Report: Apple TV to stream 99 cent TV show rentals - Page 2

Whats the best way to beat cable companies? Bypass them!

I think cable service and cable companies are a real red herring. We could all go crazy trying to think of ways to beat the cable companies, but in the end Apple should just side step them. Just like how Apple isn't trying to be a cell carrier, they shouldn't try to be a cable company.

We already know that Apple doesn't think that a standalone box is going to be successful with the mass market. We also know that the cable companies are too big to beat. So how do you get into people's living rooms? Well, what is the one thing that every cable/sat/DVR/Apple TV customer has? A TV! Even people who don't have cable/sat have TVs.

The heart of the living room is the TV. So if Apple can sell a TV then they become first in line to also sell ondemand content onto that TV. Movie rentals, television episodes, etc right there in the TV. No extra box needed, no cable/sat needed... The user can just turn on their TV and start spending money.

Everybody else is trying to compete by adding boxes to the TV. So why struggle to get noticed in that mess? Why not just be the TV? Let everybody else be the afterthought.

Well it's another move forward I guess, but it's not what we really want from an Apple TV is it?

I think we should all wave placards with various messages and stand outside Apple headquarters and chant.

What do we want? 1080p movies.
When do we want it? Now!

What do we want? Movie subscriptions.
When do we want it? Now!

What do we want? Full blown web browser.
When do we want it? Now!

Not very cult-like behaviour but just keep this going until they give in.

You cannot just simply bypass the cable companies anymore. They have been buying up companies to attempt to prevent this from happening. Time Warner owns HBO. Comcast now owns NBC/Universal and the ton of cable channels that these companies own such as Syfy, Bravo, AMC, etc.. Recently OTA networks have asked for and received extremely high fees from cable companies to show their channels. Apple would hav to prove that everyone could make more money through iTunes than what they make now. I don't know if that's possible.

The main problem with Apple making their own TV is that all of Apple's products are priced on the high end. The TV is like the PC business where most sales are on the low end with companies like Vizio. People will generally not pay for high priced TVs especially since many can't even the tell the difference between 720p and an upscaled DVD.

I'd love for this to happen but Apple still seems to be at a point where they can't even get a subscription service deal from these networks. Maybe iAds will help.

It's headaches like this which is the reason that piracy exists. The networks may not even care since TV viewership is higher than it's ever been.

If you're watching TV rentals occasionally then I'd say this is the perfect price. But if we assume iTunes is gonna replace one's TV habits completely - it could potentially get crazy.
Let's say you're watching TV 2 hours a day. Perhaps that equals to 2 rentals a day = $60 a month. I dunno.. No, I take it all back. It doesn't seem so crazy after all. But in order to replace TV they ought to have a news channel - and I guess sports would drive interest too. Is there news and sports on iTunes now? I wouldn't know. It'll never be available to me anyway since I'm not in the US...

Not a chance. TVs are very low margin, and incredibly competitive. Pioneer tried to sell premium TVs and look what happened there.

Apple's best chance is a cheap set top box with a content subscription deal so compelling people will ditch their CATV subs.

Completely disagree...

TV is a mature market and Apple always avoids entering them (smartphone market was new, tablet is new). TVs are way too much under price pressure, and differentiating seems hard. Then you must license a ton of patents, you have to add HD 1080, 3d tv, you name it.
Many people already own a TV, the lifespan of a tv is, for the majority of people, a lot longer than the one of a smartphone or a computer (iPad remains to be seen).

I wouldn't enter that market. I would pursue the idea of an iOS 4 device, interconnected, which has apps (specifically designer for it), which streams and has an HD on board for storage and which consumes very little electricity.

That said, I am not head of a multibillion dollar company which seems to be printing money. So I'll let the ones who seem to master technology figure out what they think is best. Provided quality is top notch.

Having a plethora of TVs over the years makes it impossible to support an App ecosystem. Prices are too high. Give people a separate device and they might change it more often than the TV set.
My two cents.

