9 ms·

Apple Special Event Livestream [video]

82 points by slater 8y ago

scarface74 8y ago
Apple Arcade: One subscription price for games with no in app purchases? That will sell a millions of iPads and hopefully new iPod Touches for kids. But no pricing information???
- stiGGG 8y ago
  I bet they are waiting for Google telling some more about pricing on their Stadia service. Apple Arcade has to be cheaper.
CoolGuySteve 8y ago
It's been 10 years since I worked on live streaming for sports. Lets see if it's finally happening. My guess is... meh.
- ascagnel_ 8y ago
  I've been using NHL.tv and MLB.tv for at least the last half-decade to watch ice hockey and baseball, respectively. I've been looking at F1 TV for this season, but haven't jumped in yet as there isn't an app for $STREAMING_BOX (you have to send video from another device to get it onto your TV). It's less a question of technology and more a question of business at this point.
  - giarc 8y ago
    There is still technology issues with streaming. Take DAZN for example. They are the provider of NFL streams and they started with a ton of issues with quality of streams, to the point where it was unwatchable. They actually refunded everyone a month's worth of service ($20) because it was so bad.
    - eunoia 8y ago
      The NFL is also their own provider of streams. GamePass works great, all games live. It’s just not available in the states for business reasons.
    - thirdsun 8y ago
      They had similar problems with their football (as in soccer) streams in europe at the beginning. However to be fair they improved a lot since then and it's pretty stable now. One has to consider that it's live and while I'm sure Netflix or other big players would do a better job, being able to buffer makes this much easier. I think DAZN is an awesome package with lots of relevant content for a football (soccer) enthusiast like me at a very fair price.
  - CoolGuySteve 8y ago
    Yes, those use the CoreMedia rtsp streaming that I did a little bit of work on. Or at least they did when I was there.
  - samstave 8y ago
    Naive question, from me: Why isnt there a "streaming hub" Where anyone can pub-sub model streaming through "allstreams.com" and users just publish to it, and subscribe from it based on the content they want. Subs pay some amountto subscribe to topics of interest and pubs pay premium to be "featured in their category" Imagine "reddit for streaming" and each /s/substream can have uses subscribe and comment and thread-topic beneath the stream.... with meta, mega, mash streams available as an option... Build your own stream channel watching library.... #tag them so you can have #gaming streams lumped. #nfl, #nhl or #Raiders for all things Raiders, as an example... #news or #conservativenews etc... you get the idea...
  - paddy_m 8y ago
    I'm an F1 TV subscriber. The F1 TV website has a pretty poor UI. No spacebar to pause. No distinct bookmarkable URL for past seasons. Sporadic full race archives - from 93 to 2001, there are only about 3 full races per season, the rest are highlight coverage. When live watching a race switching to one of the in car cameras results in the whole app reloading. The streaming quality of the Australian GP was pretty good, no buffering or image quality issues. That said, the coverage is more reliable than ESPN's. When F1 moved to ESPN from NBCSN for the past year, I think it was a huge slap in the face to US F1 fans. NBCSN really cared about the coverage, they had their own team and they promoted the coverage. ESPN seems to run F1 like an infomercial, they just rebroadcast the british coverage. ESPN frequently doesn't broadcast qualifying or worse will broadcast practice and not qualifying.
  - ben_jones 8y ago
    Until TV stops paying for a monopoly on sports (via blackouts of local games) the fans will continue to consume subpar services. I would pay hand over fist for an NBA streaming app that gave me every game at good quality. Instead I use the Hulu Live TV package and occasionally watch pirate streams (because the Hulu UI for recording a game interferes with watching it live - I've been stuck in loops of watching 5 minute commercial blocks endlessly because they didn't invest enough into QA). EDIT: I use the Apple TV hulu app which probably gets less development resources/QA then other platforms.
    - ascagnel_ 8y ago
      The nice thing about the ATV Hulu app is that you can log in to Hulu at a system level, and then individual channel apps can use that system-level login. If I wanted to watch+record, I'd watch live via the channel's app, and then watch the recording via Hulu. As you said, though, catching up to a live event was an awful UX. FWIW, I've been trying PS Vue this month, and they handle that case far better than Hulu.
  - rconti 8y ago
    Yup, I have used the NFL one. I don't care that it's not live because I don't want to spend my daytime hours watching football, but I'm happy to watch my out-of-market team after-the-fact while I eat dinner. Particularly on 60 minute replay. I'm really interested in F1 TV, but I suspect they'll never offer the features I want: * Play via AndroidTV or AppleTV * Live OR replay * 2nd-screen sync for tablet or computer so I can watch telemetry and data and driver views. It's definitely a non-starter to have to cast from my laptop to my TV, and only have a single-screen experience. I really want the main broadcast on my TV and only choose to have the telemetry or driver views as a second screen.
    - ascagnel_ 8y ago
      F1 TV has said they'll do apps for streaming boxes, but haven't given a timetable as of yet, the same for in-session catchup. 2nd-screen sync sounds cool, but I also feel like getting the sync right will be very difficult.
- wapoamspomw 8y ago
  All of the OTT services have sports packages similar to what you'd get from a cable company.
danvoell 8y ago
What is this supposed to be about?
- empath75 8y ago
  apple's new streaming video and news services and maybe other stuff.
songco 8y ago
Any hardware updates? I hope there’s new iPhone se.
- jagger27 8y ago
