JamesBrickley

Because the Chinese would make things difficult for Apple's manufacturing, silly.

Lack of the promised stereo collaboration and multi-room capability ala AirPlay2 is a deal breaker.  I would also like it to work with AppleTV ala Surround Sound even if it simulates it with only two HomePods.  Really could care less about Siri and Apple Music.  I would like it to work with Plex and provide wireless quality sound.  More interested in competition with Soros than I am about Alexa and Google voice tubes...  Not thrilled with the idea of an always listening microphone talking to a cloud service A.I. 

Once upon a time, everyone carried a smartphone, it was the dawn of a new age.  Along came the 3 letter Intelligence Agencies who found that these devices became a magic wand to their surveillance activities.  You see everyone was carrying a microphone, camera and GPS in their pockets and using these devices primarily for communications.  Well tapping into that is absolutely ideal.  A great number of zero days were discovered on every device and these 3 letter agencies were obtaining a tremendous amount of power.  Social media as well was amazing in the amount of data that could be gleaned if only from metadata.  Then a gentleman by the name of Snowden shouted to the world just what these agencies were capable of doing.  Then all the smartphone creators locked them down and increased security tremendously.  Now that really pissed off the 3 letter agencies as it practically took away all their toys and informed their targets that they were being monitored.  That results in operational security of the targets changing to the new reality which is something the 3 letter agencies did not wish to occur.  The cat was out of the bag. 

Now along comes the baby brother of the 3 letter agencies desiring the ability to crack open a smartphone that's been locked and encrypted.  They are going to try to force Apple and others to give them some sort of master key solution, a back door if you will.  

Did you know you could right now buy NYC infrastructure master keys online? You know keys that let you enter secure areas of public transit, tourist sites, etc.  Things you definitely don't want the bad guys to access?  You can also buy keys to many things like parking gate systems, security system control boxes, etc.  You can also obtain digital keys to various systems on the dark web that grant access.  DeCSS is the DRM technology on DVD players that is required to be unlocked.  The master key was intercepted in a software DVD player and used to create the DeCSS library which can unlock any DVD. Then along came Blu-Ray and AACS which is a simply hexadecimal master key that was leaked and shared by millions online despite DCMA takedown attempts to stop it.  

So what makes you think a backdoor would even work?  It would be leaked eventually and that would defeat all the security on these mobile devices as the bad guys would be able to hack any mobile device.  

The RedBox business model is radically different.  They recruit entrepreneurs to invest, own the machines in various locations, work with the pre-provided network to collect the money and fill the disc selections and receive their cut.  To run an alternate online streaming solution requires a great deal of technical know-how and an enormous investment in data centers and bandwidth.  There are far too many other streaming rental solutions on the market. It is not easy to get your streaming client to work everywhere on everything.  The payback in the investment will require astronomical numbers in paid subscriptions.  Also, why use RedBox when there are so many other alternatives that are already working? Also if too many switch to streaming they lose their original business model and all those poor working stiffs that can't afford real broadband will be deeply disappointed and pissed off.  

RedBox works because machines are deployed in front of local retail businesses and other good locations where there is a lot of walk-up traffic.  It works as an impulse rental.  They are very successful in poor neighborhoods because of their pricing and the convenience of walking down the corner with the kids and picking out some movies for less than an ice cream cone.  They may not be the best blockbuster new releases either.  Other entrepreneur businesses that operate on a similar basis are those new robotic frozen yogurt and drink vending machines.  There is a big market for this where customers don't have credit cards, are paid cash under the table, use check cashing places, etc.  The machines are mainly placed in their neighborhoods and in front of retail shopping centers.    

Popular?  I've never even heard of "Elmedia Player" nor Folx for that matter.  It's on sale on the Mac App store for $9.99 and is normally $19.99.  Was the copy from the App Store impacted or was it just the free download from the Elmedia website?  Seems to be Russian software...