You might remember Gurman’s post on Apple TV 4, where he suggested that the next Apple TV will ship with current content model and the subscription service would be launched at a later date.

Reading all these together, we believe that we won’t see the launch of Apple’s subscription service at next month’s WWDC. However, the Apple TV 4 with better remote, new hardware, redesigned interface, Siri support and third-party apps is surely coming.