{"id":17225,"date":"2017-02-16T15:58:11","date_gmt":"2017-02-16T20:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=17225"},"modified":"2017-02-18T19:06:19","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T00:06:19","slug":"what-happened-with-the-apple-tv-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2017\/02\/16\/what-happened-with-the-apple-tv-4\/","title":{"rendered":"What Happened With the Apple TV 4"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Gurman<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Apple doesn’t disclose how many Apple TVs it sells, but Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri acknowledged in a recent interview that sales decreased year-over-year from the 2015 holiday season to this past 2016 holiday period. The research firm eMarketer says the fourth-generation Apple TV has steadily lost market share since its release in the fall of 2015; in January just 11.9 percent of connected television customers were using it, the research firm says, down from 12.5 percent in September. In part, the slide reflects competition from Amazon and Roku, whose boxes do the same and more for less money.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Apple had a backup plan if it wasn’t able to replace the existing cable box—the much-ballyhooed “skinny bundle,” a stripped down web service that would let viewers choose channels rather than paying for ones they don’t watch. Apple proposed bundling the four main broadcast networks and a handful of cable channels as well as on-demand TV shows and movies for $30 to $40 a month. The media companies were willing to engage with Apple due to concerns about the rise of online services like Netflix and the cord-cutting phenomenon.<\/p>

But the two sides stumbled over cost, the composition of the bundles and negotiating tactics. The media companies blamed Apple’s arrogance; Apple blamed the media companies’ inflexibility. In the end, the talks fell apart, leaving Apple to tout stripped-down bundles from Sony PlayStation and DirecTV. After the negotiations foundered, Apple’s hardware team ditched the coaxial port.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2017-02-18): Dan Moren<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It’s tough to figure out what that extra cash buys you, beyond the Apple brand. The previous version of the Apple TV, which was less powerful though still perfectly capable at its primary function of streaming video, cost a more comparable $99. Frankly, though I use the Apple TV every day, I’d be hard-pressed to find $50 more worth of functionality on the new model. (Most of that cost increase is probably attributable to the Siri remote, which I have mostly ditched in favor of a harder-to-lose and more user-friendly Logitech Harmony universal remote.)<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

We talk a lot about the “second screen” experience of people sitting in front of the TV: how they’re checking Twitter or looking actors up on IMDb or Wikipedia while watching. But when it comes to apps, it’s not the iPhone or iPad or MacBook that’s the second screen—it’s the Apple TV.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Gurman (tweet): Apple doesn’t disclose how many Apple TVs it sells, but Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri acknowledged in a recent interview that sales decreased year-over-year from the 2015 holiday season to this past 2016 holiday period. The research firm eMarketer says the fourth-generation Apple TV has steadily lost market share since its release […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[615],"class_list":["post-17225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple-tv"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17225"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17238,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17225\/revisions\/17238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}