I don’t want to sound like a corporate shill, but Apple TV is not a bad offering as streaming services go. $7/month and plenty of good shows, including Ted Lasso (one of my favorite shows of all time), Mythic Quest (made by most of the Always Sunny team), Shrinking (starring Harrison Ford and Jason Segal), Schmigadoon (musical-spoof that’s really fun), and more.
My biggest complaint with it is that there isn’t an Android phone/tablet app, but you can watch it in-browser on Android devices. Otherwise it’s available everywhere (including Android TVs). You don’t need any Apple devices to use the streaming service.
The browser version seems deliberately bad. They didn’t even have a search bar until this year. The shows are good, but the non apple interface is pretty awful.
I don’t like the company in general, so I don’t want to support them. You aren’t a corporate shill for not sharing that opinion, but I really don’t want to support them unless I think it is unreasonable to avoid doing so.
While it is “available” on non-apple devices, I’ve heard almost exclusively negative things about how it runs on the devices I do most of my watching.
Apple tv content is some of the easiest to illegally access content around. Almost no work and $0 is better than $7.
I don’t subscribe to anything I don’t already know for certain I’ll like anyways, I have trouble trusting reviews and other peoples opinions on media. I’ll watch on a friends account or something first, or not at all. Streaming services that don’t have a free with ads tier are not something I really approve of, it feels like buying a mystery.
The browser version on windows doesn’t even play in high resolutions (looks almost like DVDs). I’m not sure what resolution it plays in, but I started pirating apple TV stuff again, even though I am subscribed to Apple TV. Probably gonna cancel it at some point.
The version on android TV plays in 4k and looks really good, but I mostly watch on a windows PC…
Ah, I can understand that. I never got onto the Chromecast train. I got a free one with my YouTube RED subscription that came with a free Stadia controller, but I never really use it. Between my “smart” TV, game console, and HDMI-to-laptop I’m generally covered.
There are plenty of reasons to dislike Apple. A streaming service that doesn’t require any of their devices doesn’t seem like a particularly awful thing, even if their implementation for Android is garbage.
But hey, that’s just me. And I was able to set aside my dislike of Apple as a company and my over-a-decade of Android use to switch to their phones so my family and my wife’s family could continue to use their precious iMessage and I wouldn’t miss out on pictures and videos of my niblings (seriously fuck Apple for iMessage), so maybe I’m too middle-of-road on this for clear anti-Apple vision.
Honestly I don’t hate iOS. It had been a LONG time since I had used it, and they’ve made serious improvements. There are certainly things I miss from Android (better notifications, better gestures, able to change what buttons do), but it’s been ages since I bothered rooting or using custom ROMs, so I haven’t lost nearly as much as I thought I would.
iOS is much better on battery life, as a general rule. Also the Apple Watch meshes with the iPhone in a way that WearOS can only pretend at.
I had a really annoying transition period, but once I got into the iOS workflow I was fine. Had to rethink how I do certain things, but honestly I feel like I navigate modern springboard faster than I did Nova or whatever home screen I was using on Android.
(Of course my springboard looks completely different from the average iOS user, since I came from Android and other iOS user’s ugly monstrosities evolved over years of using substandard, terrible springboard before it was finally made good.)
I’ve made sure to keep my data up to date in Google so I can transition back if something from the Android side really wows me, but for now I’m pretty happy.
Edit: Not really sure why this got downvoted. I’m not advocating anything here, just sharing my experience. Sorry I’m not miserable, I guess?
It’s one of the cheapest and most consistent streaming services.
Just do what most people do and rotate something else out for a month or two so you can support the people who make this stuff. Writers don’t get residuals from piracy. And popularity on torrent sites doesn’t help them win renewals or better contracts.
If a show that I watched illegally is really good I make an effort to purchase stuff directly from the writers, or occasionally just give them a donation. Its not like the majority of a subscription would go to them either, just mostly in a CEOs pocket.
