Apple's secrecy doesn't work for Apple TV+ | Hacker News Reader

Apple's secrecy doesn't work for Apple TV+

gizmodo.com

46 pointsrbanffy56 comments

Apple TV+ is so locked down with DRM that you can't even easily take a screenshot from a show and share it on social media. Shows on Netflix, Disney+, etc have huge traction because people have got excited about them and talked about them online.

I've really enjoyed For All Mankind, but looking on twitter there's almost no fan base talking about it. Contrast with Ronald D. Moore's previous sci fi hit: the 2000s reboot of Battlestar Galactica. There were free to watch webisodes, a lot was done to encourage and enable a fan community.

It does feel like Apple are so obsessed with the IP that they're missing that having fans and the constellation of content that people will just go off and make because they're excited about a show is crucial to their success.

There's no fan community yet because the service just launched and it's starting from zero subscribers. The 1 year trial requires a hardware purchase, so that will only start to build a critical mass over the next year or so. I don't think it has anything to do with DRM.

Hardware nay be one thing, content is another one. See Disney+ and Mandalorian.

Disney+ has decades of content and a giant world wide fan base already which is a big incentive to sign up. Apple TV is starting from scratch.

To emphasize: Disney has 90 years of back catalog, including a ridiculous number of pop culture touchstones dating back that far.

Meanwhile, Apple has billions in cash on hand. I hope they open their platform up some though, or they need to make some very compelling shows. We’re talking enough for a hardware purchase in a household with no other iOS devices present. If anyone has the resources it’s them.

You don’t need to buy any Apple hardware to sign up. You can watch on the web or even Roku or Samsung TVs.

Doesn’t change the fact they have all the resources to hire all the best talent!

If I were them I’d be making the second season of Firefly and anything else with wide interest like that.

The fanbase OP was talking about is talking about the new content though. Apples new content is meh.

The only reason I'm interested in Disney+ is all the social media buzz around baby Yoda. I can't name a single reason to sign up for Apple TV.

You can take screenshots of Netflix shows? Which platform?

No built-in mechanism but I’ve had zero problem using system’s screenshot feature to catch interesting scenes and share those with others.

I just tried it on every platform I have access to; Android, Linux, Macos, Windows and Chromebook. I was able to take a screenshot of a show playing on Netflix on every one.

Doesn’t work on iOS 13.3. Just get a black screen with the CC text.

Doesn’t this fly in the face of the fair use doctrine?

Fair use is not a right; it’s a defense. You don’t have a right to use materials for educational purposes. What happens is: you’re sued and you argue that your usage was fair use.

Because of that distinction, you technically have no right to take screenshots of copyrighted media.

Side note: the reason for this distinction is that there’s no set criteria for fair use. Some people say there’s the “10 second rule” or whatever, but they’re wrong.

Your distinction is tortured. You absolutely have a right to do things there is a defense for.

It’s not tortured. You may have the right under the law, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the private service needs to make it easy for you.

That is absolutely not true.

There are plenty of legal defenses which merely reduce or shift culpability.

Thanks. Haven't tried it on four out of five of those platforms. Last time I tried it didn't work for me on macOS but maybe that has changed. Definitely does not work on any recent iOS.

> Apple TV+ is so locked down with DRM that you can't even easily take a screenshot from a show and share it on social media.

This seems incredibly blind. Do they realize how much culture spreads via gifs these days? If anything exporting clips and screenshots should come built-in.

The rights holders probably wouldn’t like that.

It's probably the lawyers that have a say in this.

To the best of my understanding, Apple TV+ is entirely Apple original content. Considering their hard-line stance re: the original iPhone and carrier demands, wouldn't they be able to make the same requirements here?

For all Mankind combines the attention to period detail of Chernobyl with great character drama and a really fascinating alternate history of the space race and the American political system.

The alternate history details even manage to be smart, for instance, minor spoiler, a female cosmonaught leads a Russian moon landing and the US ratifies the ERA in response.

It's good stuff.

Still remember listen to the podcast on driving to work. Lost the first 8 podcast as others now come with the dvd but not the first 8 nor the pilot run.

"And there were issues early on, like axing a show based on Dr. Dre’s life because it was too violent, and canceling one about Richard Gere on a shooting spree because it wasn’t friendly enough."

Is this 'wholesome-only' stuff from Apple in apps, tv, etc starting to get old and annoying for anyone else?

Steve did lead Pixar, so there’s maybe some pressure to continue the family focus in TV creation

Apple is basing their streaming content strategy on a dead CEO’s former job?

That seems rather unlikely.

I wouldn’t call Morning Show (pretty much their only hot) family friendly.

For All Mankind (the only show I've watched on Apple+) also has a bunch of adult themes, if not graphic sex and violence. People are having sex (straight and gay), committing adultery, have drinking problems, are dying in horrible accidents, etc.

The lack of graphic sex and violence on TV+ doesn't strike me as a big deal since, on the same device, it's available a click away from other content providers. Plus, nothing prevents you from streaming anything you like via AirPlay.

Oh there’s definitely graphic sex in TMS. And graphic violence is like one quarter of See (plus a little bit of graphic sex). There’s no lack of either on TV+, judging from the two shows I’ve watched so far. (I’ll probably binge For All Mankind soonish.)

Haven’t seen any Apple TV+ myself, just going on OPs assertion that it’s all “wholesome-only”

And they rate their existing shows TV-MA for no apparent reason. Why is "For All Mankind" unsuitable for children under 17?

A few death scenes including of a child? Some brief nudity? (Admittedly I think this one is dumb but it’s what many viewers think. ) Lots of F-bombs. Seems reasonable to me Given their intended audience.

