Issue 36  6th November 2015

Siri, Apple TV and the future of discovery

As has been noted a few times already, one of Apple TV's biggest challenges is discovery. Peter Kafka makes a good case for Siri becoming a primary discovery mechanism, in the absence of a straightforward method to enter text. What interests us at Rerun, is how Siri will improve as a recommendation tool, rather than a simple (albeit impressive) search tool.

Apple's commitment to privacy may lead it to rely more on human curation (à la Apple Music) than an overall knowledge of each user's taste from their activities. This distinction is in stark contrast to Google's approach with Google Now, and we're fascinated to see what combination of approaches will win out in the future.

Netflix’s Reed Hastings tells the TV guys how to beat him

In a week where Time Warner CEO, Jeff Bewkes, indicated to investors that it is considering holding back shows from Netflix and other SVOD services, in order to keep more viewers to itself, Reed Hastings gave him a few tips on how he would better compete with Netflix if the roles were reversed.

I would invest more in TV Everywhere. Jeff Bewkes pioneered that idea, seven, maybe eight years ago, and has been trying to drive it. The challenge in the industry is that it’s very fragmented between the cable networks and the distributors, and so it’s really tough to work well together, to extend the ecosystem.

VICE is launching a cable channel called VICELAND

Today VICE officially revealed that it’s partnering with A+E Networks to launch its own cable channel, VICELAND, in early 2016. The company says the channel will reach around 70 million homes.

VICE has come a long way from its beginnings as a free print magazine. Not content to settle for being one of the top producers of original video content online, they're now setting their sights on cable TV with their first channel called VICELAND. It's the first step in what they call "our global roll-out of networks around the world".

Watch this space, because we suspect they won't be the only 'new media' company to make a move into 'old media'.

“Where are we now?”

"Where are we now?" is a planned series discussing the history of social TV with the people who were there. This first entry features a discussion between Alan Wolk and Alex Nagler about the history of the space, check-in apps, Twitter’s place in real-time social TV and the problems it currently faces.

A weekend with the new Apple TV

Engadget's Devindra Hardawar reviews the newly updated Apple TV with the overall opinion that it "was worth the wait – though there are still plenty of issues to iron out." The Rerun team agrees. It's a classic Apple strategy to focus on fewer, well-executed features, on an initial product launch and then roll out missing elements later.

In his review, Hardawar makes specific mention to the QVC app, backing up Nilay Patel's callout in the Verge, that we were so chuffed about in last week's issue.

The new QVC app is one of the best examples of what developers can do with tvOS: It shows off live TV feeds, along with options to buy products right from the Apple TV. Late-night shopping just got a bit more dangerous.