Apple Adds WatchESPN, HBO GO, Sky News, Crunchyroll to Apple TV

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http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2013/06/19HBO-GO-WatchESPN-Come-to-Apple-TV.html

CUPERTINO, California—June 19, 2013—Apple® today announced that HBO GO and WatchESPN are now available directly on Apple TV® joining the great lineup of programming offered to customers. iTunes® users have downloaded more than one billion TV episodes and 380 million movies from iTunes to date, and they are purchasing over 800,000 TV episodes and over 350,000 movies per day.

“HBO GO and WatchESPN are some of the most popular iOS apps and are sure to be huge hits on Apple TV,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “We continue to offer Apple TV users great new programming options, combined with access to all of the incredible content they can purchase from the iTunes Store.”

Apple TV users can choose from an incredible selection of programming including over 60,000 movies and over 230,000 TV episodes, as well as the world’s largest collection of music on the iTunes Store®. Apple TV also offers great content from Hulu Plus, Netflix’s streaming catalog, live sports from MLB, NBA and NHL as well as Internet content from Vimeo, YouTube and Flickr.*

In addition to HBO GO and WatchESPN, three new content providers* are also available today on Apple TV including Sky News, Crunchyroll and Qello offering live news, sports and current TV programming.

HBO GO users get unlimited access to their favorite HBO shows, including HBO original programming, hit movies, sports, documentaries, comedy specials and more. This includes full seasons of the best of HBO, plus bonus features and special behind-the-scenes extras. HBO GO on Apple TV requires a subscription to HBO through participating television providers.

WatchESPN on Apple TV delivers a one-stop video destination for sports fans with live access to ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPN3 and ESPN Buzzer Beater/Goal Line to those who receive ESPN’s networks as part of their video subscription from affiliated providers. Popular sports and fan-favorite shows include college football and basketball, Monday Night Football, MLB, NBA, major golf tournaments, all four Grand Slam tennis events, SportsCenter, PTI and more. Additionally, curated on-demand video featuring the most recent and relevant content—including highlights and news clips from ESPN.com as well as short-form segments from programs such as E:60, Outside The Lines, SC Featured, Sport Science and others—will be accessible through WatchESPN for the first time via Apple TV to all users.

Sky News on Apple TV delivers a live 24/7 news feed to users in the US, UK and Ireland, including breaking news and headlines from business, politics, entertainment and more. In addition to the live feed, users can catch up on specific stories at any time via the extensive on-demand news library.

Crunchyroll, the leading global video service for Japanese Anime and Asian media, will allow subscribers worldwide to watch the latest HD shows one hour after they air in Japan. Qello, a leading on-demand streaming service for HD concerts and music documentaries, offers free or paid subscriptions to music fans worldwide. New users can sign up for Crunchyroll and Qello instantly on Apple TV.
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sorry but this rates as who cares until i can pay a separate subscription fee without needing a subscription to a TV provider.
 
This is good news. I can now bum hbogo off of someone without needing to boot up my xbox.
 
MThanded said:
This is good news. I can now bum hbogo off of someone without needing to boot up my xbox.
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you can do this? let's say i move .. but my mother has HBO Go .. can i log into HBO Go using her account info on a device that supports the HBO Go app?
 
captive said:
sorry but this rates as who cares until i can pay a separate subscription fee without needing a subscription to a TV provider.
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Baby steps.

This appears to be the groundwork towards getting to a true a la carte subscription model. It doesn't seem too far off where there will be an Apple TV app store where you subscribe to various content providers directly.

AppleTV interface needs an update to better manage this stuff, because we're not far off from having to roll around through a ton of apps to get what we want (I know you can reorganize, but an entire new way of navigating this stuff is needed).
 
