Who has f*ckin Charter man. Pay Comcast’s price - the Apple TV is nothing until it uses actual cable piped into 50% of Americans homes.
Don't agree with the rest of your post, but yeah, the launch partners are a little underwhelming. Here in Switzerland I don't know anyone with Salt. I guess the bit players were willing to strike a deal quick to get some free product placement for the launch announcement, but I have to imagine that Apple actually wants to sell a product and will include the major cable players when it actually gets to consumers.
Spectrum in the US is not a bit player - they own all of the southeast market of the US that was Time Warner Cable. If I hadn't left cable in order to get gigabit fiber, this would be perfect for me.
Cutting the cord has saved huge amounts of money, just with a hulu, prime, netflix and hbo subscription. I'm nowhere near what the monthly was on internet and tv before. The advantage for the cable providers is a few things:
They get to tell subscribers they can use the apps on phone and ipad, too ("see, we're modern!" they'll say)
They don't have to buy and rent out tons of lousy Motorola boxes
They don't have to service and replace those lousy Motorola boxes
They can promo out an Apple TV - "Free AppleTV with 3 months of service"
They can leave all the support headaches on Apple - "We don't have to support password resets, Apple handles it all"
That's a huge savings for cable cos. They want that savings.
I'd really like an AppleTV with a coax cable on the back, and a tuner inside. And that's not ever going to happen.
That'd be pretty terrible.
Coax CATV carries encrypted signals, which cable companies are afraid to let anyone have decrypted. This is why cablecard was such a debacle, and why tuners that can understand CATV coax only are allowed to display ClearQAM channels that aren't encrypted. Content providers and cable cos are too afraid of everyone being able to rip and post their shows online if they turned off encryption. This is what basically killed TiVo - they made boxes with cablecard slots, cable providers insisted only they could install cable cards, so you had to make an appointment to have a guy come out to activate TiVo and insert a card, and cable cos conveniently blamed TiVo or simply refused to admit they had cablecards after telling the FCC they did.
So you'd get an Apple TV with a cable connection that would never work properly, never show the channels available to you, and be generally awful. Instead of being tied to that past, the separate app plan is the future. This is the path to it. If you really want OTA on Apple TV, get a TabloTV for AppleTV.
I'd really like an AppleTV with a coax cable on the back, and a tuner inside. And that's not ever going to happen.
That'd be pretty terrible.
Coax CATV carries encrypted signals, which cable companies are afraid to let anyone have decrypted. This is why cablecard was such a debacle, and why tuners that can understand CATV coax only are allowed to display ClearQAM channels that aren't encrypted. Content providers and cable cos are too afraid of everyone being able to rip and post their shows online if they turned off encryption. This is what basically killed TiVo - they made boxes with cablecard slots, cable providers insisted only they could install cable cards, so you had to make an appointment to have a guy come out to activate TiVo and insert a card, and cable cos conveniently blamed TiVo or simply refused to admit they had cablecards after telling the FCC they did.
So you'd get an Apple TV with a cable connection that would never work properly, never show the channels available to you, and be generally awful. Instead of being tied to that past, the separate app plan is the future. This is the path to it. If you really want OTA on Apple TV, get a TabloTV for AppleTV.
Guess I wasn't clear. All I want is OTA through AppleTV. Yes, there are third party solutions, and those cost money. HDHomeRun has a good reputation, but just the box is $100+ and software for it is another $20. I've discovered how much I really like a single remote to run the whole thing. Yes, third party options are available, again at a price. I also have grown to dislike the Siri remote. While AppleTV does show a lot of progress and promise, it is not the device for me. I use my almost exclusively for streaming from my local computer. I freely admit I am not a typical user at all, and am lucky to be in an area where I get plenty of content OTA.
And as much as I'd like this in AppleTV, I know it won't happen. There isn't really a business model in OTA devices, and Apple would actually be rather foolish to try.
I do think there is a business model for advertising. I might be inclined to give information about my ad preferences if they'd pay me to watch them. Maybe a penny an ad to some account I can redeem for content. I get random ads in some streaming content, none of which is for products I'd even consider.
I just wanted to add here that Apple is selling its phone across the whole world, why they don’t offer its Apple tv services everywhere and why this charter spectrum tv and internet only available in U.S.
I'd really like an AppleTV with a coax cable on the back, and a tuner inside. And that's not ever going to happen.
That'd be pretty terrible.
Coax CATV carries encrypted signals, which cable companies are afraid to let anyone have decrypted. This is why cablecard was such a debacle, and why tuners that can understand CATV coax only are allowed to display ClearQAM channels that aren't encrypted. Content providers and cable cos are too afraid of everyone being able to rip and post their shows online if they turned off encryption. This is what basically killed TiVo - they made boxes with cablecard slots, cable providers insisted only they could install cable cards, so you had to make an appointment to have a guy come out to activate TiVo and insert a card, and cable cos conveniently blamed TiVo or simply refused to admit they had cablecards after telling the FCC they did.
