ABC is showing it's true (Apple) colors

"No, I don't have television." That's when I get the really weird looks. The response is usually, "Seriously? How can you not have a TV?" Well of course I have a TV (a 42" LCD, to be exact), but I don't get television. No cable, satellite or rabbit ears. My LCD is hooked up to a home theater PC. And my TV content comes from various sources, including bittorrent, usenet, and increasingly from a website called Hulu. You name it, Hulu has got it. My favorite TV shows are mostly available on-demand, with minimal enough commercial interruption as to still be watchable. I said mostly.

ABC doesn't seem to want to join the party. If you want to watch Lost or Pushing Daisies (the only good shows on ABC), you'll find a Hulu link pointing to ABC's own site. And while Hulu shows are watcheable on all versions of Windows, Mac and Linux computers, ABC's TV viewer ONLY works on Windows XP or Vista PC's. What's worse is that the user interface SUCKS! On Hulu, I click and go. On ABC, I click, wait, search, click again, wait, get locked into a commercial that doesn't seem to continue on to the show, close the windows, click again, and then finally watch my program. Yes, video quality is good. And the commercials are way more interesting than the ones on Hulu. But I'm not sure it's worth the hassle. Reminds me of how Apple ties the iPhone and iPod exclusively to it's iTunes music store. Hmmmm, there's another way ABC and Apple are similar? Let me think. Don't tell me. Oh that's right! ABC is owned by Disney, and Steve Jobs sits on Disney's Board of Directors! If it wasn't for Pixar movies, I would call Steve Jobs a witch and recommend burning him.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A little about me...

So, for any new readers that I gain via G+ or wherever, here's a quick FAQ about me. 1. Where are you located and what do you do for a living ? - I'm Atlanta-based and I work in the consumer electronics industry (go figure).  I know that anyone who is anyone who blogs about tech needs to live in San Fran or NY, but I figure now is a great time to start bucking that trend.  Atlanta is a huge and growing city, all the major tech players have a presence here, tech startups are everywhere, we have 4G LTE coverage from all the carriers, the food is good and the cost of living is cheap.  You do the math. 2. Why are you blogging about "underground" tech? - Because there's a gap in the tech media right now.  Every other blog is talking about Apple this, or Samsung that.  They are reviewing the latest iteration of five-inch black slab of plastic after five-inch black slab of plastic.  But very FEW blogs are talking about cord-cutting and how the various programs, prot
Read more

Social media madness

Image
I hate Facebook.  I should just be upfront about that.  Back in 2007 I thought it was the coolest thing since Star Trek, but now I loathe everything about it.  From its ever changing privacy policies to how it actually shares data with your "friends" and friends of your friends, its a continuous source of irritation to me. Especially because I can't avoid using it!  My family and close friends are on it. My work peers are on it.  And if you ever meet anyone new, the first thing they want to do is Facebook you.  Nevermind that its only full of lolcats , internet memes, and people's TMI .  It's the juggernaut of social media, and if you want to have a presence online, you gotta be on Facebook. I thought Google+ would supplant Facebook at some point, but that's just not going to happen anytime soon.  Facebook has mastered one half of the law of social media inertia.  In short, once most regular folk are "at rest" on a social media property, they tend
Read more

2017 Guide to Cord-Cutting - Episode 1: The "Free" content

As a TV cord-cutter, I have gone mostly legit.  One of my G+ buddies Keith Wilson , posted an article recently showing the drastic reduction in bittorrent traffic over the course of a decade.  His question was, what happened to all the pirates???  I have never believed that content piracy was about a lifestyle or philosophy.  It's always been about ease of content acquisition.  The classic example is pre-2000 Napster vs post-2010 Spotify.  At it's peak, OG Napster was king of the pirate apps and there were virtually no legal alternatives.  Today, pirating albums is trivially easy, but the vast majority of music consumers buy from iTunes or stream from Spotify.  Why?  Because the legal options are abundant and pervasive.  Spotify works on my phone, car, home and work with zero friction and benefits like social sharing features, playlists and such. It's taken a while, but TV has reached a similar nexus.  Barely five years ago, cord-cutting was synonymous with piracy.  One of
Read more