Apple is putting iTunes on Samsung TVs
theverge.com
theverge.com
https://gist.github.com/peteryates/b44b70d19ccd52f62d66cdd4b...
I just dislike the ads from Samsung. They weren't there for the first six months after I bought the TV and were released in a firmware 'upgrade' without warning.
Shitty behaviour at best. I'm no longer going to buy anything Samsung and ever time a Samsung TV related post is made here or on Reddit, I'll post my link.
What I find more interesting though is the timing: a deal like this would probably have been in the works for months in advance of the Tim Cook investor update earlier in the week. Apple would have also had to make the software for this version of iTunes too. What chipsets do these Samsung TVs have? Is it similar to one for an Android phone? Could iTunes/Apple Music show up on Android next?
https://media.thinknum.com/articles/google-chromecast-sales-...
I also have two 4K AppleTVs (free with DirecTVNow.)
But Roku is everything I hate about non Apple consumer electronics. It’s not a hardware product where the business model is I give them money and they give me stuff. Half the home screen is an advertisement and the shortcuts on the remote go to the highest bidder. I have one remote with a shortcut to Rdio (defunct) and one with CBSnews.
The problem with Apple isn't the removal of the 50 year old 1/8 inch headphone jack, of which the cords have ripped the buds off my ears more than 100 times. The future is cordless and there are cordless headphones that work great for 20 or more hours per charge. Removing the headphone jack was a strong product decision, likely made by some of the leaders in product design and technology, the world around.
The problem lies in a company that can't make a strong big corporate direction decision.
Apple clearly attempting to shift to services because they can't come up with a new killer device. Services are safe, and safety kills good hardware companies. Their most important software, iTunes and iPhone iPod app has become nearly unusable due to the strong sales funnel aimed at Apple Music. Which I don't use but is trogan-horse-adware that causes popups everyday on my iPhone.
Apple Presents confusing product lines highlighting numerous similar items weakens the entire line. Selling high-quality products and at the same time filling those devices with popup sales for services is indicative of a company that can't commit.
These are clear signs of an Apple devolving to a state similar to where Steve Jobs found Apple Inc in 1997, which is scary.
5 years before the iPhone was introduced, it was clear that the world was getting to a point that almost everyone would have a phone.
Since the iPhone was introduced, no one has come up with a product larger than the smart phone.
No one knew they wanted an iMac, iPod, or an iPad. Apple created those markets. meanwhile after Jobs, the Apple Watch isn't doing that well. iPod sold more units in one year than the entire history of Apple Watch. The home pod is a wash. Beyond that, there are no Apple hardware success stories. I think that's because Jobs took huge risks, had huge vision and put huge pressure on staff and the tech and media industries. No one is doing that anymore. except Elon Musk
When the iMac was introduced, Apple was celebrating selling one million Macs a quarter. In its best year, Apple sold around 20 million Macs in total a year - less than half the number of iPhones they sell in a quarter.
At its height, Apple sold about 45-60 million iPads a year - again about the number of iPhones Apple sells in a quarter.
I’ll consider Elon Musk a “success” when either SpaceX or Tesla is profitable long term.
Going into the phone market wasn’t a huge untapped market. By the time the iPhone came out, the mobile phone was already the next big thing.
As far as the Apple Watch not being a success, it’s a more profitable product than cell phones are for any company besides Apple and Samsung....
Another challenge is that there are markets to be disrupted, but they may not necessarily be a 1 trillion dollar market like smartphones have been.
Apple could disrupt an industry that people may absolutely love and flock to, but if its size is 50 Billion dollars, but that would be less than 10% of their current market cap. What would be a 50B dollar successful stand-alone business doesn't necessarily serve as the product that can get Apple to say a 2T market cap.
And it isn't like Apple isn't trying to find a product (e.g. apple car, watch, homepods, etc).
Without realizing that most phone manufacturers can’t even break even consistently....
Ehem... I'm sure you applied your stringent earnings requirements to other companies like Amazon as well...
https://qz.com/1196256/it-took-amazon-amzn-14-years-to-make-...
In reality. Amazon still hasn’t proven that there original business can be sustainably profitable. All of their profit from 2017 came from AWS.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/all-of-amazons-2017-operating-...
Except people had created iPod- and iPad-similar devices before Apple entered the markets. The demand was clearly there.
> iPod sold more units in one year than the entire history of Apple Watch.
Since Apple don't break out sales figures of the Watch, any comparison here is going to be guesswork but, depending on whether you trust UBS numbers[1] or not, that claim will be voided at some point in 2019 (best guesstimates I could find are 17M in 2017, 24M in 2018, predicted 33M in 2019 which would eclipse the best iPod year of 55M[2])
Also this a fairly silly comparison - the iPod is a standalone non-luxury item; the Watch is a (fairly) tethered luxury item. It's, uh, apples to oranges.
[1] https://9to5mac.com/2018/10/31/apple-watch-sales-5/ [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/apple-ipod-rise-fall-chart-2...
The tablet incarnations were total flops, as were the MP3 players.
Demand wasn't there for iPod or iPad, as stated by the other response, the market was created by Apple.
Simply switching the subject of the sentence makes a huge difference in how the story is interpreted.
I purchased a bunch of movies from iTunes and was excited when they announced they’d upgrade it all to 4K for free (until they said it could only be played on Apple TV)
We just recently got a 4K OLED and the difference between that and my old HD plasma (especially with HDR features) is huge.
If your player of choice is iTunes then sure, go for it! But I read your comment as a choice between iTunes or Spotify/other streaming.
I also have loads of music purchased from various online stores and (even more) ripped from the many, many CDs I bought over the years. I don't subscribe to Spotify and listen to my purchased music as much as anything else. I still haven't touched iTunes in years.