  iPod touch refresh is rumored but I'm doubtful.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  The spate of hardware refreshes last week makes this unlikely. Perhaps the Apple TV could be updated, but not the core hardware (phones/tablets/computers/watches).
- bdcravens 8y ago
  Pretty much every sign points to zero hardware updates.
canuckintime 8y ago
The most important question is not which subscription offerings or bundles Apple will announce today, or if the content will be any good, but if they will be mainly available on Apple's hardware or provided on other platforms. Apple Music is available on iOS, Mac, Android and Windows (including in Window's App Store) but that's partly due to the legacy of iTunes and acquisition of Beats (which already had an Android app). There has been encouraging signs in the past year as iTunes content has been made available on more non-Apple platforms. So I'll be watching closely during this for the availability of the Apple News service. When Apple acquired Texture they kept the Android app alive but immediately shut down the Windows 10 app. What will Apple do next with this service?
- wlesieutre 8y ago
  Their recent TV announcements are another big platform worth mentioning. Apple TV app is coming to TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, and Visio, along with Roku and FireTV devices.
- yoz-y 8y ago
  It makes sense to have their subscription services available to as many people as possible. One of the reasons to push everything video related into the TV app is to be compatible with all the new smart TVs and boxes I suppose. News and Music could have web versions quite easily, there are third party clients for Music already.
40acres 8y ago
I'll wait for the write ups but I'm excited to see what Apple's pivot to services entails. I don't own a iPhone but definitely have been envious of some of the services that are included with the Apple ecosystem. Apple's reputation as a luxury tech company can definitely help them turn into a services giant imo.
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  It isn’t a pivot to services. They create their own services so they have leverage. Now instead of being forced into bad agreements they can set the terms. Ultimately access to these services is limited enough that they’ll never become a monopoly so in my opinion they are a great addition to the landscape.
IloveHN84 8y ago
Yawn
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
koolba 8y ago
Paraphrasing comments from Tim Cook regarding Apple News: > "Apple News is now the world's most popular news app ... Our editors pick the best source..." That's both amazing (the rise to prominence) and scary (the inherent centralized power).
- bsaul 8y ago
  i didn't even remember apple news was an app. For me it's just a list of links to regular news websites from the widget iOS page... I wonder if they count that as well in the "most popular app".
- pjmlp 8y ago
  I saw that, but given iOS worldwide market share, I find it very hard to believe.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Android does not have a single, built-in news app.
    - pjmlp 8y ago
      Google news comes to mind. Plus 22.85% doesn't make it the leader, even if we go along with Android not having a single source of news. https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/iphone/iphone-vs-android-market-share-3691861/ https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/iphone/iphone-vs-android-...
- 59nadir 8y ago
  > That's both amazing (the rise to prominence) and scary (the inherent centralized power). I don't know a single person that uses a "news app", so I'll take this feat with a grain of salt.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Yes because your anecdotal experience is statistically relevant....
gnicholas 8y ago
> Apple News is used to read 5 billion articles a month and is the number one news app...unbelievable! (paraphrasing) Not really surprising at all, given that iOS pushes Apple News articles onto the lock screen/notification center. I find it annoying and turned it off, but I have noticed that many family members didn't know what it was exactly or how to get rid of it (though they wanted to).
- jahlove 8y ago
  It really is a much better product than Google's offering though. I don't know what Google was thinking about when the killed the Google News app.
  - dajohnson89 8y ago
    they were likely thinking, it doesnt generate enough revenue?
    - tracker1 8y ago
      The irk, is it's still in my launcher, and on Chrome home screen on my android device. But it's a pain to get in a browser on the desktop.
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    Sure, it's not a bad app. It's just a little odd to feign surprise that it's the most popular news app, given how it's featured in iOS. I do like the accessibility aspect of the app — it is the only big tech company app that allows the user to change the text size on iOS. It is crazy that this very basic usability/accessibility feature sets it apart from offerings by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, but Apple News is the only one that does this. [1] One thing I don't like about Apple News is the way they do link sharing, which for some reason is stickier than other link shorteners. 1: https://medium.com/@BeeLineReader/the-importance-of-text-accessibility-in-news-apps-45ac8cca2e9a https://medium.com/@BeeLineReader/the-importance-of-text-acc...
    - 8y ago
jahlove 8y ago
New York Times published a rare behind-the-scenes look at Apple News last October. It's was pretty interesting. In a world where every company is trying to create algorithms to automate everything, Apple is taking a more human approach. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/apple-news-humans-algorithms.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/apple-news-hum...
- save_ferris 8y ago
  On the flip side, NYT opted against joining Apple News, presumably on the 50% cut that Apple is taking[0]. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/technology/apple-news-wall-street-journal.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/technology/apple-news-wal...
dmix 8y ago