Double D said:
Never heard of it. I guess I should look into it.
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If you want to stream new anime, there's basically two services worth bothering with: Crunchyroll and Hulu (the latter by virtue of Funimation and NIS America putting up pretty much all their stuff on there, while the former grabs most of what's left).
 
fun fact: I just realized the other day that you can re-arrange the tiles on ATV by clicking and holding down on an icon in the menu, just like iOS
 
Sort of unrelated Apple TV question: Does Apple TV support mirroring of what's on your Macbook, or was that a new Mavericks feature yet to come out? I thought I saw it somewhere, and I'd really love that feature. I think that alone would get me to put down the money, since I don't really like being tethered to my HDTV with an HDMI cord.
 
damn, I might buy a apple tv now. I love crunchyroll and the PS3 version sucks ass and I hate using the xbox for hbogo.
 
RDreamer said:
Sort of unrelated Apple TV question: Does Apple TV support mirroring of what's on your Macbook, or was that a new Mavericks feature yet to come out? I thought I saw it somewhere, and I'd really love that feature. I think that alone would get me to put down the money, since I don't really like being tethered to my HDTV with an HDMI cord.
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It already does that with ATV3 and ML. It's called AirPlay :)
 
RDreamer said:
Sort of unrelated Apple TV question: Does Apple TV support mirroring of what's on your Macbook, or was that a new Mavericks feature yet to come out? I thought I saw it somewhere, and I'd really love that feature. I think that alone would get me to put down the money, since I don't really like being tethered to my HDTV with an HDMI cord.
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It does. Mountain Lion is required, and a "capable" Mac. Check the Apple website to make sure yours is listed (anything 2011 and newer, I think, for MacBook Pros).

NOOOOOOO. DirecTV logins are not supported for the Apple TV app. NOOOOOOOOOO
 
Sailor said:
It already does that with ATV3 and ML. It's called AirPlay :)
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Gotcha. A quick google was showing that yeah it does that. I guess what I saw was that in Mavericks it'll act as a full-fledged second monitor, which is actually more like what I want.

I think when Mavericks hits I'll definitely pick up an Apple TV, then.
 
RDreamer said:
Sort of unrelated Apple TV question: Does Apple TV support mirroring of what's on your Macbook, or was that a new Mavericks feature yet to come out? I thought I saw it somewhere, and I'd really love that feature. I think that alone would get me to put down the money, since I don't really like being tethered to my HDTV with an HDMI cord.
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It supports mirroring now, with the option to use it as another independent monitor coming in Mavericks.

The mirroring needs a Sandy Bridge or better processor for the Quick Sync hardware video encoding, but that's any Mac since 2011.
 
I like AirPlay mirroring quite a bit but is there any way to get it to push to 1080p (I have a 2012 Air at 1440x900)? Even when I set it for best TV picture it puts black bars on the left and right.

Also anyone see some stuttering and freezing of the picture occasionally with AirPlay mirroring?
 
I'm not sure we'll ever get Amazon Instant since they're in such direct competition with Apple.

It's nice to have all these new channels, but the two biggest ones (HBO and ESPN) of course require a cable subscription. I do not have a cable subscription, which is the entire reason I bought an AppleTV. I pay for Netflix and Hulu which are both awesome and total $16 a month, about half the price of the most "basic" cable plan available where I live, and Hulu gets a large amount of next-day content from major networks (almost everything that's not on CBS) plus Comedy Central (Daily Show and Colbert next day, everything else 3 weeks after air).

So these new channels are useless to me (though I do think you can get a very limited amount of ESPN3 content via WatchESPN without a cable subscription, which is great if you really love really obscure sports).

I really really need to get a new iMac. My current MacBook is too old (2006) to run Mountain Lion so I can't even get AirPlay mirroring of my laptop, which would be very helpful.
 
StrikerObi said:
I'm not sure we'll ever get Amazon Instant since they're in such direct competition with Apple.
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They are also in competition with Hulu and Netflix. Apple sells about 1 million AppleTVs a month now (they announced they sold 6 million this year), so it is a market they avoid at a risk.
 
StrikerObi said:
I'm not sure we'll ever get Amazon Instant since they're in such direct competition with Apple.

