Notsofast

nano said:

It seems more like a confirmation that Apple is continuing to shift their strategy.  Apple is not likely to make a standalone TV now.  Yes, Apple Music was on android but further evidence that the shift is happening away from the walled-in strategy with their hardware. 

On another note, having read Appleinsider for many years. Did WSJ do some sort of harm to AI?  The attacks and defensiveness of some recent AI articles is off-putting. 

It is especially hard hitting when DED writes of late, but on the topic of the poorly researched, poorly reasoned, click bait articles written by the vast majority of the tech press, he is spot on, and therapeutic for those of us tired of reading it the nonsense.  You also have to give it to him that he provides more facts to back up his positions than the silly articles he takes issues with.

robbyx said:

TVs supporting AirPlay2 and an iTunes app for TVs tell me two things:

1) Apple has completely abandoned the idea of offering their own TV hardware (if that was ever really a possibility anyway)

2) Apple's upcoming video service is going to be a lot more than just some free original content to sweeten the deal for existing Apple hardware owners (as some sources have suggested)

Personally I'd like to see Apple make their TV app the center of the Apple TV experience.  Right now it's confusing with so many different apps and interfaces, some of which work with the TV app while others don't.

This idea of an Apple TV never made any sense as Apple doesn't get into low margin, commoditized businesses unless it has something to differentiate it and command a suitable profit margin.  Heck, major players like Panasonic and Sony have been pulling back because low margin companies like Vizio have cannibalized sales as consumers can't tell a meaningful difference between the screens (for the most part, now that we are well into HD, 4K, etc., the TV's are all great), leaving the companies to compete on price--not Apple's market. 

nano said:

It seems more like a confirmation that Apple is continuing to shift their strategy.  Apple is not likely to make a standalone TV now.  Yes, Apple Music was on android but further evidence that the shift is happening away from the walled-in strategy with their hardware. 

On another note, having read Appleinsider for many years. Did WSJ do some sort of harm to AI?  The attacks and defensiveness of some recent AI articles is off-putting. 

There's no shift.  Apple never announced, nor likely ever intended, to make a standalone TV and compete in the low profit commoditized world of TV screens. Never made any sense.  There's nothing for Apple to offer, when they are all buying their screens from a couple of manufacturers and bundling them in their own package.  In contrast, Apple TV is a high margin, very differentiated product that enhances the Apple ecosystem for its customers.

Apple indeed has a small share of the India market, but it is important to be accurate.  Apple has never released sales numbers, so although the 1% figure is reported as a fact, it is in fact just an estimate from another analyst, and doesn't capture reselling of refurb phones which almost always is missed in articles discussing iPhone sales.  The iPhone retains its value far beyond other smart phones, and there are many tens of millions of the iPhone 6-10 that go to people in less developed countries and elsewhere each year.  A more relevant statistic for this mapping article is the estimated number of iPhone users in India.  Surveys, with all their limitations, showed about a year ago that there were over 10 million iPhone users in India.

The rapidly increasing bounties is a good sign as it means the hacks/bypasses, etc., are being foiled and harder to find.