"What you read in Apple News wont follow you on the web" ...but they said he was searching about Costa Rica and the news app recommended a magazine article about that. So, it's the inverse? What you do on the web will follow you into Apple News?
- rstupek 8y ago
  It's being done on your device and not on the web by an external service
system2 8y ago
$9.99 for full access news? Too good to be true. If everything I want is there, I will be their customer forever.
- kgwgk 8y ago
  If everything you want is the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal (not counting the 300 magazines as "news") you're covered :-)
- p1esk 8y ago
  I must be missing something. Why would I want to pay for news? Before I used to get my news from FF newsfeed. Then they discontinued it, and I realized I don't miss it. Honestly, I'd rather look at HN frontpage whenever I have a free minute.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I’m sure you also haven’t owned a TV in 10 years and wonder why people still watch TV.... Yes most people would rather get their news from HN.
    - lostlogin 8y ago
      It is a little baffling why people tolerate tv and the 10 mins of adverts per hour. I used to, and I don’t get that either.
  - system2 8y ago
    They are talking about hundreds of magazines included. Not just news like newspapers. Most of those print magazines would be so nice to have nearly free and more entertaining.
  - geofft 8y ago
    I often see links on the HN front page that require payment.
LukeWalsh 8y ago
One highlight is that there's a heavy emphasis on private recommendations inside the news app, including magazines (the app downloads a set of articles and manages recommendations on-device). There was a slide "Apple doesn't know what you read." Apple is doubling down on not giving data to advertisers.
- dmix 8y ago
  Because they are charging a monthly fee to access it and don't need to sell your data as a business model. Not having to deal with advertisers has always been a gain of paying for online services via subscription. Although some try to mix the two.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    Charging for magazine subscriptions hasn’t stopped publishers from selling your information to advertisers before.
    - 52-6F-62 8y ago
      Advertisements in News+ are included like they are in print magazines, mainly.
      - scarface74 8y ago
        Yes, but magazines publishers will sell your name, address, demographic information to advertisers.
        52-6F-62 8y ago
        They don't have access to that information through Apple News whatsoever.
  - jahlove 8y ago
    > Because they are charging a monthly fee to access it Only for the magazines, not the news.
gnicholas 8y ago
Apple News+: $9.99/mo with family sharing included for free. First month free.
dreamcompiler 8y ago
If Apple News is accessible by a browser, I might sign up. (If there's any service that's perfect for HTML5 and CSS, it's news and magazines.) But if Apple ignores the web and requires an app so they can show me an animated magazine cover, I'll go on ignoring Apple News.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  > If there's any service that's perfect for HTML5 and CSS, it's news and magazines. There were rumors that the magazines in Apple News would be PDF-based. Fingers crossed this is not the case, for so many reasons....
  - matthewmacleod 8y ago
    Which reasons?
    - egypturnash 8y ago
      PDFs don't reflow, for starters - have you ever tried reading a PDF of a book on your phone? It's a miserable experience.
    - gnicholas 8y ago
      In addition to reflow, described elsewhere, imagine having to design PDfs in a zillion sizes so it looks good on everything from an iPhone SE up to an iPad Pro (or iMac, for that matter).
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    They're not PDF-based. They take in a JSON spec of their own design and the output seems to be a custom HTML-like view. It auto-reflows [to the chagrin of some art directors and designers]. They seem to have prioritized readability and accessibility by limiting composition. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_news/apple_news_format https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_news/apple_n... edit: Some back issues are PDFs. Future issues won't be.
ksec 8y ago
>Family Sharing for Apple News+ with no extra cost I thought that is wrong. While it is good value, a whole family reading it and cost the same? I am very worried about publisher not getting what they need for quality content. That is your daughter reading on Gossip Magazine, Dad reading Financial Times, and Mum Reading Fashion or something. It would have been better if it was something like $24.99.
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  So do you buy extra newspapers for your children too and toss yours in the shredder when you’re done with them, so no one else accidentally shares them?
  - ksec 8y ago
    So your children read Financial News and your mum reads Golf Magazine or your Dad reads Woman 's Fashion magazine? How many of those can be shared? In terms of Interest. Even a $19.99 would have made it a great deal for many.
mullingitover 8y ago
It's really annoying that neither Apple or Google let you completely block Fox News. Both offer options that on the surface seem to block it. However, with Apple News I blocked Fox and the page reloaded to "Trending Stories," and the first thing was Fox News clickbait. Google News seems to block it, but when you click through to any "Full Coverage" links, Fox News is back polluting the feed.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I’m no fan of Fox News but I like the fact that they don’t make it easy to be in a filter bubble.
  - mullingitover 8y ago
    I have to spend irreplaceable moments of my life explaining to my own family that vaccines won't cause autism. I'm well outside the filter bubble. Fox News is like sewage, in that yes, I'm aware of its existence, but no, I don't want it mixed in with things I consume daily.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      The little I’ve watched Fox News, while the opinion pieces are one sides and dishonest and they do choose what not to cover and what to emphasize, I haven’t seen any indications that they cover outright conspiracy theories. Out of the conservative news sites though, I do find that RedState and the Hill to be more honest.