It's nice to have all these new channels, but the two biggest ones (HBO and ESPN) of course require a cable subscription. I do not have a cable subscription, which is the entire reason I bought an AppleTV. I pay for Netflix and Hulu which are both awesome and total $16 a month, about half the price of the most "basic" cable plan available where I live, and Hulu gets a large amount of next-day content from major networks (almost everything that's not on CBS) plus Comedy Central (Daily Show and Colbert next day, everything else 3 weeks after air).

So these new channels are useless to me (though I do think you can get a very limited amount of ESPN3 content via WatchESPN without a cable subscription, which is great if you really love really obscure sports).

I really really need to get a new iMac. My current MacBook is too old (2006) to run Mountain Lion so I can't even get AirPlay mirroring of my laptop, which would be very helpful.
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Surely you know someone with an ESPN and HBO subscription?

Just use their passwords to access HBO GO and Watch ESPN. That's what I plan on doing.
 
NekoFever said:
Not in this market, and they have Kindle and Instant Video apps out for the iPad, which is a direct competitor to the Kindle Fire.
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The App Store is an open market and anybody can develop apps for it, which is why Amazon has their apps on it. AppleTV is closed, so Apple will keep Amazon off of it.

numble said:
They are also in competition with Hulu and Netflix. Apple sells about 1 million AppleTVs a month now (they announced they sold 6 million this year), so it is a market they avoid at a risk.
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They aren't really though. Netflix and Hulu offer subscription based, all you can watch, streaming video content. Apple does not offer this. Apple offers TV shows for purchase, and movies for purchase/rental via iTunes. Amazon, in addition to their all you can watch component, also offers TV shows and movies for purchase/rental. That is in direct competition with iTunes, which is why I don't think we'll ever see Amazon Video on AppleTV.


KingGondo said:
Surely you know someone with an ESPN and HBO subscription?

Just use their passwords to access HBO GO and Watch ESPN. That's what I plan on doing.
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Yeah I'll be asking around. I don't really care about HBO (I can download those shows) but non-live sports is kind of pointless, they really need to be watched live. What sucks is that the only sport I'm really interested in is college football and I know there will never be a stand alone service for that like there is for the NBA, NHL, and MLB on AppleTV and other platforms, because there is not one central college football TV contract. It's done by the conferences, so maybe I'd get the SEC or Pac-12 on AppleTV on their own, but never the whole shebang, and even if I did get one or two conferences a lot of games would probably be blacked out.

Anyway, out of all these announcements, the only one that i'm really interested in and can get access to is Sky News. Not having cable means I have no news network, and now I do. I suppose we had WSJ online on AppleTV but that's not a very good alternative.
 
This looks good... hope I can use some of the channels in the UK.

I can do away with watching live tv and switch online/ ondemand only.

I also hope they add some updates into the Netflix app to make it more like the PS3
 
Is Comcast allowing the Apple HBO Go app? They are very stingy with authorization for all but the 360 app. Not even the Roku one is allowed.
 
One of the big advantages of not using my PS3 is the noise. Damn that first gen PS3 sound like a plane. Its also much quicker to power on and navigate.
 
StrikerObi said:
The App Store is an open market and anybody can develop apps for it, which is why Amazon has their apps on it. AppleTV is closed, so Apple will keep Amazon off of it.

They aren't really though. Netflix and Hulu offer subscription based, all you can watch, streaming video content. Apple does not offer this. Apple offers TV shows for purchase, and movies for purchase/rental via iTunes. Amazon, in addition to their all you can watch component, also offers TV shows and movies for purchase/rental. That is in direct competition with iTunes, which is why I don't think we'll ever see Amazon Video on AppleTV.
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The App Store is not open.

Putting Amazon Prime video does not mean they need to support buying individual content--they don't allow them to sell Amazon video or books on their App Store apps, for instance.

Amazon is in direct competition with Hulu and Netflix over content deals (look at how they all bid for Viacom content, for instance).
 
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