Apple TV Courts CBS, Disney For Online TV Subscription Service

wsj.com:

CBS Corp. and Walt Disney Co. are considering participating in Apple Inc.'s plan to offer television subscriptions over the Internet, according to people familiar with the matter, as Apple prepares a potential new competitor to cable and satellite TV.

Read the whole story: wsj.com

Comments

[jsarets]

08:44 AM on 12/24/2009

Apple TV is a fantastic piece of hardware at an unbeatable price. You just have to get rid of all the Apple firmware and software that turns it into a crippled "lifestyle appliance"­.

I use mine as an HD thin client that netboots from my Linux workstatio­n. It basically converts my living room TV into another terminal for my office computer, so I can access my MythTV and other media as well as surf the web or do some work.

It's got a slow processor and not much memory, but it doesn't matter, because my main computer does all of the logic processing­, and the Apple TV has a fairly powerful graphics processor.

Cheap, small, and silent: the perfect thin client! But Apple doesn't want us to use it like that.

[Halfwit]

07:18 PM on 12/23/2009

Why send me to a site (WSJ) that won't let me read the story unless I am a subscriber­?
Please don't aggregate news that isn't accessible­.

[GoDogGo]

04:45 PM on 12/22/2009

This is my "dream" media delivery model. AppleTV has been incredible and changes my viewing completely­. The second this is available, I'm cutting my cable, with joy.

Getting 5 or 6 good channels will always trump 150 channels of ad-saturat­ed drivel.

[BobsNotWorking]

11:57 PM on 12/23/2009

Ditto (only I've already cut the cable loose and don't miss it at all).

[mp3sevdam]

10:28 AM on 12/22/2009

watching video i download from the internet, buying and listening to music... I put together playlists for when my friends are over and compile slide shows... it's great.
http://kom­presorbilg­i.blogspot­.com/

[SkuddGobang]

10:11 AM on 12/22/2009

I really don't get why the Apple TV hasn't caught on more. I use mine for just about everything­. Free Yoga Podcasts in the morning, showing slide shows on my big screen TV, renting and buying movies, watching video i download from the internet, buying and listening to music... I put together playlists for when my friends are over and compile slide shows... it's great.

[crayola 08b]

12:50 PM on 12/22/2009

i think the two main reasons it hasn't caught on more is lack of advertisin­g (apple really doesn't seem to be pushing this product much), and confusion. i'm a big apple fan and i still don't really know what the apple tv is all about. is it supposed to be an alternativ­e to Tivo?

[SkuddGobang]

02:42 PM on 12/22/2009

No, think of it like a big iPod that uses your TV for it's screen. You can download TV shows, Movies, music, podcasts, iTunes LP content and the DVD extras and watch them. You can also add all your photos and your own home videos and music from your CDs like any iPod/iTune­s.

You can buy individual episodes of TV shows that download in high-quali­ty, commercial free versions and keep them forever. You can subscribe to some TV shows and the new episodes just download when they're ready.

Unlike Tivo, you keep the stuff forever.. with Tivo, once you stop paying for the service, the videos you store are gone and once your Tivo drive is full, you have no way to back things up... Apple TV lets you back things up, transfer them to and from your iPod, iPhone or computer..­. and there's no monthly fee for it. you buy movies and TV shows and music a la carte.