+1 for "sayin' it like it is!" I was thinking exactly the same thing.

More than a couple shows a week for teens is not cool. Even if they're caught up with homework and studying, there are a zillion other better things to do.

I can't imagine Apple getting into the TV business. Too complicated and too little value - added for the UI - which is what Apple specializes in. How many people have trouble using a TV? Almost none.

The various devices surrounding the TV would be a different matter. My ex still struggles to figure out how to change from TV to watching a DVD. A time-shifting device would be beyond her capabilities (and that's even using a Harmony remote which makes things much easier). I could picture Apple selling a device that plays optical disks (hopefully Blu-Ray), streams video, handles Cable TV, records your shows, possibly even a built-in audio amplifier for surround, etc - a true all-in-one box.


That's exactly the point. If Apple were to offer such a service, I doubt very much that they would intend for it to be for EVERYONE. Apple has historically chosen niches to dominate. The fact that there are some people who watch TV 10 hours per day and would find $0.99 per show to be too expensive doesn't negate the fact that there are also people who watch so little TV that they'd save money with this type of plan. My family watches little TV (maybe 3 hours per week, max) and a plan like that might be less expensive. I'm not sure we'd switch, though, since most of what we watch are cable channels that would probably be hard for Apple to get.


Exactly. Apple's value-added proposition is in ease of use and reliability. TVs are already extremely reliable and easy to use. it's pretty hard to see what Apple could offer in a TV that would justify the high margins they need.

A set-top box, maybe (see above), but even there, there are a lot of strong vested interests that Apple would have to overcome.

I think offering both options is a WIN/WIN for consumers, Apple and content providers.

Movies are 48-hours... it's important because it allows you to watch half one night and half at the same time next night, which is important for tired workers.

I would also pay to rent a TV show, but would want it on my Mac not Apple TV.

you can rent a two hour movie from the Redbox across the street for $1 and TV show episodes tend to be 30 minutes of content.

Looking at the numbers Redbox is providing two hours of value for $1. If they can do this I don't see why Apple couldn't figure our a way to do it streaming rather than making me hit up a Redbox.

It ends up being a cost of $0.25/30 minutes of content. That's what I'm doing these days as it's providing the best value to me.

How about streaming live sport at last?

I would pay even $5-$10 per event.... just to avoid paying networks for bulk subscription to majority of nothing interesting to me.

For now I have to use shadowy web sites to get that streaming because i am not paying any contracts for "1 milion channels" that are useless to my interest and I need about select 10 of them from time to time.

This rental model may be a step in the right direction, but I want an affordable subscription service like others have already talked about. I pay a fixed amount per month whether I watch a million different shows, or the same show a million times. And I will never buy any content as long as it has DRM.

I don't know about you, but even with my HDPVR, I pay about $50 per month to Rogers. You really aren't bargaining well if you pay $80 for cable. So under this pay-per-use model, for me, that would mean about 50 shows, or about 50 hours (at most...assuming they are all 1 hr shows....a wildly optimistic assumption) of TV a month. Not a bad deal...if you live alone.

But I foresee several problems:

1) HD - You can get shows in full 1080p. Will Apple be able to match that?
2) Bandwith - Can you imagine the internet subscription you'll need to download 50 hrs of HDTV every month? I don't know about the US, but here in Canada, home internet has bandwith caps. Right now, I can survive on a 25GB per month cap.
3) Sports - Best watched live. What's Apple going to do about providing this?
4) Replay - When I watch something interesting, I often save it for weeks or months to show to friends and family when they come over, if I know they'd be interested in it.
5) Channel surfing - Slam the hundreds of channels all you want. But we all know that we've discovered new shows by surfing and spontaneously trying out a show. Do you really want to pay $1 every time to try out a new series?

