Apple to stream live iTunes Festival shows via Apple TV, iOS app

This is pretty cool. I'd love to see more "live" events with replays on iTunes.

Mehh... THIS does not a rumor make.

nope...its news...not rumor...

Sigh, yet another indication that Apple regards its typical customer as someone who is:

• In their late teens or early twenties

• Has no long-term aspirations of any sort

• Lives for their recreational activities

• Has the attention span of a gerbil

I'm no Windows fan, but at least Microsoft does market their products for adults who get work done.

Originally Posted by Inkling 

Sigh, yet another indication that Apple regards its typical customer as someone who is:

 

• In their late teens or early twenties

• Has no long-term aspirations of any sort

• Lives for their recreational activities

• Has the attention span of a gerbil

 

I'm no Windows fan, but at least Microsoft does market their products for adults who get work done.

You don't have one your username of what you're talking about.

A-ha.

Well, then, how about this:

- I am in my early fourties

- I have a job, and it works; I had plans and I will

- Given I'm German I had to look up the word "gerbil", but I do read books and I'm involved in complex projects that DO require some sort of an attention span.

I've used Macs for more than two decades now, and I do all my work with them. The iPhone is what finally got me on electronic calendaring and a number of other things. My business and work productivity would decline sharply if I had to cope with all of Windows' shortcomings, frequent updates, reboots and other time killers (and yes, I am using Win7 once in a while, and even setting up a printer takes about 5-10x as much time as on a Mac, so yes, it is FWOT of the worst kind).

And still.... Last year's iTunes festival had a wonderful lineup, and I will enjoy this year's, too, with the AppleTV live streaming further enhancing the experience. All Good.

Sorry, man. You are not someone I would ever hire; only people who can also play hard, and enjoy life - of which music is a good part - can, IMHO, work really hard if they need to... consumerization of IT is happening, and its what first drives those IT departments mad and crazy, but in the long run forces them to provide better service to their users. Users are more in control now than ever at their workplace, and Apple in general and SJ in particular deserve a big, big, big ThankYou for that. Just the number of users who have been freed from being forced to use the awful, crappy, ugly user interface of a Blackberry (for all but basic Email, which was good) or Nokia device while on the road is enough to justify all this. And yes, the iPhone is what it is because there was the iPod before it, and its music that triggered this huge change.

Cheers from Frankfurt 

Florian.

iTunes Festival is actually one of the great things Apple does. Everything is free, even watching it on your Mac, PC, iOS device or Apple TV (which, technically, is an iOS device). While I am not a huge fan of any of the artists, I do like Muse a bit. I'll check them out. Just for the heck of it, I checked out Usher, and the shows are extremely well-produced.

Most people know why they do this, and why it is done in September. Kids are back in school. Joe College will rock iTunes Festival on his iPad, and become his very own Apple advertisement. Some of his friends may buy an iPad or iPhone, and the ones that have these may download music or videos on iTunes. It's a good idea. It will also build brand loyalty. It's kind of like the Saturn picnic (anyone remember that?), but for hipsters.

I wrote an article on this on my site, if you are interested...

I have to agree with you on the classic Mac vs. PC debate. I have used Windows PCs for 20 years. I bought a Mac back in 2009. Macs are far superior. They don't crash. Maybe once in a while, a poorly developed app will crash, but I can count these occurrences on one hand. My Mac has never crashed. Not once. This is why Java EE and Ruby developers are switching to Macs big time. Managing a huge project on Eclipse is a nightmare on Windows. It is dead slow and crashes. Also, Macs are Unix machines. Eventually, most Java EE or Ruby developers will deploy to Unix or Linux. Getting a Ruby on Rails environment to work on Windows is quite a hack, and it won't match one's production environment.

That said, Apple's quality has gone downhill, particularly in the past year. Ever since iOS 5 came out, their products have become more buggy. Mainly, this is with iOS -- the iPad, iPhone, and Apple TV. However, sometimes iTunes on my Mac will bug out when it integrates with iOS. For example, the wifi iPad sync doesn't work well. At the very least, it continually syncs over files that should not be synced. At worst, it will not find the iPad, and I need to reboot my iPad to get it to work. Yes, Apple users are in league with Microsoft users, at least when it comes to iOS. We are rebooting now. In fact, I have now resigned myself to rebooting my Apple TV pretty much every time I use it. The good thing is that it does not take 2-8 minutes to reboot. My last Windows machine, which had some awful encryption software installed by the company I work for, would take 4 minutes to boot up, but really could not be used for another 4 minutes, as the hard drive was churning away, loading software. Ugh! When you couple that with crashes, it is a nightmare. I lost weeks of productivity per year, due to Windows. But you make that up on your time. In the US, there is not 40 hour week limit. If your Windows machine crashes, well you have to make up the time... Wonder why unemployment is so high, and productivity continues to increase? The American worker (particularly white-collar) is being squeezed... But I digress...