      - drewrv 8y ago
        The certainly fanned the flames of Seth Rich conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Fox_News_retracted_reporting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Fox_News_r...
- freyir 8y ago
  I loved the promise of Apple News, but in my experience it’s been pretty bad. As much as I try to curate it, it’s full of clickbait and topics I’m not interested in (really, Kylie Jenner posted a photo of her butt on Instagram and we need a news headline about it?). The morning/evening digests seem to be higher quality (may be hand curated) but doesn’t seem personalized.
Phenomenit 8y ago
This is rock bottom, Apple has become a loanshark. There's no innovation left.
- scarface74 8y ago
  How so?
  - Phenomenit 8y ago
    It's just the trend I've observed that companies want to lend people money even though they are not banks or creditcard companies because it's the easiest why to make money without adding value. So what I'm saying is that it's not a good sign that Apple is trying to become a bank instead of making decent hardware/software.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      I’m not sure that Apple is making money off of the credit card besides the usual merchant fees it gets from using Apple Pay. It seems like it is just another branded card run by Goldman Sachs.
    - pushtheenvelope 8y ago
      lending money helps people unlock activity they want to do today, but can only afford tomorrow. E.g. live in a house, or have a car to commute. Even short-term loans can provide very helpful liquidity to folks facing a cash crunch. Why is that not adding value?
joegahona 8y ago
"There's never been an offer like this before" Uh, yes there was. It was called Texture.
- briandear 8y ago
  Texture didn't have newspapers did it?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
gnicholas 8y ago
Interesting that there's 2% rewards on Apple Pay purchases and 1% when you use the physical card. What happens if you use it to make a purchase online? Presumably that's 1%? It's not Apple Pay, after all (in almost all cases).
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  I can purchase online using Apple Pay. I'm assuming it requires using MacOS and the seller has to enable it on their end too.
  - saagarjha 8y ago
    Only the purchaser enabling it and you using Safari.
- sureshv 8y ago
  Fee structure is likely better for Apple when not using the standard visa/mc rail.
Shivetya 8y ago
This event is an anti-trust Pinata, Apple Card is probably the most amazing product introduced during the event.
- koolba 8y ago
  There's nothing particularly amazing about Apple Card. The "rewards" aren't special and your money is locked the Apple ecosystem unless you also link a bank account (and then wait 1-3 days per external transfer). I'll be impressed in a few years after they gain enough traction to release their own payment network that totally sidesteps credit cards.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    The rewards are special because they aren’t obtuse. You can use the rewards to pay on your credit card and you can use the physical credit cards anywhere.
areoform 8y ago
I was initially skeptical of Apple diversifying into services, but wow they might have just created the next generation bank (I'm sure they'll become a bank at some point). Their rewards scheme is simple and intuitive. Their privacy features are amazing. They're solving the incomprehensible receipt problem with more intuitive receipts that tags locations on your device and then generate intuitive spending summaries. The privacy features are even better. No one gets to mine your data, which is incredible! And wow their new card just looks gorgeous and it might be the most secure card ever. It is chip only so that means no more easy skimming and there's no need to change/cancel card numbers when your purse goes missing. This is the way of the future. Wow.
- dreamcompiler 8y ago
  I like the idea too. But a bank card that doesn't work unless you own a device that runs IOS is a non-starter.
  - rstupek 8y ago
    Not for 900 million people who do own an IOS device
    - kyriakos 8y ago
      Keep in mind apple pay is not available world wide yet
scarface74 8y ago
A physical credit card with no credit card number, cvv code, expiration date, or signature? This is such a simple security idea that I’m surprised more companies don’t do it.
- lotsofpulp 8y ago
  The only reason they can do it is because they can display all that information on Apple devices in a presumably secure enough way, which other companies obviously can't.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
Rebelgecko 8y ago
When did these start working on browsers other than Safari?
westondeboer 8y ago
First time that I can watch this in chrome!
scarface74 8y ago
The AppleTV app on Roku. I have two AppleTV 4K devices but I also have three Roku TVs. I’m interested in trying it on them.
JustSomeNobody 8y ago
Hmm... I wonder if my NVidia Shield TV will get Apple TV app.
maskedinvader 8y ago
tl;dw; apple news+ (news subscription app for $9.99 / month) apple card (credit card by apple backed by master card/goldman sachs) apple arcade (gaming subscription with 100+ exclusive games, pricing TBD) apple tv channels (all in streaming app having channels like hbo and starz, priced individually per channel) apple tv+ (service that will carry Apple produced content)
scarface74 8y ago
My only real disappointment is that they didn't announce pricing for anything besides Apple News+. I was hoping to see some type of bundled pricing that included more iCloud storage. Hopefully, with the games subscription, they will see the need for an updated iPod Touch for kids and maybe even one with an iPhone 7/8 size screen. Even if it is only slightly cheaper than the $329 iPad. An iPod Touch plus a Disney+ subscription, plus a games subscription would be the perfect thing for kids ("cue the outrage about using "electronic babysitters")

