Do you still need cable?
I came across an article on reuters uk asking this very question. As a subscriber to dish network, and as someone who has watched his bill slowly increase over the years it’s a good question. Like the article I would love ala cart pricing for cable and satellite and believe this is the future and we need it now. As I looked over my channels on dish I found 10 that I watch enough I would want to keep. Add in my wife and son we might have 25 total; keep in mind this does not count the networks that I get free over the air.
Apple has yet to make the ATv the iPod of the living room and has an opportunity to do so, but how? I think we all believe it time for an update something with a bigger hard drive and an ATSC tuner would help, also a bit more processing power, and wireless N. You could sell 2 flavors of the Apple TV; Apple TV “DVR” and Apple TV nano; the nano could act has a rental only, and offer SD output with a small HDD much like the one out today, but for half the cost. The “DVR” model should have all of the above, minimum 250gb with an ATSC tuner (QAM also would be a nice addition), and 1080p. Keep in mind the iPod was not as ubiquitous until the mini hit the streets and made the iPod experience affordable for everyone.
If Apple can get more ATVs in the home maybe just maybe, much like the music industry, we could have some real change in how we get TV. I for one think Apple could lead the way and would like to see it. Honestly I have bought more music in the last few years because of iTunes and my iPod; make things easy and affordable and the masses will follow.
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Comments
@ccunning
What TV do you have? All TVs sold now have an ATSC tuner built in and 90% of all football comes on FOX, NBC, and CBS.
I haven’t had cable for almost two years since Comcast realized they were giving it to me for free and disconnected me. I haven’t missed it for anything more than the occasional Discovery channel special. Between the Daily Show & Colbert Report on Hulu and the 30 podcast channels on my ATV I have yet to even get an antenna for the local stations.
I may be in the minority but I can occupy my time in other ways… and I find having a limited number of Podcasts dictates when I stop watching and grab a book.
The ATV has made me appreciate high definition and TV in moderation!
I use apple tv and netflix for most programming. I got rid of cable, and even with a large amount of tv and movie purchases by my wife and teenagers, I am spending WAY less than the $90 a month that cable was costing me.
The only thing I don’t have access to is live sports programming (soccer). Oh well. I’ll live. One soccer match per month is not worth $40 a month to me.
I love the apple tv. I think that apple hasn’t quite yet figured out how to market the device.
I calculated out how many of the shows we watch are on iTunes and how much it would cost to subscribe to those versus cable and came to the conclusion that cable was still cheaper…. BUT…
BIG BUT….
I completely forgot to factor in how many of those shows I would get free over-the-air anyways regardless of cable. I’ve had cable so long I forgot you can get TV without it! lol
… time to recalculate!…
@Keith - Unfortunately I specifically bought a “TV” (monitor) without a tuner built in thinking I would always have Cable or Satellite and never need it. It’s not a big deal though because I’m far enough outside of “The City” to not get OTA reception anyway. I think I’ll just end up going down to the sports bar on Sundays.
I dumped my cable - in fact, getting the Apple TV was part of that decision. I am getting locals in HD through an antenna and my Tivo S3, and realized that all I used my cable for was occasional movies to supplement my Netflix subscription if I needed an extra one now and then.
I can get a lot more for my money spending my cable bill money at iTunes for better quality content that’s commercial free. I never watched most of the cable stations, anyway.
@ccunning: I think you will be suprised by how far the signals reach. Check out http://www.antennaweb.org/aw/welcome.aspx and TV Fool http://www.tvfool.com/ both work well on finding out what antenna you need. I live in a mountainous area and a Co worker lives 40+ miles from the transmitters and gets every local with his CM 4020. THe good news is if you need a HD tuner (as you say you do) you can find them cheap now because all TV sold have to have an ATSC tuner. I have also read people use the old voom boxes as a tuner and it works well, if you want some kins of DVR look into the sling tr-50 when it hits.
I dumped my cable TV subscription right after I bought my AppleTV. It was right after Superbowl and the writers strike was still ongoing. It has been pretty easy for me so far, but I was never a big channel surfer. I still have not decided what I’m going to do once football season is back. I was hoping Apple would introduce some sort of IPTV solution to fill in the live TV gap, but I’ve pretty much given up hope on that at this point.