Given all these issues, I can see this being a supplemental service, or at best a full cable replacement for a single person. Anything beyond that is questionable. I am pretty sure, my girlfriend watches more than 50 hrs of A&E, HGTV and the Food Network alone every month. And that just works out to an hour or two every day. I can't imagine how pricey this proposal would be for a family or even somebody who's a regular couch potato.

What makes you so sure the content providers will play with Apple, when the cable companies provide a highly profitable alternative?

And what makes you so sure that people will fork out so much for an iTV? You can get a top quality 40 inch LCD for under $1000, here in Canada. I am sure, it's even cheaper in the US. What makes you think will pay more only to then turn around and pay even more for their content which comes with far less flexibility?

The iPhone precedent has been brought up. But people forget lots of things. Smartphones were rather niche and cumbersome when the iPhone came along. High end TVs aren't really a niche product today and they are relatively easy to use. Plug in your HDMI cable into your cable box and your coax into your cable box and you are good to go. Next was the price. In 2007, people were paying hundreds of dollars for their Motorola RAZRs. A few hundred more for a remarkable gain in capability wasn't a stretch. What's Apple going to bring to the table that's a marked jump over what the current cable company offers? And is it worth 50% more (for example) on the cost of you TV? And then there's subscriptions. Getting a data plan over and above a cellphone plan was a marginal expense. And it didn't change usage. It just added functionality (data). In this case, you could end up paying more for less. And your usage pattern would be altered significantly. For starters, no repeat watching and only 30 days to start and 24 hrs to finish watching a show. Not to mention the introduction of buyer's remorse into the realm of TV watching. So this idea that bringing a TV service to market would be just like the iPhone is certainly questionable....the context is not the same. The TV experience isn't as substantially behind as the smartphone experience was.

Lastly, this idea that Apple has to sell a TV to sell its service. What logic is there in that? Why do they have to sell TVs to sell you the TV service? If they do that and restrict access to the TV service, it would actually hurt the uptake of this service. The ideal to make it accessible to the billions of people who already have HDTVs at home. For these people, they need a box not another TV.

You can't blame Apple, its the TV studios, but this is still another fail.

People don't and won't see streaming over dl'ing as a convenience. If it were, then the price would not have to go down to make it seem more attractive.

This translates to: "We're going to charge a little less, but offer less, so in short, we all lose."

This may be fine for an Apple TV device that is stationary, powered, and always connected.

This is a terrible model for Apple's iOS portables, most of which do not have 3G (half of iPads, all iPod touch, etc..), those with 3G now have limited plans, and streaming video battery life is absolutely positively terrible.

I'm sorry but I don't see one single benefit here for iOS device users.

Not. One.

This is the single worst business-related comment I have ever read on this site...or, anywhere for that mater.

You're comparing 3 successes of Apple's, all of which are done in markets that Apple has invented, to one of the oldest and most mature technology markets in the world.

Absolutely laughable Apple's Macs, iPhone, and iPods are unique devices in their category and have defined, niche markets. Those niches happen to be majorities in the music player, and now in the smartphone market.

There is no market or category or even niche for an Apple branded TV. I have no doubt that they might do a physical TV, but not before taking another shot (or two) at the current AppleTV product model, both of which will fail by comparison to other Apple product lines. The new iOS Apple TV will have the most success of any Apple TV product. The actual TV set coming a year or two down the line will be an utter failure.

I'd be interested if it was $0.99 TV show purchases. A monthly fee for unlimited rentals or streaming would make more sense.

I think it depends how you define the TV market. The TV market as a whole might seem mature because there are a bunch of established players selling similar products via similar channels. In my mind though there is a new category of TV/display that will emerge over the coming years: the connected TV. This market is totally fragmented and immature although the big players are dabbling in it (with awful results). In my mind there are similarities here with the smartphone market, which was a small but emerging piece of the larger more mature cellphone market.

Google sees this and their approach is to have a box and also load their software on other OEM TV hardware. Hmm... sounds exactly like their cell phone strategy. So when we look to Apple we can expect them to mirror their iPhone strategy, which is to make both their own hardware and software.