82 points by slater 8y ago

Apple Arcade: One subscription price for games with no in app purchases? That will sell a millions of iPads and hopefully new iPod Touches for kids. But no pricing information???

stiGGG 8y ago
I bet they are waiting for Google telling some more about pricing on their Stadia service. Apple Arcade has to be cheaper.

CoolGuySteve 8y ago

It's been 10 years since I worked on live streaming for sports. Lets see if it's finally happening. My guess is... meh.

ascagnel_ 8y ago
I've been using NHL.tv and MLB.tv for at least the last half-decade to watch ice hockey and baseball, respectively. I've been looking at F1 TV for this season, but haven't jumped in yet as there isn't an app for $STREAMING_BOX (you have to send video from another device to get it onto your TV). It's less a question of technology and more a question of business at this point.
- giarc 8y ago
  There is still technology issues with streaming. Take DAZN for example. They are the provider of NFL streams and they started with a ton of issues with quality of streams, to the point where it was unwatchable. They actually refunded everyone a month's worth of service ($20) because it was so bad.
  - eunoia 8y ago
    The NFL is also their own provider of streams. GamePass works great, all games live. It’s just not available in the states for business reasons.
  - thirdsun 8y ago
    They had similar problems with their football (as in soccer) streams in europe at the beginning. However to be fair they improved a lot since then and it's pretty stable now. One has to consider that it's live and while I'm sure Netflix or other big players would do a better job, being able to buffer makes this much easier. I think DAZN is an awesome package with lots of relevant content for a football (soccer) enthusiast like me at a very fair price.
- CoolGuySteve 8y ago
  Yes, those use the CoreMedia rtsp streaming that I did a little bit of work on. Or at least they did when I was there.
- samstave 8y ago
  Naive question, from me: Why isnt there a "streaming hub" Where anyone can pub-sub model streaming through "allstreams.com" and users just publish to it, and subscribe from it based on the content they want. Subs pay some amountto subscribe to topics of interest and pubs pay premium to be "featured in their category" Imagine "reddit for streaming" and each /s/substream can have uses subscribe and comment and thread-topic beneath the stream.... with meta, mega, mash streams available as an option... Build your own stream channel watching library.... #tag them so you can have #gaming streams lumped. #nfl, #nhl or #Raiders for all things Raiders, as an example... #news or #conservativenews etc... you get the idea...
- paddy_m 8y ago
  I'm an F1 TV subscriber. The F1 TV website has a pretty poor UI. No spacebar to pause. No distinct bookmarkable URL for past seasons. Sporadic full race archives - from 93 to 2001, there are only about 3 full races per season, the rest are highlight coverage. When live watching a race switching to one of the in car cameras results in the whole app reloading. The streaming quality of the Australian GP was pretty good, no buffering or image quality issues. That said, the coverage is more reliable than ESPN's. When F1 moved to ESPN from NBCSN for the past year, I think it was a huge slap in the face to US F1 fans. NBCSN really cared about the coverage, they had their own team and they promoted the coverage. ESPN seems to run F1 like an infomercial, they just rebroadcast the british coverage. ESPN frequently doesn't broadcast qualifying or worse will broadcast practice and not qualifying.
- ben_jones 8y ago
  Until TV stops paying for a monopoly on sports (via blackouts of local games) the fans will continue to consume subpar services. I would pay hand over fist for an NBA streaming app that gave me every game at good quality. Instead I use the Hulu Live TV package and occasionally watch pirate streams (because the Hulu UI for recording a game interferes with watching it live - I've been stuck in loops of watching 5 minute commercial blocks endlessly because they didn't invest enough into QA). EDIT: I use the Apple TV hulu app which probably gets less development resources/QA then other platforms.
  - ascagnel_ 8y ago
    The nice thing about the ATV Hulu app is that you can log in to Hulu at a system level, and then individual channel apps can use that system-level login. If I wanted to watch+record, I'd watch live via the channel's app, and then watch the recording via Hulu. As you said, though, catching up to a live event was an awful UX. FWIW, I've been trying PS Vue this month, and they handle that case far better than Hulu.
- rconti 8y ago
  Yup, I have used the NFL one. I don't care that it's not live because I don't want to spend my daytime hours watching football, but I'm happy to watch my out-of-market team after-the-fact while I eat dinner. Particularly on 60 minute replay. I'm really interested in F1 TV, but I suspect they'll never offer the features I want: * Play via AndroidTV or AppleTV * Live OR replay * 2nd-screen sync for tablet or computer so I can watch telemetry and data and driver views. It's definitely a non-starter to have to cast from my laptop to my TV, and only have a single-screen experience. I really want the main broadcast on my TV and only choose to have the telemetry or driver views as a second screen.
  - ascagnel_ 8y ago
    F1 TV has said they'll do apps for streaming boxes, but haven't given a timetable as of yet, the same for in-session catchup. 2nd-screen sync sounds cool, but I also feel like getting the sync right will be very difficult.
wapoamspomw 8y ago
All of the OTT services have sports packages similar to what you'd get from a cable company.

danvoell 8y ago

What is this supposed to be about?

empath75 8y ago
apple's new streaming video and news services and maybe other stuff.

