mpantone

mike1 said:

mpantone said:

Beats said:

Making a worse Apple TV isn’t the solution. Make a premium version for once!

Apple has a conundrum with its Apple TV hardware. Displaying video content (TV shows, movies, etc.) doesn't require powerful silicon.

The 1080p Roku stick is $25 at Amazon; last year's 4K version is $34. You can buy one of each for the price of an Apple TV remote. So any recent A-series SoC has enough horsepower; it can even be a heavily binned sample with some CPU and GPU cores disabled. A premium priced Apple TV doesn't provide any benefit to Joe Consumer in terms of watching video. A 16-core M-series SoC isn't going to make that latest Marvel Comics movie look any better.

Not totally true. The Apple TVs do a phenomenal job of scaling up HD content to 4K. Right now all live sports and a lot of content is still recorded in HD. I've had 4K Firesticks, Roku and whatever is built in to the TVs and the picture quality is nowhere near is good as anything I watch through my ATV 4K. So, processors, software and careful engineering can make a difference.

The average American consumer doesn't care about image quality. They will buy what's cheapest.

And when it stops working in a few years, they'll toss it out and buy whatever's cheapest then.

It's not like Apple TV is a new product; it has been around for years and pretty much everyone has seen one in action at a friend or family member's home.

And it's not like the build quality of a streaming stick matters much (I have a Roku Streaming Stick, a Google Chromecast Ultra and an old Apple TV). It's plugged into a USB port in the back of your television set or A/V receiver; it will probably stay there untouched until it dies. It's not something you stick in your pocket and carry around with you everywhere you go.

Beats said:

Making a worse Apple TV isn’t the solution. Make a premium version for once!

Apple has a conundrum with its Apple TV hardware. Displaying video content (TV shows, movies, etc.) doesn't require powerful silicon.

The 1080p Roku stick is $25 at Amazon; last year's 4K version is $34. You can buy one of each for the price of an Apple TV remote. So any recent A-series SoC has enough horsepower; it can even be a heavily binned sample with some CPU and GPU cores disabled. A premium priced Apple TV doesn't provide any benefit to Joe Consumer in terms of watching video. A 16-core M-series SoC isn't going to make that latest Marvel Comics movie look any better.

However Apple is also marketing Apple TV as a casual gaming console. This does require more graphics horsepower but since the Apple Arcade games are relatively lightweight, today's Apple TV doesn't need to compete technology-wise with the Xbox Series X|S or the PlayStation 5.

If you get a $500 Xbox Series X and subscribe to Xbox Game Pass, how appealing would an $800 Apple TV with an Apple Arcade+ subscription look? And what if you can AirPlay your iPhone to your television set and play games on that instead?

If Apple wants to pursue the videogame market, they will likely need separate video streaming hardware and videogame playing hardware.

The biggest issue is original content. Apple doesn't have enough compelling exclusive games for a $300+ console to survive today. Remember that at that price level, they would be competing with Nintendo Switch which has sold over 110 million units between the original and OLED models.

Remember that another competitor is Nvidia Shield ($150, thirty dollars cheaper than the entry-level Apple TV 4K box) which runs GeForce NOW at 120Hz with the 3080 subscription.

Apple will need to double down on original videogame content if they are going to compete in that market. They will also need to consider pricing very carefully because there are compelling alternatives where Apple TV is already priced.

Videogame industry revenue surpassed Hollywood box office revenue back in the Nineties so it's clear to Apple where people's eyeballs are spending.

Apple senior management (including Steve) were clearly very deliberate about acquiring the real estate for Apple Park and pouring in all that time and money into building it for a reason: they believe that in-person collaboration yields better results. Same with the open-plan layout.

Here's a recently published study about how video conferencing inhibits creativity:

https://www.barrons.com/news/videoconferencing-hinders-creativity-study-finds-01651071907

This is not a tiny sample size. The same results were obtain both from corporate employees as well as university students.

My guess is that there are other studies out there, probably dating back years on the subject. After all video conferencing wasn't invented because of the pandemic, it has been around for 15+ years. Cisco acquired WebEx in 2007; corporate types have been using this technology for a looong time.

There have also been plenty of studies over the years about effective workgroups and the makeup of the most productive groups. Remember that these C-suite management types read these type of productivity books all the time.

Despite what some people here might think Tim, Jeff, Luca, Eddy, Craig, Johny and others did not write down a bunch of office decorating ideas on slips of paper, toss them in beer stein and picked out a few at random during happy hour at BJs.

Nor is Apple the first company to ask its employees to come back into the office. Much of corporate America in other major cities (Chicago, NYC, Boston, etc.) started this process weeks/months before slow-moving Santa Clara County. And Europe is farther along in their office return versus the USA.

Apple's same caution is reflected in the number of retail location shutdowns Apple enforced during the infection peaks.

okypinoky said:

The delays are understandable, but can also be managed by a country who technology sent man to the moon in 19 (wait for it ....) 69.

I was not aware that the People's Republic of China sent a man to the moon in 1969. 

Note that it's Apple who manages their supply chain not the country (and yes, I know you intended to say the USA). 

Could you imagine if Congress managed Apple's supply chain? It would be twenty years late with cost overruns of 500%. 

Congress cannot tell TSMC to make more chips for Apple nor can it tell Foxconn to hire more workers nor can it tell Beijing to stop with the COVID-19 lockdowns.

lkrupp said:

StrangeDays said:

Mint Mobile, ftw. Flat-fee plans starting at $15/mo, no additional charges, no hidden BS, dumb pipes carrier the way they ought to be. My family switched and will never return to AT&T.

You are still probably using AT&T’s infrastructure. These fly-by-night mobile companies don’t own their own networks, towers, don’t maintain anything, employ no technicians. They piggy back on AT&T, Verizon, and others who are forced to charge them less-than-wholesale for riding their networks. It’s fake competition at its finest.

Hey, it’s cheaper but don't think you left AT&T.

Nope. Mint Mobile is an MVNO that uses T-Mobile USA's network not AT&T's. So technically StrangeDays did leave AT&T.

Mint Mobile can afford to charge less because they eliminate a lot of benefits (visual voicemail, international roaming, wifi hotspots, etc.) that postpaid T-Mobile subscribers get. There's also no overhead like a bricks-and-mortar store network. From a cellular service perspective it's not much different than T-Mobile's old PAYG prepaid service.

T-Mobile's own prepaid service had some marketing offers: at one point they offered a one-year subscription to MLB At Bat ($20 value) to T-Mobile subscribers. So when you're paying for the premium name-branded T-Mobile service, you're also funding some of those costs.

There are other MVNOs using AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile/Sprint's networks. Some are better known than others: Metro, Cricket, Boost, Straight Talk, Xfinity, Tracfone are a few.

Some of these companies aren't "fly-by-night" operations. Both Straight Talk and Tracfone are subsidiaries of Telmex and America Movil, properties of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim (world rank #16 by Bloomberg). 

In the old days, many of these MVNOs didn't have access to the latest cellular networks. Today that has changed and Mint Mobile customers have 5G service where it has been deployed. Also in the old days, there were none or few family plans from prepaid MVNOs so two lines were twice the price as one line.

lkrupp said:

StrangeDays said:

Mint Mobile, ftw. Flat-fee plans starting at $15/mo, no additional charges, no hidden BS, dumb pipes carrier the way they ought to be. My family switched and will never return to AT&T.

And can Mint Mobile add your Apple Watch to the mix?

No, smartwatches are not currently supported by Mint Mobile.