So you'd get an Apple TV with a cable connection that would never work properly, never show the channels available to you, and be generally awful. Instead of being tied to that past, the separate app plan is the future. This is the path to it. If you really want OTA on Apple TV, get a TabloTV for AppleTV.
Actually the whole Tivo/CableCard situation got better over time. I had a Tivo Roamio with cable card (and USB tuning adapter) from Time Warner and it worked quite well. I went to the Time Warner store, got the card and adapter, installed it myself and made one phone call to a very knowledgeable tech who got me activated in a few minutes. After that the only issues were a reboot of the tuning adapter periodically. None of it was ideal, but it also was not that bad. The picture quality was pretty good for cable. My real issue was Time Warner's unending rate increases - sometimes twice a year.
BTW modern Tivos are still viable players. We use ours for streaming and OTA and we don't have any complaints.
I'd really like an AppleTV with a coax cable on the back, and a tuner inside. And that's not ever going to happen.
That'd be pretty terrible.
Coax CATV carries encrypted signals, which cable companies are afraid to let anyone have decrypted. This is why cablecard was such a debacle, and why tuners that can understand CATV coax only are allowed to display ClearQAM channels that aren't encrypted. Content providers and cable cos are too afraid of everyone being able to rip and post their shows online if they turned off encryption. This is what basically killed TiVo - they made boxes with cablecard slots, cable providers insisted only they could install cable cards, so you had to make an appointment to have a guy come out to activate TiVo and insert a card, and cable cos conveniently blamed TiVo or simply refused to admit they had cablecards after telling the FCC they did.
So you'd get an Apple TV with a cable connection that would never work properly, never show the channels available to you, and be generally awful. Instead of being tied to that past, the separate app plan is the future. This is the path to it. If you really want OTA on Apple TV, get a TabloTV for AppleTV.
Actually the whole Tivo/CableCard situation got better over time. I had a Tivo Roamio with cable card (and USB tuning adapter) from Time Warner and it worked quite well. I went to the Time Warner store, got the card and adapter, installed it myself and made one phone call to a very knowledgeable tech who got me activated in a few minutes. After that the only issues were a reboot of the tuning adapter periodically. None of it was ideal, but it also was not that bad. The picture quality was pretty good for cable. My real issue was Time Warner's unending rate increases - sometimes twice a year.
BTW modern Tivos are still viable players. We use ours for streaming and OTA and we don't have any complaints.
Ditto here, perfectly satisfied with our Roamio. I got ours from Tivo as a special Series 5 package refurb with included lifetime service as well, and a bonus Slide Pro remote. I ended up with about $300 out of pocket. Well worth it IMHO.
Comments
Cutting the cord has saved huge amounts of money, just with a hulu, prime, netflix and hbo subscription. I'm nowhere near what the monthly was on internet and tv before. The advantage for the cable providers is a few things:
- They get to tell subscribers they can use the apps on phone and ipad, too ("see, we're modern!" they'll say)
- They don't have to buy and rent out tons of lousy Motorola boxes
- They don't have to service and replace those lousy Motorola boxes
- They can promo out an Apple TV - "Free AppleTV with 3 months of service"
- They can leave all the support headaches on Apple - "We don't have to support password resets, Apple handles it all"
That's a huge savings for cable cos. They want that savings.HomePod gets Siri Shortcuts, so the custom commands you create on iPhone will work on HomePod as well.
Coax CATV carries encrypted signals, which cable companies are afraid to let anyone have decrypted. This is why cablecard was such a debacle, and why tuners that can understand CATV coax only are allowed to display ClearQAM channels that aren't encrypted. Content providers and cable cos are too afraid of everyone being able to rip and post their shows online if they turned off encryption. This is what basically killed TiVo - they made boxes with cablecard slots, cable providers insisted only they could install cable cards, so you had to make an appointment to have a guy come out to activate TiVo and insert a card, and cable cos conveniently blamed TiVo or simply refused to admit they had cablecards after telling the FCC they did.
So you'd get an Apple TV with a cable connection that would never work properly, never show the channels available to you, and be generally awful. Instead of being tied to that past, the separate app plan is the future. This is the path to it. If you really want OTA on Apple TV, get a TabloTV for AppleTV.
And as much as I'd like this in AppleTV, I know it won't happen. There isn't really a business model in OTA devices, and Apple would actually be rather foolish to try.
I do think there is a business model for advertising. I might be inclined to give information about my ad preferences if they'd pay me to watch them. Maybe a penny an ad to some account I can redeem for content. I get random ads in some streaming content, none of which is for products I'd even consider.