n2itivguy

tzeshan said:

I agree. Apple's biggest shortcoming is not proficient in producing content. 

mattinoz said:

What stops them having multiple models each made by a different group?

Apple Car Mini (2 + 2ish people) , Apple Car (5 people) & Apple Car Max (7 people)

Well apart from the trade dress issues of Apple car mini.

muthuk_vanalingam said:

GeorgeBMac said:

OutdoorAppDeveloper said:

I really hope the solution is allowing third party app stores. That would break the monopoly and still allow customers to make the decision as to whether they prefer a tightly controlled app ecosystem or a less restrictive app environment.

It would also break Apple's reputation for rock solid stability, privacy and security.   No Thank You!   It's one of the reasons I buy Apple products.

it wouldn't...as long as you do not install Apps from 3rd party app stores. And a very small percentage (<0.1%) of people would dare install Apps from 3rd party app stores, so it wouldn't make a difference to the Apple's ecosystem in reality. Not sure why you think it would break Apple's reputation. 

cloudguy said:

AppleInsider said:

Singer Justin Timberlake returns to the movies on Apple TV+ in the engaging "Palmer," a Louisiana-set drama about an ex-con who becomes an unlikely father figure.

While some of the characters are a bit one-dimensional -- especially Dean Winters as Shelly's one-note violent redneck boyfriend -- Palmer is both a better film, and a much more respectful portrayal of small-town American life than Netflix's recent drama Hillbilly Elegy.

As for its position in the culture wars, Palmer is a film that's respectful of churchgoing and Southern culture, although it also has considerable sympathy for the recently incarcerated, and for the plight of a bullied, gender-nonconforming child.

Yeah ... no. I have stated several times in the past that Apple TV+ programming is going to struggle to find an audience because - unlike Netflix which is legitimately broad based - Apple TV+ programming is aimed at a coastal, progressive feminist audience. There is virtually no programming aimed at different audiences or truly challenges its target audience. So yes, they have a film set in the south. Big deal. It still solely depicts:

1. rural areas despite Texas and Florida being #2 in population (to California which really should be 3 different states) which Georgia and North Carolina also being in the top 10. Add Virginia and Tennessee and 6 of the top 15 states in population are in the south.
2. poverty ... despite Texas, Florida, Georgia, Virginia and North Carolina undergoing economic booms for the last 30 years, generally outstripping the economic growth of much of the west coast and northeast. South Carolina and Tennessee have transforming economies due to automobile - and in the case of SC, Boeing - manufacturing plants also.
3. crime and football. Any movie about southern whites - do movies about southern blacks, Hispanics or Asians exist at all? - is going to have an ex-football player (hello, people play basketball, golf, tennis and even soccer in the south) and this movie simply goes with an ex-football ex-con as the same character
4. severe family dysfunction (movies set in other regions generally more positively depict family relations, even blended family/divorce situations)
5. rednecks and other violent/bigoted people

This isn't "a movie about the south" but rather a movie that only depicts the south in a way that western and northeastern progressives insist on seeing it. What you will never see depicted in a movie set in the south:

A. research universities
B. urban life
C. educated, highly paid professionals especially in the tech sector
D. cosmopolitan, urbane people who attend symphonies, ballets, opera, museums and regularly travel etc.
E. interest in sports and other activities other than football and NASCAR (Atlanta alone is the #3 market for the NBA, regularly hosts NCAA Final Fours and has MLB and pro soccer teams as well as hosting significant ATP, WTA, PGA and LPGA events)

Meaning movies set in Houston, Dallas, Atlanta, Charlotte, Tampa etc. (though Miami is fine because it isn't really considered southern) aren't going to happen. This is despite so many movies actually being filmed there because of lower shooting costs an increasing number of movies are shot there! That is the really frustrating part. These directors, producers, actors, writers etc. now regularly go to Georgia, North Carolina and Florida to shoot movies. Several state of the art studio facilities are there now, as well as cutting edge animation and VFX startups. Lots of talent has actually moved there full time. Yet we still get the south depicted the same way by Hollywood. 

Wake me when we get a legal thriller set in Austin/Atlanta/Charlotte where Luke Wilson is a law professor at Texas-Austin/Emory/Duke and Constance Wu is his cybersecurity researcher wife at Texas-Austin/Georgia Tech/Duke and they track down extremists who operate on the dark web or expose some bitcoin scam or something. Or maybe starring John David Washington and Awkwafina as medical school students - there are multiple such schools in the metro areas of all 3 southern cities - who uncover collusion between big pharma and big insurance.

But that would never happen because it would actually challenge the stereotypes that folks on the west coast and northeast insist on having about the south even as major employers - including again the film and TV industry - has spent the last 30 years relocating there. End result: movies like this only inflame the culture wars. And I am not an innovator here. Instead USA Today had an oped about how Monster's Ball and other Hollywood movies and TV shows depicted a one note version of the south meant to cater to coastal progressives and that was 20 years ago. Another thing: since Halle Berry in Monster's Ball no other black actress has won a major Academy Award (best Actress, best director, best film which goes to the producer, best original screenplay or best adapted screenplay) since which shows that despite their progressive pretensions, Hollywood isn't nearly as different from the southerners that they scapegoat as they think.

Sorry, but this is yet another example of why most viewers are going to pass up Apple TV+ in favor of content on Netflix, Disney Plus etc. that doesn't insult them.