Apple TV+ India experience log
Headline could have been better, yet it’s functional and more importantly does not refer to #streamingwars (…and now it does !)
One of those customary glance on mobile phone caught my attention it pointed, Apple TV+ is launching in few hours and would be available in India (at the launch itself!!), I was like …this is something worth trying given that not everyday a global brand does a simultaneous launch of it’s coveted video service… (Hey @Disney streaming services are you listening ?) . Below is the log of my experiential journey
Being a bit of non apple insider (read: not-a-fanboy), it took me a while to realize that Apple TV (oh yes! proper usage of capital letters, apple lingo) is actually an ‘app’ (atleast in this scenario*) and Apple TV+ is a streaming service …right !!
Signup was not herculean task (or was it!) except that it forced my iPAD to be upgraded (to iOS 12.4.3) — which took a while (read: in hours) downloading, installing , configuring … at the end a friendly logo of Apple TV app came alive and announced i am ready to plunge in … But not so fast chief, I needed to signup for Apple TV+ “service” — but not without (a pound of flesh i.e. Credit card info, account id and login PIN (really, i am not making this up !!) and then simply credit card was charged (status: pending, assume for verification), no OTP, no 2-factor-auth stuff (…Hello ! in India we do it nicely with bells and warnings ). Account was charged in name of one APPLE.COM in Luxembourg (if you are getting the drift…). Interestingly i was charged INR 76 (1 USD to INR was : 70.69) odd rounding if 1 USD was intent. With that behind now i was truly ready to enjoy mighty offering …phew !
[ I also repeated a rather simple installation on Amazon FireTV stick, it however required two screens to make the login possible on FireTV. Secondary screen in my case was iPAD which again went through the process of identifying device (via a special on screen code), account id and password combo and bit more here and there ]
To clear the deck; once registered, Apple TV service is free for first 7 days and INR 99 every month after that or INR 999 per year. The best part …it’s flat, no tiers (all capabilities are inbuilt- more on this later).
Coming to streaming service, entry to the app is quite simple there is no audible ‘ding’ (Netflix style) and no compulsion to identify “who-is-watching”, and it lands to clean and uncluttered view (Netflix do you feel it …). Content lineup is interesting and quite limited (presumably temporary situation), which makes it easy to scroll through. In India we got 8 series launched among few additional ones released elsewhere (no explanation …why is that ?). Scrolling, navigation, animation was quite fluid (even on Amazon Fire TV Stick).
I don’t think even for a minute, i lost sight of the key goal, “For all mankind” , being perpetually a sucker for this kind of stuff. But curiously the first thing i clicked on Apple TV app was ‘Avengers: End Game’ … lo and behold… this is not part of Apple TV+, of-course I could buy it à la carte (..seriously !) if i wanted to from ‘vast’ apple library (no thanks!).
Actually NETFLIX to blame here for spoiling us with ‘all you can eat’ offering and also Amazon Prime video … (it’s better to blame two, no !)
‘Silly me’, So this is what they meant apple services quarterly revenue going up to $12.5 B and Apple TV app being the front end (one of many) such current and future services. Be aware of gotchas’ because in the app all the ‘you may like …’ and ‘program like this…’ are coming from the Apple TV- Library and not from the ‘Plus’ service… (repeating myself !).
Now while paying attention to details (no promises my quirks are same as yours). Apple TV+ perhaps has the most (read: excessive) Subtitles management system (where you could get down to even choosing the ‘fonts’ for subtitles (imagine that), color, size, position, style, etc, along with massive possibilities of multiple language options for both audio and subtitles/closed caption, don’t take my words, use this link and scroll like…way down, and see for yourself.
Content presented is in resolution of (upto) 4K, colorspace HDR (more precisely Dolby Vision), Audio possibilities in Dolby 5.1 and Dolby Atmos (wow, but no wow!)… So 4K and HDR checks out on TV. As i don’t have full audio gear, let me know if you find Dolby Atmos experience vividly different from Dolby 5.1.
Then their is a weird display positioning of content rating (I could only guess those are Indian censor board ratings, looks like overlaid in hurry on top of video), it hangs out for a while, before disappearing.
It raises a question, has apple pre-empted the GoI (govt.) design, there is no enforcement of content rating for OTT/Internet services (Yet) …Also did they self certify or actually went to CBFC for availing it.
To pop the bubble not everything was silky smooth. During the course I had stuck video twice- while audio continue to play back and couple of times video frame flickering and once total reboot (let’s try to blame it to FireTV but Netflix never does that and neither does Amazon Video on the same setup, not comparing just making my point). Throughout playbacks not even once i felt that video was Adapting to underlying network conditions (ABR) which could be a very good thing or bad thing (strength of CDN + blah), and as i know how this stuff works (usually), am tempted to point out some wild theories but just don’t have enough niggle, at the end it could be my home network (read: definitely not my home network). However that’s not the most annoying thing, It’s the total lack of scrubber (the small indicative images which appear on top of playback bar — like when you are forwarding), say hello to 90’s you are forwarding (or rewinding… if that’s your thing) completely blind and mysterious.
update: 05-Nov, Actually app tries to scrub the video on FireTV stick by moving the whole image frame (big screen), does a very patchy job and after a while simply stops- by far the lowest technical point of Apple TV+/AppIn nutshell it was fun experiment, given that content is so less, that before my INR 99 kicks-in all available content will be over (and i am SO not going to touch kiddy stuff), perhaps I’ll hang around little longer for ‘For All Mankind’ and to watch ‘See’ subsequent episodes. Let me know what do you find out in general or scoop(ish) !
* Just to be crystal clear Apple TV could be an app (we established that earlier), Apple TV 4K and HD+ are ‘actual hardware’ devices capable of running Apple TV app and inside that Apple TV+ service doing rest of the Apple TV things… (but i guess you already got the point !)
All images are sourced from Apple: Usage Disclaimer and image bundle could be found here. All brands belong to respective owners. All views are personal.
This story first appeared on LinkedIN https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/apple-tv-india-experience-deepak-sharma/
By: Deepak Sharma,