Do you live in a world where a 16 year old will be shocked by an offscreen child death or an F-bomb? There are other ratings exist, for instance TV-14.

There was no nudity in that show.

In the US, use of more than one F-bomb (or using your one in a sexual manner) in a film is an immediate R rating; TV age ratings mostly map to the MPAA film ratings.

Have you watched an episode or two, or just the previews? Because to me it is a show with some obvious adult themes.

Yes I watched it. Tons of shows with similar themes are rated TV-14 on network TV.

There’s technically criteria to a movie/TV show rating. One such being the F-word. One usage is ok in PG-13 rated movie, but any more and it’ll be R.

Ultimately though, IIRC, movies are rated by a committee run by the MPAA who watch the movie and rate based on how they feel it should be (while taking the criteria into account).

I know there are guidelines that broadcaster should follow. But the lines between ratings are blurry. For instance, Mad Men was rated TV-14. They had F-bombs, rape, death, and most of the plot was around "adult themes".

Mad Men was on basic cable, so even though it had those adult themes, it didn’t make them explicit (for example, one plot line was that a character traded sex for a business deal — but the episode didn’t show the sex scene).

There were scattered F-bombs that were censored from the original broadcast; the version available on Netflix (or for purchase on home video) restore them.

I read this as too violent/unfriendly to amass substantial interest from people, not a value judgement per se.

See is pretty violent (and I like it) so this Apple being wholesome-only cliche is starting to get old and annoying for me.

But if the article is to believed, they are canceling shows because they're too violent.

Can you call something a cliche when it's happening in front of you? Is the assumption that because See got released, that Apple didn't actually censor the other shows mentioned here, and Gizmodo is lying?

The reality is that there's clearly no mandate that all content on Apple TV+ needs to be family friendly, and we know that from what they have released. Dr. Dre's show and the Richard Gere project may have been canceled because the violence or sex was gratuitous, or because it was just bad.

It’s not a cliche if it’s true. Apple doesn’t allow anything remotely adult or NSFW in the app store. Apple even went so far as to briefly remove Telegram because a gif search bot contained adult gifs.

The whole plot of The Morning Show revolves around sexual assault.

Not exactly "wholesome only".

I don’t really get the point of tv+ for Apple. They didn’t start their own record company for iTunes. Apple’s natural position seems like it should be a middle man between content producers and Apple TV owners.

that didn’t work so well for netflix.

Netflix doesn’t sell hardware.

I wonder if there are any family with kids on content subscription service decide not to get Disney+ and instead get Apple TV+ if they were to choose between one of the two. I just dont see this happening now, in three years time, or even in 5 years.

And if they were to get another Content Subscription Service, would they choose Apple TV+ at half the cost of Netflix, or Netflix with hundred if not thousand times more content from Originals, Movies to Anime?

Then there is the Amazon Prime, which means it is Free for the 100 million subscribers in US.

Even The Grand Tour wasn't good enough for me to stick with Amazon Prime Video, and I have been watching Jeremy Clarkson shouting POWER for nearly two decades. At this rate I see majority of people subscribing to two streaming services at best and just go back to pirate other shows they like. And even if that was the case, there doesn't seems to be any show worth pirating from Apple TV + now, or in the near future.

> I wonder if there are any family with kids on content subscription service decide not to get Disney+ and instead get Apple TV+ if they were to choose between one of the two.

Often they won't have to choose (we didn't, for example) because they get Apple TV+ for a year with device purchases. Although this offer could end at any time, Apple will subsidize TV+ for several years until they have subscription numbers they can brag about.

Additionally, the TV app[1] is a significant home-field advantage for TV+. It's an app store for content from which I can buy, rent, and subscribe to about anything from anyone, and everybody using it will hear about Apple TV+ on a regular basis.

> Then there is the Amazon Prime, which means it is Free for the 100 million subscribers in US.

I use this service occasionally, suffering through the slow and janky app that somehow makes my Apple TV feel like a $20 USB stick. Personally, if it disappeared tomorrow I can't say that I'd miss it.

The TV app seems to be the worse part of it reading the reviews like this one: https://9to5mac.com/2019/11/05/opinion-worst-part-apple-tv-i...

The only reason why I had my HBO subscription was for Game of Thrones. Now that is over, I'm keeping it around for WestWorld season 3, but may axe it completely if it sucks.

I have AppleTV+ (worst name ever, it is so utterly confusing) from my phone and there is nothing I want to watch. Nothing. The shows may be okay, but from my initial viewing, they are nowhere near as good as Game of Thrones. Unless they pick up the quality very soon, it's going to be a complete failure.

The only one worth keeping is Netflix and only because my kids watch some TV shows, and there are a lot of good standup comics on Netflix that I can watch.

But mostly these days I will BT movies or buy them on iTunes, which is by far the most convenient way to watch movies. I have bought about 100 movies on iTunes so far. If they sold their movies for $5 each, I would buy them constantly.

So Plepler leaves HBO because of their new Netflix “flood ‘em with content of widely varying quality, and let God^H^H^Hviewers sort it out”. Then moves to AppleTV+, where they claim they are trying to be the “antithesis of Netflix”.

Maybe it will work for AppleTV+, maybe it won’t, but the only reason we subscribe to HBO is because if it’s on HBO, it stands a chance being, at a minimum, watchable. When the free year of ATV+ runs out, we will see who is the better HBO.

“When you have kids, you'll understand”

—Steve Jobs on why there is no adult content in the App Store

Reply on news.ycombinator.com