charlesn

I've worked in television development and production for almost 30 years. I have close friends who have been working in development and production at Apple TV+ since it launched. So I'm going to be very kind here and state simply that this article, for the most part, is incredibly naive and ill-informed about how television, in general, and Apple TV+, in particular, work. But let's start with this sentence: "The show's frequent use of "owners," long and uninterrupted shows with a single camera..." It reads as nonsensical because it is. What it should say is, "The show's frequent use of "oners," long and uninterrupted shots with a single camera..." The term is oners, not owners, because it refers to ONE long and continuous shot. And the reason I start there is because if you can't get an obvious and common industry term right, you're an unreliable narrator for the rest of the story. 

Here's how it works: executives at the entity putting up the money to get a project made--whether it's a big movie studio, a streaming platform, a broadcast network, or a cable channel--get a say in how it gets made through a process of script readings and pre-production meetings before anything is shot, to make sure everyone is on the same page, and then notes are given after the show is shot on cuts as they come in. This isn't "meddling." This input is responsible management of anywhere from millions to hundreds of millions of dollars spent for a project. You don't just write a giant check and hope for the best. Good execs working with a good creative team will not see a need for excessive notes, what they do note will be actionable and there will be an explanation for why the note was given. Bad execs--and they do happen--seem to estimate their self-worth in how many pages of notes they can give, calling for changes in even the most infinitesimal details. There's even an industry term for this--execs who give voluminous notes like these are said to be "frame fucking" the production company. 

So, getting back to Apple: they're entitled to have a say because they're not only paying for the shows to get made, but Apple is pretty much #1 when it comes to the amounts they're willing to pay for a show they want. $200 million estimated for the second season of Severance. Lavish and expensive sci-fi series. The show Pachinko had four other bidders besides Apple, but Apple won as the only company willing to cover the entire production budget estimated at $13 million per episode. Compared to its competitors making shows and movies, Apple TV+ has an excellent reputation in the creative community for the amount of freedom it gives to creators and the trust it places in them. But what about confirmed issues with Jon Stewart and rumored ones with The Studio? Fair question! Well, consider why Apple is in the television business, which almost certainly isn't profitable. It's there to burnish the Apple brand and image and to provide another way to keep the Apple user base engaged with the Apple ecosystem. So considering those goals, why would Apple want to support a project that reflects poorly on the brand in some way or is upsetting to relationships and partnerships it needs for its businesses that actually generate the profits that make Apple TV+ possible? With Jon Stewart, who I think is great, being political and controversial is part of his brand, so I'm not sure why Apple greenlit a show with him in the first place. Someone at Apple didn't think that one through and that it ended badly isn't a surprise. With the rumored "meddling" in The Studio, this is another case where I understand where Apple is coming from, but makes me want to ask, "What were you thinking when gave this show a greenlight?!" It's a hilarious and savage satire of the studios that make television and movies, which is pretty uncomfortable for Apple TV+, since it needs great relationships with studios. I expect The Studio may end up with a slew of Emmy noms and maybe even wins for Apple TV+, in which case case any discomfort with the show will be forgotten!

Xed said:

Oliver#65 said:

This will be great tech  but if the iPhone 18 launches with Apple’s C1 or C2 modem and not a Snapdragon it’s DOA ☺️☺️

How so?

Exactly. You can always rely on preposterous declarations like this to lack any support or logic. Well, considering that Apple is not going to set aside its many years of work and many billions of dollars invested to successfully produce its own modem chip (and the C1 has proven excellent so far), I guess there's no choice left for Apple other than to cancel the iPhone 18. 

The regular iPhone just had a design refresh with the 16 models. so a design change was never in the cards. I've never seen Apple revise a product design and then revise it again the following year. 

debonbon said:

The camera bump is THE worst part of the iPhone, the Air looks horrid. What I’d give for a flat phone. 

I can tell you what you'd give for a flat phone: you'd give up any kind of decent camera system, unless you want a thick phone, but you're in a very small minority that no phone maker thinks is worth pursuing. In the meantime, try a 16e, one of the best looking iPhones ever, especially in black, and the single small lens bump is only about 1.5 credit cards thick. 

tht said:

Is it me, or is the corner radius on the camera bump not concentric? That seems like a design sin to me. 

I see what you're seeing on the Air. Weird, Apple's design language across its whole product line is rounded rectangles. And you see that language in the bump on the Pro models, which is what makes them very different from a Pixel bump--that and the signature iPhone triangular arrangement of the lenses. But the Air bump is an elongated oval, which is exactly what Pixel uses. but Apple places it in a worse position. Pixel moves it away from the upper edge, so the oval shape doesn't clash with the rounded rectangle corners. Apple keeps the bump closer to the top edge, where the oval fights the rounded corners. This is really inelegant design work. 

nubus said:

I miss the country of "The Hill We Climb".

Indeed. We are now the country of, "The Cliff We Drive Off"