Apple music/TV announcement today

[M2 Entertainment]

So excited for the new Apple release! Ping is certainly going to give Facebook a run for its money. Keep the new developments coming Apple

 

[Craig W. Bickerstaff]

Why oh why is Apple going with a netflix "app". Apple should have gone Palm Pre/Windows Mobile 7 on this thing and gone with a hub based approach.

There's that little button for "Rent for $4.99" right next to it should be the Netflix Logo when available... oh right that's why.

It's sad that they put profit before user experience in this instance. It would have made for a much better user experience to aggregate the various video services and provide an extremely easy way to browse "Movies" not movie services.

If it is for the sake of profit it's a bad one at that. I often troll the Netflix Instant listings because they're free. If I was just browsing every movie and Apple's $4.99 offerings were mixed in I would be more tempted to choose one of those. Of course in such a scenario you would need to be able to view "only Netflix" or "only iTunes".

You have seriously unrealistic expectations.

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Well I think Apple is falling into the trap that Microsoft did prior to Windows Mobile 7 in a lot of areas that is to think that you can still dominate the marketplace with your offering and that you aren't facing any competition.

The Roku box isn't going to impose any limitations on itself. It'll sell through whoever is best for the customer not best for Roku. The advatange MS and Apple have is integration. They both control the platforms so they can offer a more seamless experience but pushing competition to third rate status when you are being attacked from all sides (Roku, Boxee, GoogleTV, MediaCenter, 360, PS3, Many TVs, BluRay players...) is a bad move.

I don't think AppleTV offers enough integration and Apple secret sauce to go head to head. If the philosophy of Apple is "iTunes or Bust with a little Netflix on the side..." then they're intentionally handicapping their product something which Roku isn't doing.

Microsoft is doing the same thing on the Xbox 360 by not letting Amazon VOD etc onto the platform. They're going to be more successful since the Xbox is a gaming machine which happens to play movies. AppleTV can't make that excuse.

The device should be a portal not a storefront. Aggregate content providers. Keep everything under one interface. A movie is a movie is a movie. Read the netflix summary but rent it from iTunes. Read the Amazon reviews but stream it from Netflix. Linking databases is peanuts. Someone at Roku needs to get on that ASAP.

 

[IAN SUN]

They'll make a heck'a-lot money selling .99 cent TVshows than selling boxes

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

They'll make a heck'a-lot money selling .99 cent TVshows than selling boxes

Yeah but they'll sell a heck'a-lot more if everyone had an iTunes compatible box. Which is why they bundled Netflix. Not because they want to... because without it they wouldn't sell a single box.