Apple TV disappoints. Again.
When Apple TV first hit shelves, I had a couple things to say, the gist of which involved the device being overhyped thanks to a limited library of shows whose price wasn’t that spectacular. Some months down the road, we’re still in the same boat.
The difference today, for me at least, is that I’m currently without broadcast television. I’ve had issues with sporadic distortion in my DirecTV signal, and though the issue only pops up once in a blue moon, when it does pop up, it makes viewing anything impossible, and the phenomenon takes a couple days to clear up. Despite numerous calls to DirecTV’s support line, I was given little real guidance, aside from resetting my TiVo. In the end, for DirecTV to look at my dish and determine if something was wrong with it, it would cost me $70. That’s right, I’d be charged $70 for DirecTV to fix a service I’m already paying for, on account of poor installation in the first place, or a hardware failure. Unacceptable; it would be cheaper to cancel DirecTV’s service and pay the setup fee for Comcast, not to mention that this fee would be cancelled thanks to Comcast’s satellite buyout program.
This all plays into Apple TV because it’s the off-season at the moment, and my TV watching would be limited anyway. So, what better time than to pick up Apple TV and give it a whirl? The problem: the shows I want to watch don’t exist on iTunes. It’s not even that I want weird, obscure shows to be available. In the next month, USA’s The 4400, and FX’s Rescue Me are both starting new seasons, and neither of these shows are listed on iTunes, despite these shows being among the most popular on their respective networks. Also, no Nip/Tuck on FX, nor The Ultimate Fighter on Spike, which is clearly one of Spike’s bigger events.
In my book, that’s a lost sale. Apple already has deals with the aforementioned networks, so why not better coverage of those network’s TV shows? Additionally, no Family Guy, Man vs Wild, or anything from HBO. What gives, Apple?
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