Windows is cheap. That's why corporations use it. They buy super cheap $200 DELL laptops, with a super-cheap site license for Windows. They make an image with Windows and all the other crap software they need to install, and install it on all their PCs.

Nowadays, developers at cool startups are getting the option of Windows or Mac. Most choose the Mac. But for your average corporate employee, they're going to get Windows. After all, most internal corporate software is web based, running on an intranet. They use Explorer and the Office suite, and that's pretty much it. For most people, Windows is good enough... Windows is going nowhere. I really doubt OS X will ever topple the dominance of Windows. It is so ingrained in corporate America. When it comes to home use, people know what they like and like what they know... So they buy a Windows machine. After all, you can get one for $300. Why spend over $1000 on a Mac and have to learn something new?

By the way, I actually own and operate a website that is quite critical of Apple. I also offer help and tutorials, not just blogosphere op-ed pieces. That said, I would not even consider going back to Windows. Windows 8 is going to be another disaster. It will be much like Vista. Microsoft has the curse of every other operating system being a total disaster. I think it is hubris. When they are conservative, and make a release with moderate changes, like Win 7, it works well. People like it. Then they get arrogant, and decide to make sweeping changes, and that's Win 8 (or Vista after the conservative XP release). Microsoft (and really any tech company) cannot make sweeping changes without massive defects. You heard it here -- Win 8 will make Vista seem like Windows XP!

A true Apple TV, screen and all, will be doomed unless Apple can speed up their back-end. The problem with watching iTunes content is that it takes several hours to download a one hour TV episode. Unless they invest in their data center and get it working fast, they will not be able to support streaming. No one is going to wait 4-8 hours to watch a one hour show. I have tested this out -- it is not my ISP. It is Apple's data center. It takes several hours to download a 1.5 GB episode. It should take 45 minutes. Even that is not acceptable.

I have to admit, the quality of an iTunes HD program is superior to a Netflix HD program. The Netflix HD has the proper resolution. It is HD. However, the motion is jerky and there is the "black problem". Basically, to save data, anything that is dark becomes jet black. It makes it easier to compress. So things like shadows, dark greys, dark browns, etc. appear to be black. Also, the entire picture is darkened to make for more blackening. Compare the same content on iTunes to Netflix. You'll see what I mean. iTunes is clearly superior. Sometimes it is worth the time and expense...

The truth is, most people won't notice or care. It depends on what you're watching. Something like Breaking Bad, which has amazing cinematography and breathtaking scenery of New Mexico, is noticeable. If it is some sitcom, it will not be noticeable.

I am interested to see how Apple deals with this. I don't think people will tolerate an entertainment ecosystem where they have to wait 4-8 hours to watch a 1 hour program. The predictions of bandwidth increases have not come true. Indeed, with the recession, ISPs are offering worse service than a few years ago. They are maxing out their data centers, and during peak hours you get a trickle. Sometimes you can't even watch Netflix... My ISP even admitted to this. I complained about the speed, and they said because people are downloading a lot, during peak hours, it slows it down for everything. Imagine that! People DOWNLOADING with their Internet service?!? What's next? Will people be making phone calls on their smart phone?!?

BTW, Netflix, despite their beat-down over a year ago, still takes in more money than Apple's iTunes video business. That's with a subscription service, where people can watch all they want for $8/mo.

That's another problem. Are people really going to pay $4 to watch a movie that they can watch for much less on Netflix (maybe have to rent the DVD or Blu-Ray). Or $22-40 for a season of a TV program? At that price, Apple is competing with cable, which offers 1080p quality and no waiting... I'm a cord-cutter. I ditched cable to save money, as I wasn't using it much. iTunes is an expensive hassle...

All of these factors limit my iTunes consumption. 70% of my online viewing is with Netflix. When the new shows come out in the fall, I restart my Hulu Plus subscription. For most shows, I don't care about commercials or slight defects in quality. I can enjoy The Office or Parks and Recreation, with the limitations of Netflix or Hulu HD. For something like Breaking Bad, I'll do iTunes. I don't want to wait, and I want to see it in the best quality possible. And yes, I don't mind owning it. I'll watch it a few times...

I am writing an article for my site on dealing with iTunes downloading issues on the iPad and iOS devices. There's some tricks you can do to optimize the download. It should be up tomorrow or in the next few days...