Sure that might be the easy thing to do, but how exactly would you make money on this model? And would it even be successful? How many people are going to buy a $99 box to add to their TV? Aside from us geeks I don't think many would. Certainly people aren't going to preorder millions of them like the latest iPhone or iPad.


Apple's value adds are ease of use, reliability, quality and appealing industrial design and last not least the Apple ecosystem. I think these could make a rather compelling TV if executed well.

As for ease of use I don't think existing TVs are easy to use. They generally are if you are just flipping channels and adjusting the volume. But what about the emerging connected TV market? So far those are anything but easy to use and they accomplish very little.

The MP3 player market existed before the iPod. Apple just made a better player. The smartphone market existed before the iPhone. Apple just made a better smartphone. And the computer market existed before Apple made the successful iMac and Mac Books. Apple just made a better computer.

Apple didn't invent any of these markets. They just recognized the piece of the market that was growing and made a better product for that piece.

This makes the Hulu+ service look totally awesome.

For the price of 10 rentals, I can see a bunch of different content for $9.99 with Hulu+.

Netflix for $8.99 (or $10.99 Blu-ray) and $9.99 Hulu+ gives you a good deal of content.

I like the idea of streaming options. I hope more networks get on board with streaming.

I would rather pay $50 a month for tons of streaming content that paying the same or more for cable or satellite.

agreed
when i lost 5 episodes
the only way itunes could rewcver the lpst 5 was to give me back every thing i ever bought frpm day one
music movies and tv shows
well 7 days of downloads
and scorers upon scores of tv shows
besides batle str galactica i did not really want these back


anyway i saw that i would rather pay 99cts or 1.2octs for hd rather than owning the first season of ""lie to me ""
i e would have saved hundreds of dollars

oddly except for high end HD shows
HULU >>NETFLIX or the TV station itself has the same shows for free or almosty free.

why buy at all ??

apple should sell shows for 99cts in HD // bluray and store copies for us in there new server farm cloud .

apple seems like they can do no wrong lately

nano phone is coming


9

agreed >>almosty
HULU >>AMAZON may just kill off some broad band companies
cept for live stupid yellow news
its all the same

A move from a $2 buy to $1 rental could have some pretty negative impacts. Based on some of Jobs recent comments, I don't think Jobs really understands why digital music works and what people want in digital video. I also get a sense of reluctance to try other business plans.

Apple in the transition to a consumer electronics company has changed from the Apple Computer days (having been a solid Apple fan since 1992). Previously they were fine being an expensive niche, by virtue that they didn't really have much of a choice to survive. But w/ the advent of the iPod, and now iPhone & iPad, they are only into products they can move millions of units a year in, even tens of millions of units/yr. I don't think anything they plan on releasing from here on out would be considered an internal success w/ sales less than a few million.

So a TV would be crazy expensive, they'd be competing a market where even w/ Apple TV integrated, there is little to differentiate in (less than in computers like OS X vs. Windows) and they would only move a few 100k a year on a good estimate.

So what does that leave; exactly what all the rumors are pointing at, a slimmed down box that is cheap and distributes the functionality of Apple's iOS for living room to everyone w/ a TV, ie millions and millions of units a year.

The more iOS devices Apple sells, the better economies of scale they have, especially for A4 processors and such. They were never able to get such large economies of scale w/ Macs because they unit count was so small compared w/ the Windows world. But now Apple has among the largest economies of scale, from flash memory, to ARM processors, to screens and so on. Adding a few more million units for the aTV that is basically an iPod touch w/o a screen would just throw that much more scale into the equation.

Why limit the near limitless possibilities of the aTV device to all iOS users to the few willing to shell out a fortune for an actual Apple TV, when they can move iTunes and iOS-living room into their near iOS base of 100 million devices?