I could afford the extra subscription, it isn’t just about shaving down costs. I have a very good “user experience”, better than most streaming services I’ve used, when I pirate things. I don’t have any apple devices to watch on, and have heard it is unpleasant to use apple tv on alternatives.
Lastly, I just don’t like apple. Thats just my opinion, I don’t wanna support them.
The writers aren’t the only people that work on a show. Buying something “directly from the writers” may sound or feel like it’s an altruistic move, but those credits at the end of a show with hundreds of names represent all the people who won’t get paid by you buying something “directly from the writers”.
Also, paying for things is how things continue to get made. If Apple looks at the streaming numbers for something like Strange Planet and they’re very low, there’s no season 2. All the crew on the show may find other work, but similar concepts may be labeled as “unprofitable”, and the market for ideas like “here’s a quirky web comic that we all love, let’s try making it into a show” hurts for it.
A sliver of what you would pay for Apple TV+ would go towards Tim Cook, sure, but the guy is actually paid a significantly smaller slice of the profits of Apple than many other CEOs are paid by their respective companies, and the pie of an Apple TV plus subscription isn’t divided up to only one or two people.
It isn’t my job personally to worry about the employees of a massive corperation with more money at any given time than I’ll ever see.
I pay the artists writers sometimes not because I think they are owed something for their work, but because I want to reward well done art that I liked. It isn’t how I convince myself that piracy of media produced by large corperations is moral, I think piracy of media produced by large corperations is always moral because large corperations are inherently predatory on all public commons, especially when it comes to IP law. Just look at how they took away the entire concept of things entering the public domain from entire generations.
I think you might have a case when residuals are payed out from streaming services but that isn’t the case so whether or not subscriptions are kept, rotated or dropped factors very little into the compensation creatives receive.
Right now, residuals from streaming are basically nothing, which is unlike more traditional distribution methods like broadcast syndication and home video sales. This is what the strikes are seeking to change, and I have no doubt they will eventually succeed. But I do doubt that the piracy advocates around here will suddenly start paying for their content.
Where piracy does affect creative compensation today is how viewership numbers factor into renewal negotiations. Creatives have a lot more leverage when their show is a significant source of revenue for the studio. They usually get much more favorable compensation with a third season, because that is when new contracts are typically signed.
Part of why companies like Netflix are fighting streaming residuals is because it will require them to be a lot more transparent about what their customers are watching, so the streaming industry could end up looking very interesting in a few years.
I think the biggest problem is fragmentation. Piracy is a service problem. Before all streaming split from Netflix I barely pirated anymore. Now it’s the most convenient option.
The problem there is you probably don’t want Netflix to be $90/mo. In order for every thing to be on one service, either the amount of content needs to go way down or the price needs to go way up.
This stuff is expensive to make, and it will get more so once the strikes are over and writers and actors start actually getting compensated fairly for content made for streaming.
Convenience means more subscribers means more money coming in. Your rationale of 90 dollars overvalued. Just look at the music business these days. Or ebooks/audiobooks for that matter. There’s no other reason to make everything exclusive to one streaming site other than greed.
Take a page from the games industry. Make new shit exclusive on your platform and then rake in the money via all streaming sites. The same way syndication works in the old days.
Ah yes, residuals, famously something that streaming services provide. Paying for a sub service isn’t supporting creators, it’s exclusively supporting an army of middlemen and marketers. If you want to support creatives, buy physical media (I own some blu rays even though no device in my home is capable of playing them) or merchandise.
I love the comic strip and am looking forward to this.
But apple tv? That sucks. For them, mostly, I’m just gunna have to pirate it.
I don’t want to sound like a corporate shill, but Apple TV is not a bad offering as streaming services go. $7/month and plenty of good shows, including Ted Lasso (one of my favorite shows of all time), Mythic Quest (made by most of the Always Sunny team), Shrinking (starring Harrison Ford and Jason Segal), Schmigadoon (musical-spoof that’s really fun), and more.
