Daring Fireball★ Apple Again Hikes Prices for Its Media Services
https://daringfireball.net/2023/10/apple_again_hikes_prices_for_services
https://daringfireball.net/2023/10/apple_again_hikes_prices_for_services
Jeff Noxon@daringfireball I'd rather pay than pirate, but I refuse to watch ads. Platforms like Amazon Freevee are the freaking worst. If you want an ad-free experience, you must either forego the content or pirate it.
Delric@jeff @daringfireball Which is what drives me nuts pay-streamers like Paramount+ *force* be to watch unskippable promo reel ads on a service I’m paying for! Usually for things I’ve already seen, and which they know I’ve seen!
Raouf Dool@daringfireball neflix is one of the best apps, but it also constantly resumes a series entire episodes away from where I actually am and still mysteriously streams in 360p for no reason when a new episode starts, requiring a restart
Anondson@daringfireball it feels like the free 5GB tier needs to grow by now.
Leon Cowle@daringfireball Typo @gruber “let the new price of $13/month” -- missing 'alone’?
John Gruber@leoncowle Yep, fixed now, thanks!
Andreas Sikkema@daringfireball don’t forget the “oops we forgot to tell you that media can disappear from our service at any time” nature of the streaming services…
Martin the paranoid android
Nicholas@daringfireball @gruber great post, tiny note: News+ doesn’t actually include Bloomberg (I’m an Apple One Premier subscriber)
@nick Thanks, fixed. Must be in mine only because I actually subscribe to Bloomberg.
Colin Pekruhn@daringfireball A little surprised you didn’t call out Netlix's continued unwillingness to integrate with the Apple TV app. When I still subscribed it was a major UX frustration for our family.
@cpekruhn It's a good topic, and an annoyance for me personally, but it doesn't seem germane to this column. Pirating Netflix content won't get it into the TV app (unless there’s some means of doing so I'm not familiar with?).
@gruber You're probably right about that, although you never know with all the hacking that goes on once you enter the virtual pirate seas.
FreediverX@daringfireball
While the UX on Apple TV+ isn't as bad as some, I still find it highly grating. The UI is dominated by promoted content—ads, essentially. There is no real estate I can consider my own, where I control what I see and nothing else.
Their content is decent, but the UX is aggravating and tempts me every day to pirate. That temptation will only increase alongside their prices.
And yeah, News+ is trash, and Apple’s Music's UI sucks.
Paradise Pete@daringfireball I've been thinking about canceling some subscriptions, and today's news pushed me over the edge. Not about the quality, I just use them enough to make it worthwhile.
Tim Tepaße@daringfireball While the iCloud storage space stayed the same, the storage data of the iPhone’s major use case got bigger: iPhone got bigger sensors, hence bigger pictures and videos, even with HEIC.
Chris Gascoigne@daringfireball I think you paint a slightly too rosy picture of the Apple TV+ experience. On some shows you have four things to skip before getting to the show (Podcast ad, trailer for some other show, recap and intro). Two of those are reasonable, two are not and definitely cheapen the experience.
@chrisgascoigne Eh, I don't mind any of that, really. Skip works great, and the intro credits in particular shouldn't count. What are you proposing they do, not even have credits? Do you use any streaming services that do better?
@gruber no, my point was that intro and recap are reasonable the other two are incredibly frustrating. I’m paying for the show and I have to skip two ads to watch it (the podcast ad and the trailer)
@chrisgascoigne But which service/channel do you know that doesn’t have promos for other shows? Even before streaming HBO, on cable, showed commercials for other HBO shows at the start.
@gruber I’m talking about the promos that run after I choose to play something but before the show starts, not promos in the menu. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen a promo after pressing play on Netflix or Disney
fredrik@chrisgascoigne @gruber I’m in total agreement about this. I have zero tolerance for prerolls on a premium streaming subscription and discontinued my ATV+ sub because of it.
@chrisgascoigne I do agree with you on the podcast promos though.
@chrisgascoigne @daringfireball Yeah doesn’t bother me either, you can skip the promo or recap if not interested. But try that on Paramount+ — it forces you to watch unskippable promo ads. Awful on an iPad because you can’t swipe or advance, only sit and watch 30-60 seconds of ad…that you paid for!
@delric @daringfireball I know you can skip the ads. I’ve never seen an ad on Netflix after I click play. Watching Foundation on Apple TV+ shows two ads before I even get to the recap/intro. I don’t think being better than Paramount+ should be the bar for Apple. I think it is particularly grating because the Foundation podcast ad is a still image and it gives me flashbacks to FBI piracy warnings on DVDs.
@chrisgascoigne @daringfireball If the bar is “immediately skippable”, I’m happy to have Apple jump it. I find the promos interesting enough usually.
poswald@daringfireball News+ also is only available in a few countries. I feel like it has no path toward being a major self-supporting feature worth paying for outside of the bundle.
Magnus Ahltorp@daringfireball The autoplay in the Netflix app is extremely irritating. They don’t want you to choose, they want to choose for you.
Frank Malinowski@daringfireball How can you label a 13-17% increase modest? The world is hurting right now over 8% inflation. If workers are seeing any pay increases, they are nowhere near 15%. And this is on top of a recent pay hike for the service.
Regular people have limited budgets. They will start dropping services because their budget won’t allow them to keep everything when everything is increasing but their pay is not keeping pace.
Geoffairey@daringfireball there is another option you’ve ignored. Just unsubscribe and don’t watch the content. Many people do that and choose other services. Not everyone pirates
0xebfr@daringfireball News+ is a bit of a mess. No way (that I can discover) to search. The mini-crossword puzzles are an amusing way to spend a few minutes, but hard to find.