None of your examples mean anything:

TV - ease of use. Even a moron can use a TV today. It is going to be extraordinarily difficult to make it any easier to use a TV. No way to add value (it is, of course, possible to make the entire TV ecosystem - cable box, DVD player, stereo, VHS, etc easier to use, but that doesn't require any improvements to the TV - just a better set top box).

Reliability. TVs have extraordinary reliability today. Even the worst TVs have a couple percent DOA rates - far lower than even the best computers. The best TVs have almost no out of box failures - so how is Apple going to beat them?

Industrial design. Compared to someone like Dell, it was easy.Or the average phone. Or MP3 player. But TVs already have great design. Heck, with some companies like Sony bringing 50+ years of TV design experience, Apple has a lot of catching up to do.

Performance? There is a tiny subset of people who buy TVs for exceptional performance characteristics (faster refresh, 'blacker blacks', etc). However, the majority of those claims are blatant lies. Read up on TV refresh rates some time. Not to mention that even a bad TV today is good enough to give a stellar picture. Even if Apple were able to improve TVs further (which may not be easy since it's not among their core capabilities), only a diminishingly small number of people would pay a significant premium - AND MOST OF THEM WOULD NEVER BUY AN APPLE TV.

The Apple Ecosystem has value, but it has far more value as a separate set top box. Instead of trying to design a series of TVs in all different sizes, they design one set top box -which customers can use with any TV they choose.

Point by point i agree with you. Apple couldn't possibly compete with the major TV manufacturers. Sure it would be a great way to get into the TV market, but if they are going for the biggest bang for the buck, selling millions of aTV's for $99 is way more favorable than selling a few 100k TV's for a huge price. Let's just speculate here that Apple would probably go for 2 models, a 46" and a 55" selling for an estimated $2399 and $3199. This is based on the fact that their 30" Cinema Display goes for $1799, and some top end TV models (non 3D) range about those prices.

Here's where I start SPECULATING, so don't jump down my throat for making baseless preditions.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Vizi...-US/1187632284
In a BetaNews article:
It is estimated that in 2000, there was a total 101 million TV sets in the USA. In 2007, Vizio had the highest grossing number of TV sales with 604 thousand units sold. If Apple did the same, which is unlikely considering they are a High-End Manufacturer. That same year, Sony sold 264 thousand set ranking 6th in overall sales, closer to what Apple woudl probably sell.

Given that, if Apple sold 250k TV's in a year, that's = $700 million.
If Apple sold 6-10 million aTV's at $99 a pop, that's = $800 million.

It's a close call after you do some educated guessing, but i still think that the STB is the more likely solution Apple will go for. Plus, if more people buy into the STB, you'd get more rentals, movie/games/music/apps purchases with over 300% more users. But they may suprise us all with both versions, the STB and the all-in-one TV. Who knows, but it'll be interesting to watch.

Personally, I would go for the STB. I have a TV, Blu-Ray and home theater set-up that i'm pretty satisfied with for the time being. Bought it all in 2006 and probably won't buy another TV untill 2016 at the least, or untill it breaks. Had my last TV (JVC 31" CRT) for 15 years.

For most users (even those who have the digital over-the-air converter boxes) TV UI's hardly get used at all, save for picture adjustments and switching sources from TV to DVD to Gaming. Most people have either a cable, SATV, Dish, or even Converter boxes that control the TV.

Music you get to keep, this is a rental. I totally agree that .99 for rental is way too much vs own it for 1.99. Shoot for .25 and they might get somewhere, or offer whole season rental at like 2.99.

With services like Hulu and Netflix as well as easily available RedBox people really don't want to pay the rental premiums that Apple is currently charging. They really need to drop their SD rental costs significantly. If I knew I could rent it from Apple for like 1.50 I probably would, save gas and no need to worry about returns.

HD rentals can stay where they are at, it's a pretty fair price already.

I love the idea of renting because those old TV shows really clutter up the Apple TV and subsequently the iTunes server. I'd rather risk the occasional re-rental than store those old shows. Following is my idea to minimize "premature" re-rentals.