My biggest complaint with it is that there isn’t an Android phone/tablet app, but you can watch it in-browser on Android devices. Otherwise it’s available everywhere (including Android TVs). You don’t need any Apple devices to use the streaming service.
The browser version seems deliberately bad. They didn’t even have a search bar until this year. The shows are good, but the non apple interface is pretty awful.
I don’t like the company in general, so I don’t want to support them. You aren’t a corporate shill for not sharing that opinion, but I really don’t want to support them unless I think it is unreasonable to avoid doing so.
While it is “available” on non-apple devices, I’ve heard almost exclusively negative things about how it runs on the devices I do most of my watching.
Apple tv content is some of the easiest to illegally access content around. Almost no work and $0 is better than $7.
I don’t subscribe to anything I don’t already know for certain I’ll like anyways, I have trouble trusting reviews and other peoples opinions on media. I’ll watch on a friends account or something first, or not at all. Streaming services that don’t have a free with ads tier are not something I really approve of, it feels like buying a mystery.
The browser version on windows doesn’t even play in high resolutions (looks almost like DVDs). I’m not sure what resolution it plays in, but I started pirating apple TV stuff again, even though I am subscribed to Apple TV. Probably gonna cancel it at some point.
The version on android TV plays in 4k and looks really good, but I mostly watch on a windows PC…
Fair enough! Pirate Ted Lasso if you haven’t yet, it’s amazing!
No Chromecast support, that’s my issue.
It they added that I’d be subscribed but without it I’m out.
Ah, I can understand that. I never got onto the Chromecast train. I got a free one with my YouTube RED subscription that came with a free Stadia controller, but I never really use it. Between my “smart” TV, game console, and HDMI-to-laptop I’m generally covered.
I mean the fact that it is a streaming service offered by apple is enough of a reason for most people to steer clear
There are plenty of reasons to dislike Apple. A streaming service that doesn’t require any of their devices doesn’t seem like a particularly awful thing, even if their implementation for Android is garbage.
But hey, that’s just me. And I was able to set aside my dislike of Apple as a company and my over-a-decade of Android use to switch to their phones so my family and my wife’s family could continue to use their precious iMessage and I wouldn’t miss out on pictures and videos of my niblings (seriously fuck Apple for iMessage), so maybe I’m too middle-of-road on this for clear anti-Apple vision.
/shrug
Don’t let them win, your family are a lost cause but you can still be saved :O
Honestly I don’t hate iOS. It had been a LONG time since I had used it, and they’ve made serious improvements. There are certainly things I miss from Android (better notifications, better gestures, able to change what buttons do), but it’s been ages since I bothered rooting or using custom ROMs, so I haven’t lost nearly as much as I thought I would.
iOS is much better on battery life, as a general rule. Also the Apple Watch meshes with the iPhone in a way that WearOS can only pretend at.
I had a really annoying transition period, but once I got into the iOS workflow I was fine. Had to rethink how I do certain things, but honestly I feel like I navigate modern springboard faster than I did Nova or whatever home screen I was using on Android.
(Of course my springboard looks completely different from the average iOS user, since I came from Android and other iOS user’s ugly monstrosities evolved over years of using substandard, terrible springboard before it was finally made good.)
I’ve made sure to keep my data up to date in Google so I can transition back if something from the Android side really wows me, but for now I’m pretty happy.
Edit: Not really sure why this got downvoted. I’m not advocating anything here, just sharing my experience. Sorry I’m not miserable, I guess?
I saw the artist at SDCC this year, so glad they are becoming so popular.
It’s one of the cheapest and most consistent streaming services.
Just do what most people do and rotate something else out for a month or two so you can support the people who make this stuff. Writers don’t get residuals from piracy. And popularity on torrent sites doesn’t help them win renewals or better contracts.