songco 8y ago

Any hardware updates? I hope there’s new iPhone se.

jagger27 8y ago
iPod touch refresh is rumored but I'm doubtful.
gnicholas 8y ago
The spate of hardware refreshes last week makes this unlikely. Perhaps the Apple TV could be updated, but not the core hardware (phones/tablets/computers/watches).
bdcravens 8y ago
Pretty much every sign points to zero hardware updates.

canuckintime 8y ago

The most important question is not which subscription offerings or bundles Apple will announce today, or if the content will be any good, but if they will be mainly available on Apple's hardware or provided on other platforms. Apple Music is available on iOS, Mac, Android and Windows (including in Window's App Store) but that's partly due to the legacy of iTunes and acquisition of Beats (which already had an Android app). There has been encouraging signs in the past year as iTunes content has been made available on more non-Apple platforms. So I'll be watching closely during this for the availability of the Apple News service. When Apple acquired Texture they kept the Android app alive but immediately shut down the Windows 10 app. What will Apple do next with this service?

wlesieutre 8y ago
Their recent TV announcements are another big platform worth mentioning. Apple TV app is coming to TVs from Samsung, LG, Sony, and Visio, along with Roku and FireTV devices.
yoz-y 8y ago
It makes sense to have their subscription services available to as many people as possible. One of the reasons to push everything video related into the TV app is to be compatible with all the new smart TVs and boxes I suppose. News and Music could have web versions quite easily, there are third party clients for Music already.

40acres 8y ago

I'll wait for the write ups but I'm excited to see what Apple's pivot to services entails. I don't own a iPhone but definitely have been envious of some of the services that are included with the Apple ecosystem. Apple's reputation as a luxury tech company can definitely help them turn into a services giant imo.

tinus_hn 8y ago
It isn’t a pivot to services. They create their own services so they have leverage. Now instead of being forced into bad agreements they can set the terms. Ultimately access to these services is limited enough that they’ll never become a monopoly so in my opinion they are a great addition to the landscape.

IloveHN84 8y ago

Yawn

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

koolba 8y ago

Paraphrasing comments from Tim Cook regarding Apple News: > "Apple News is now the world's most popular news app ... Our editors pick the best source..." That's both amazing (the rise to prominence) and scary (the inherent centralized power).

bsaul 8y ago
i didn't even remember apple news was an app. For me it's just a list of links to regular news websites from the widget iOS page... I wonder if they count that as well in the "most popular app".
pjmlp 8y ago
I saw that, but given iOS worldwide market share, I find it very hard to believe.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Android does not have a single, built-in news app.
  - pjmlp 8y ago
    Google news comes to mind. Plus 22.85% doesn't make it the leader, even if we go along with Android not having a single source of news. https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/iphone/iphone-vs-android-market-share-3691861/ https://www.macworld.co.uk/feature/iphone/iphone-vs-android-...
59nadir 8y ago
> That's both amazing (the rise to prominence) and scary (the inherent centralized power). I don't know a single person that uses a "news app", so I'll take this feat with a grain of salt.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Yes because your anecdotal experience is statistically relevant....

gnicholas 8y ago

> Apple News is used to read 5 billion articles a month and is the number one news app...unbelievable! (paraphrasing) Not really surprising at all, given that iOS pushes Apple News articles onto the lock screen/notification center. I find it annoying and turned it off, but I have noticed that many family members didn't know what it was exactly or how to get rid of it (though they wanted to).

jahlove 8y ago
It really is a much better product than Google's offering though. I don't know what Google was thinking about when the killed the Google News app.
- dajohnson89 8y ago
  they were likely thinking, it doesnt generate enough revenue?
  - tracker1 8y ago
    The irk, is it's still in my launcher, and on Chrome home screen on my android device. But it's a pain to get in a browser on the desktop.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  Sure, it's not a bad app. It's just a little odd to feign surprise that it's the most popular news app, given how it's featured in iOS. I do like the accessibility aspect of the app — it is the only big tech company app that allows the user to change the text size on iOS. It is crazy that this very basic usability/accessibility feature sets it apart from offerings by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, but Apple News is the only one that does this. [1] One thing I don't like about Apple News is the way they do link sharing, which for some reason is stickier than other link shorteners. 1: https://medium.com/@BeeLineReader/the-importance-of-text-accessibility-in-news-apps-45ac8cca2e9a https://medium.com/@BeeLineReader/the-importance-of-text-acc...
  - 8y ago

jahlove 8y ago

New York Times published a rare behind-the-scenes look at Apple News last October. It's was pretty interesting. In a world where every company is trying to create algorithms to automate everything, Apple is taking a more human approach. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/apple-news-humans-algorithms.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/technology/apple-news-hum...

save_ferris 8y ago
On the flip side, NYT opted against joining Apple News, presumably on the 50% cut that Apple is taking[0]. [0]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/technology/apple-news-wall-street-journal.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/20/technology/apple-news-wal...

dmix 8y ago

"What you read in Apple News wont follow you on the web" ...but they said he was searching about Costa Rica and the news app recommended a magazine article about that. So, it's the inverse? What you do on the web will follow you into Apple News?