If my daughter rents a show (say, Community) via the Apple TV on Friday, my son might watch it with friends on Saturday and my wife and I would like to be able to watch it too, but not until Sunday night.

Why not have the rentals stay valid for the typical period between episodes? If it is a nightly show, then it is fine with me if the rentals last 24 hours, once begun. If it is a weekly show, then 7 days, once begun, seems fair.

.

Please, someone tell us how much USA spends annually on "entertainment" ?

TV, Movies, Sports, Leisure, Useless Eating Out, Farting Around ?

Add up ALL of those - and whatever else you can think of ?

Bet we're talking Trillion$, yes ?

And all of it wasted, non-productive, dragging Real Economy, etc

.

Yes, the Real Economy

Doing "stuff" and/or producing "things" that MAKE money for us, the USA

If we were exporting all of those TV Shows, Movies, Sports, etc ?

THEN we'd have something, but sorry, nope

We're just collectively jerking each other off - merely moving around the Monopoly Money

As we send any "profits" to China or out exhaust pipe of Car

THAT, in general broad-brush-stroke-terms, is the Real Economic Crisis that came 2 years ago

But has been building for 40+

.

We need to grow up - get over our juvenile junkie sugar rush of constant entertainment

And when we do "take a break" - make it for something worthy

Please, so many of you talk about $0.99 like it's nothing, and for what ?

99.999% of TV/Movies/Sports/etc ARE nothing - not worth $0.09

(and you'd want to watch them over and over ? )

.

Now, all that being said, consider this ...

(once the idiot "Entertainment Moguls" get out of the way and let guys like Steve manage this)

Sell or Rent "stuff/movies/tv/etc" to OTHER Countries, WE make the money from THEM (not each other here in USA)

And, screw that $0.99 or $1.99 stuff

Make it $0.25 or $0.05 - are almost 7,000,000,000 potential customers, and growing

Even if rent one TV show a day to 1/2 of China ?

Lotta damn Nickels



.

p.s.

And bet much, if not most, of the World is like many of us

Doubtful will pay even that $0.05 for the junk out there

Barely worth download for Free from Usenet or BitTorrent



.

A $10 to $15 per month "all you can eat" plan is much better than charging per item. Even though 99c isn't a lot, it still means I have to decide whether or not I want to spend my buck on a show that maybe I don't like. It limits exploration. It makes it feel like you're dealing with a constrained resource. I love Netflix, because I never have to worry about these things.

Before I had a Netflix account I sometimes would rent using my AppleTV. Now I almost never do. $5 on a movie is a third of my monthly Netflix charge. It seems ridiculously expensive in comparison. I can easily watch 15 movies a month with Netflix or about a 99c per movie. This compares well to the Redbox 99c movie rental. If Apple insists on doing an ala-cart model, that's the price point they should be looking at. So, if its 99c for a movie, how about 25c for a half hour show, and 50c for an hour show. That would seem a lot more fair.

i am cool with this if they offer both options. If not i think this idea sucks. There are some episodes i like so much that i want to "own it". Renting will not give me that option. If they offered both options i would be so on board and perhaps rent a lot more content even though i have 2 tivos storing 4TBs of programming. I'd prefer this to netflix only if they could match the deal as netflix is the cheaper option. i agree with the above post but i would rather use an appletv if they made the programming more affordable without taking away an options. They need to lower the cost of renting content for both SD and HD. Many times i can find the dvds for a lot less then what apple charges. I think in such cases they need to be adjusting the market price. That would make AppleTV more appealing. I just bought one so now i thinking perhaps it was a mistake.

Why does one size have to fit all?

U]Scenerio 00:[/U] I'm taking a long, intercontinental flight. I've checked the entertainment selection and I'm not interested. Also, either the WiFi is too slow to stream or, more likely, they don't offer any. I rent a bunch if TV shows, maybe even try a new one.