If a show that I watched illegally is really good I make an effort to purchase stuff directly from the writers, or occasionally just give them a donation. Its not like the majority of a subscription would go to them either, just mostly in a CEOs pocket.
I could afford the extra subscription, it isn’t just about shaving down costs. I have a very good “user experience”, better than most streaming services I’ve used, when I pirate things. I don’t have any apple devices to watch on, and have heard it is unpleasant to use apple tv on alternatives.
Lastly, I just don’t like apple. Thats just my opinion, I don’t wanna support them.
The writers aren’t the only people that work on a show. Buying something “directly from the writers” may sound or feel like it’s an altruistic move, but those credits at the end of a show with hundreds of names represent all the people who won’t get paid by you buying something “directly from the writers”.
Also, paying for things is how things continue to get made. If Apple looks at the streaming numbers for something like Strange Planet and they’re very low, there’s no season 2. All the crew on the show may find other work, but similar concepts may be labeled as “unprofitable”, and the market for ideas like “here’s a quirky web comic that we all love, let’s try making it into a show” hurts for it.
A sliver of what you would pay for Apple TV+ would go towards Tim Cook, sure, but the guy is actually paid a significantly smaller slice of the profits of Apple than many other CEOs are paid by their respective companies, and the pie of an Apple TV plus subscription isn’t divided up to only one or two people.
It isn’t my job personally to worry about the employees of a massive corperation with more money at any given time than I’ll ever see.
I pay the artists writers sometimes not because I think they are owed something for their work, but because I want to reward well done art that I liked. It isn’t how I convince myself that piracy of media produced by large corperations is moral, I think piracy of media produced by large corperations is always moral because large corperations are inherently predatory on all public commons, especially when it comes to IP law. Just look at how they took away the entire concept of things entering the public domain from entire generations.
This guy thinks people that know how to download TV shows have “other subscriptions to rotate out”
It’s funny how people on this site want creatives to get paid but also think their work should be handed out for free.
These people live off residuals. It’s a big sticking point in the ongoing WGA and SAG strikes.
I think you might have a case when residuals are payed out from streaming services but that isn’t the case so whether or not subscriptions are kept, rotated or dropped factors very little into the compensation creatives receive.
Right now, residuals from streaming are basically nothing, which is unlike more traditional distribution methods like broadcast syndication and home video sales. This is what the strikes are seeking to change, and I have no doubt they will eventually succeed. But I do doubt that the piracy advocates around here will suddenly start paying for their content.
Where piracy does affect creative compensation today is how viewership numbers factor into renewal negotiations. Creatives have a lot more leverage when their show is a significant source of revenue for the studio. They usually get much more favorable compensation with a third season, because that is when new contracts are typically signed.
Part of why companies like Netflix are fighting streaming residuals is because it will require them to be a lot more transparent about what their customers are watching, so the streaming industry could end up looking very interesting in a few years.
I think the biggest problem is fragmentation. Piracy is a service problem. Before all streaming split from Netflix I barely pirated anymore. Now it’s the most convenient option.
The problem there is you probably don’t want Netflix to be $90/mo. In order for every thing to be on one service, either the amount of content needs to go way down or the price needs to go way up.
This stuff is expensive to make, and it will get more so once the strikes are over and writers and actors start actually getting compensated fairly for content made for streaming.
Convenience means more subscribers means more money coming in. Your rationale of 90 dollars overvalued. Just look at the music business these days. Or ebooks/audiobooks for that matter. There’s no other reason to make everything exclusive to one streaming site other than greed.
Take a page from the games industry. Make new shit exclusive on your platform and then rake in the money via all streaming sites. The same way syndication works in the old days.
Ah yes, residuals, famously something that streaming services provide. Paying for a sub service isn’t supporting creators, it’s exclusively supporting an army of middlemen and marketers. If you want to support creatives, buy physical media (I own some blu rays even though no device in my home is capable of playing them) or merchandise.