Yahoo Finance Tim Cook’s unified TV ‘experience' already exists
As Tim Cook unveiled the latest app for the Apple TV (AAPL), called simply “TV,” he spoke of something special and broad, suiting its simple and all-encompassing name.
“We want Apple TV to be the one place to access all of your television, a unified TV experience that’s one place to access all of your TV shows, and movies,” Cook said at the event.
In the TV app, Apple TV purports to be a full dashboard of everything you’re watching, guided by the power of Siri. Well, not everything. Despite the app’s intention of being a one-stop shop, there are a few things missing: Netflix (NFLX) and Amazon (AMZN).
In Cook’s presentation of the new app, Netflix and Amazon were conspicuously absent in favor of rentals and purchases from iTunes, sports apps, and HBO (TWX).
A few years ago, when Amazon and Netflix were mere content-delivery systems—albeit subscription-based, unlike iTunes—this may not have been a big deal. Through the iTunes store, you could get a selection that more or less covered the other options. But now these platforms produce their own award-winning content, and many people pay for Prime, Netflix, and Hulu specifically for those exclusive shows, including “House of Cards” and “Transparent.”
Even though Netflix and Amazon Prime’s service don’t even resemble iTunes competitors anymore—the companies are now major content creators—Apple’s move of leaving them off the TV app prevents Cook’s one-stop shop app from being a reality.
Apple has been leaving Amazon off its TV platform for a while now—it likely won’t give it a pass on revenue sharing, even though it’d help complete Apple TV’s vision—but still not figuring out a way to feature it is a puzzling move given its rising prominence. (You can still use the Netflix app with an Apple TV, but not on the new “TV” app. It’s confusing, I know.)
The Roku platform may not have the sleekness of an Apple product, but it can play Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, HBO, and pretty much everything you’d want—which at the end of the day is what the consumer is looking for. On a Roku you can’t ask Siri to pull up “Transparent”—you have to use the remote—but she won’t do it on an Apple TV either. To watch that show on an Apple TV at all, you have to use a third device like an iPad, play the show on the Amazon iOS app, and mirror your screen with the Apple TV.
Until Apple learns to play nice with others (like Amazon), you will not be having a unified TV experience.
Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumerism, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann.
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