rstupek 8y ago
It's being done on your device and not on the web by an external service

system2 8y ago

$9.99 for full access news? Too good to be true. If everything I want is there, I will be their customer forever.

kgwgk 8y ago
If everything you want is the LA Times and the Wall Street Journal (not counting the 300 magazines as "news") you're covered :-)
p1esk 8y ago
I must be missing something. Why would I want to pay for news? Before I used to get my news from FF newsfeed. Then they discontinued it, and I realized I don't miss it. Honestly, I'd rather look at HN frontpage whenever I have a free minute.
- scarface74 8y ago
  I’m sure you also haven’t owned a TV in 10 years and wonder why people still watch TV.... Yes most people would rather get their news from HN.
  - lostlogin 8y ago
    It is a little baffling why people tolerate tv and the 10 mins of adverts per hour. I used to, and I don’t get that either.
- system2 8y ago
  They are talking about hundreds of magazines included. Not just news like newspapers. Most of those print magazines would be so nice to have nearly free and more entertaining.
- geofft 8y ago
  I often see links on the HN front page that require payment.

LukeWalsh 8y ago

One highlight is that there's a heavy emphasis on private recommendations inside the news app, including magazines (the app downloads a set of articles and manages recommendations on-device). There was a slide "Apple doesn't know what you read." Apple is doubling down on not giving data to advertisers.

dmix 8y ago
Because they are charging a monthly fee to access it and don't need to sell your data as a business model. Not having to deal with advertisers has always been a gain of paying for online services via subscription. Although some try to mix the two.
- scarface74 8y ago
  Charging for magazine subscriptions hasn’t stopped publishers from selling your information to advertisers before.
  - 52-6F-62 8y ago
    Advertisements in News+ are included like they are in print magazines, mainly.
    - scarface74 8y ago
      Yes, but magazines publishers will sell your name, address, demographic information to advertisers.
      - 52-6F-62 8y ago
        They don't have access to that information through Apple News whatsoever.
- jahlove 8y ago
  > Because they are charging a monthly fee to access it Only for the magazines, not the news.

gnicholas 8y ago

Apple News+: $9.99/mo with family sharing included for free. First month free.

dreamcompiler 8y ago

If Apple News is accessible by a browser, I might sign up. (If there's any service that's perfect for HTML5 and CSS, it's news and magazines.) But if Apple ignores the web and requires an app so they can show me an animated magazine cover, I'll go on ignoring Apple News.

gnicholas 8y ago
> If there's any service that's perfect for HTML5 and CSS, it's news and magazines. There were rumors that the magazines in Apple News would be PDF-based. Fingers crossed this is not the case, for so many reasons....
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  Which reasons?
  - egypturnash 8y ago
    PDFs don't reflow, for starters - have you ever tried reading a PDF of a book on your phone? It's a miserable experience.
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    In addition to reflow, described elsewhere, imagine having to design PDfs in a zillion sizes so it looks good on everything from an iPhone SE up to an iPad Pro (or iMac, for that matter).
- 52-6F-62 8y ago
  They're not PDF-based. They take in a JSON spec of their own design and the output seems to be a custom HTML-like view. It auto-reflows [to the chagrin of some art directors and designers]. They seem to have prioritized readability and accessibility by limiting composition. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_news/apple_news_format https://developer.apple.com/documentation/apple_news/apple_n... edit: Some back issues are PDFs. Future issues won't be.

ksec 8y ago

>Family Sharing for Apple News+ with no extra cost I thought that is wrong. While it is good value, a whole family reading it and cost the same? I am very worried about publisher not getting what they need for quality content. That is your daughter reading on Gossip Magazine, Dad reading Financial Times, and Mum Reading Fashion or something. It would have been better if it was something like $24.99.

tinus_hn 8y ago
So do you buy extra newspapers for your children too and toss yours in the shredder when you’re done with them, so no one else accidentally shares them?
- ksec 8y ago
  So your children read Financial News and your mum reads Golf Magazine or your Dad reads Woman 's Fashion magazine? How many of those can be shared? In terms of Interest. Even a $19.99 would have made it a great deal for many.

mullingitover 8y ago

It's really annoying that neither Apple or Google let you completely block Fox News. Both offer options that on the surface seem to block it. However, with Apple News I blocked Fox and the page reloaded to "Trending Stories," and the first thing was Fox News clickbait. Google News seems to block it, but when you click through to any "Full Coverage" links, Fox News is back polluting the feed.

scarface74 8y ago
I’m no fan of Fox News but I like the fact that they don’t make it easy to be in a filter bubble.
- mullingitover 8y ago
  I have to spend irreplaceable moments of my life explaining to my own family that vaccines won't cause autism. I'm well outside the filter bubble. Fox News is like sewage, in that yes, I'm aware of its existence, but no, I don't want it mixed in with things I consume daily.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    The little I’ve watched Fox News, while the opinion pieces are one sides and dishonest and they do choose what not to cover and what to emphasize, I haven’t seen any indications that they cover outright conspiracy theories. Out of the conservative news sites though, I do find that RedState and the Hill to be more honest.
    - drewrv 8y ago
      The certainly fanned the flames of Seth Rich conspiracy theories: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Fox_News_retracted_reporting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Fox_News_r...
freyir 8y ago
I loved the promise of Apple News, but in my experience it’s been pretty bad. As much as I try to curate it, it’s full of clickbait and topics I’m not interested in (really, Kylie Jenner posted a photo of her butt on Instagram and we need a news headline about it?). The morning/evening digests seem to be higher quality (may be hand curated) but doesn’t seem personalized.