Scenerio 01: I don't have or want Netflix and have no DVR, but I've missed an episode in a series and don't want to plan for the rerun on a few months time while watching the rest out of order. I also don't want to wait weeks before it comes to Hulu or pay for Hulu Plus. I don't want to buy it because l, while I like this show, chances are I'll only watch it once.

Scenerio 10: I have a DVR, I have Hulu Plus, and I have Netflix, but my job has sent me to a location with pretty much no Internet. I have my iPad and a mediocre Internet at work that won't work for streaming because it's slow and because I'm busy, but it will let me slowly grab episodes of TV shows slowly over the work day.

Seems to me Apple is giving us another option. It makes no sense to offer what the offers offer with no change. The one thing Apple has going for it is the ubiquity of iDevices and iTunes enabled PCs/Macs, and 8 kazillion accounts that have shown they are willing to pay a little more for less quality if it's convenient enough (eg: iTMS).

For me, this is the option I've been asking for (seriously, I've been posting here for years asking for iTS TV rentals (and App Store trials) using teir exploding FairPlay DRM).

The only other alternative I can think of is using personal buying habits to interfuse ads at various intervals. This can be done by keeping the video chopped and ads put in, server-side, when you make the purchase. QT 7 can put these in a container almost instantly on my Mac so I imagine it would be child's play for iTS. This could allow you to get ad-fused content that can be viewed offline for a set time frame. They can easily make the player not jump ahead during commercial breaks.

I'm not sure, but I think its possible as long as anything Apple provides is complimentary to cable service rather than a direct replacement for cable service. Apple has to prove that this would increase revenues, not merely cannibalize them. Did iTunes reduce music sales? Or did it save the music industry?

Most people are always going to want the ability to turn on the TV and flip through the channels to see whats on. They want the ability to record a variety of shows and to discover new shows that they may not already be watching. This experience can't be replaced by oddball buy/rent per episode services or by the rumoured Apple TV series subscription service. All it takes is for one show to be missing from this availability and the user will default back to cable service.

Considering this I think its possible that Apple could offer a complimentary service and allow customers to buy/rent content ondemand and in addition having cable service. This is in fact what they are already doing with Apple TV, but the execution is hindering its success. Cable companies can keep their subscribers and the networks can continue to sell shows to both the cable companies and via services like iTunes.

This dual delivery model is already starting to establish itself (cable service plus ondemand content). The problem is that its moving at such an excruciatingly slow pace. What we need is someone with a disruptive technology to enter the market and stir things up. Google and Apple are both well positioned to do this because they don't have a vested interest in the existing cable market.

Now, if the cable companies are successful in gobbling up all the good networks and gain control of all the good content then we're in trouble.


Apple already sells a box. If a separate box is the solution why hasn't Apple TV taken off yet? Apple can't keep doing what they've been doing for 3 years and expect different results. Cutting the price of the box and cutting the price of the content isn't going to have any impact. Its like telling GM that the solution to all their problems would have been to lower their prices. Its not pricing thats the problem, its execution.

I have to wonder if ANY of you bother actually READING the article: "Apple is reportedly in talks with TV studios to sell them on the idea of renting TV episodes for 99 cents rather than selling downloads for $1.99."

I could see the logic if the price differential was 9.99 (buy) vs 2.99 (rent) but this idea assumes the average iTune user is a total and utter moron.

I have to ask just what idiot would not spend the extra 1.00 to own the episode they got when ever they felt like again and again if they wanted.

I guess us idiots that only want to watch a show once. I've deleted some scenerios a couple posts up showing clear examples why this option is food for consumers.

I don't think their use of the word "rather"us accurate. I see no reason the sales would not be included next to the rentals, just like their movies.

Its the opposite for me, anyway 2$ buy option will still be there you just buy in itunes on a mac then stream it to your tv after assuming you have the "new" Apple TV with no HD.