Phenomenit 8y ago

This is rock bottom, Apple has become a loanshark. There's no innovation left.

scarface74 8y ago
How so?
- Phenomenit 8y ago
  It's just the trend I've observed that companies want to lend people money even though they are not banks or creditcard companies because it's the easiest why to make money without adding value. So what I'm saying is that it's not a good sign that Apple is trying to become a bank instead of making decent hardware/software.
  - scarface74 8y ago
    I’m not sure that Apple is making money off of the credit card besides the usual merchant fees it gets from using Apple Pay. It seems like it is just another branded card run by Goldman Sachs.
  - pushtheenvelope 8y ago
    lending money helps people unlock activity they want to do today, but can only afford tomorrow. E.g. live in a house, or have a car to commute. Even short-term loans can provide very helpful liquidity to folks facing a cash crunch. Why is that not adding value?

joegahona 8y ago

"There's never been an offer like this before" Uh, yes there was. It was called Texture.

briandear 8y ago
Texture didn't have newspapers did it?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

gnicholas 8y ago

Interesting that there's 2% rewards on Apple Pay purchases and 1% when you use the physical card. What happens if you use it to make a purchase online? Presumably that's 1%? It's not Apple Pay, after all (in almost all cases).

lotsofpulp 8y ago
I can purchase online using Apple Pay. I'm assuming it requires using MacOS and the seller has to enable it on their end too.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  Only the purchaser enabling it and you using Safari.
sureshv 8y ago
Fee structure is likely better for Apple when not using the standard visa/mc rail.

Shivetya 8y ago

This event is an anti-trust Pinata, Apple Card is probably the most amazing product introduced during the event.

koolba 8y ago
There's nothing particularly amazing about Apple Card. The "rewards" aren't special and your money is locked the Apple ecosystem unless you also link a bank account (and then wait 1-3 days per external transfer). I'll be impressed in a few years after they gain enough traction to release their own payment network that totally sidesteps credit cards.
- scarface74 8y ago
  The rewards are special because they aren’t obtuse. You can use the rewards to pay on your credit card and you can use the physical credit cards anywhere.

areoform 8y ago

I was initially skeptical of Apple diversifying into services, but wow they might have just created the next generation bank (I'm sure they'll become a bank at some point). Their rewards scheme is simple and intuitive. Their privacy features are amazing. They're solving the incomprehensible receipt problem with more intuitive receipts that tags locations on your device and then generate intuitive spending summaries. The privacy features are even better. No one gets to mine your data, which is incredible! And wow their new card just looks gorgeous and it might be the most secure card ever. It is chip only so that means no more easy skimming and there's no need to change/cancel card numbers when your purse goes missing. This is the way of the future. Wow.

dreamcompiler 8y ago
I like the idea too. But a bank card that doesn't work unless you own a device that runs IOS is a non-starter.
- rstupek 8y ago
  Not for 900 million people who do own an IOS device
  - kyriakos 8y ago
    Keep in mind apple pay is not available world wide yet

scarface74 8y ago

A physical credit card with no credit card number, cvv code, expiration date, or signature? This is such a simple security idea that I’m surprised more companies don’t do it.

lotsofpulp 8y ago
The only reason they can do it is because they can display all that information on Apple devices in a presumably secure enough way, which other companies obviously can't.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

Rebelgecko 8y ago

When did these start working on browsers other than Safari?

westondeboer 8y ago

First time that I can watch this in chrome!

scarface74 8y ago

The AppleTV app on Roku. I have two AppleTV 4K devices but I also have three Roku TVs. I’m interested in trying it on them.

JustSomeNobody 8y ago

Hmm... I wonder if my NVidia Shield TV will get Apple TV app.

maskedinvader 8y ago

tl;dw; apple news+ (news subscription app for $9.99 / month) apple card (credit card by apple backed by master card/goldman sachs) apple arcade (gaming subscription with 100+ exclusive games, pricing TBD) apple tv channels (all in streaming app having channels like hbo and starz, priced individually per channel) apple tv+ (service that will carry Apple produced content)

scarface74 8y ago

My only real disappointment is that they didn't announce pricing for anything besides Apple News+. I was hoping to see some type of bundled pricing that included more iCloud storage. Hopefully, with the games subscription, they will see the need for an updated iPod Touch for kids and maybe even one with an iPhone 7/8 size screen. Even if it is only slightly cheaper than the $329 iPad. An iPod Touch plus a Disney+ subscription, plus a games subscription would be the perfect thing for kids ("cue the outrage about using "electronic babysitters")