According to our report from earlier, Apple is rumored to be launching their new Apple TV in April, but might only release it later on in the year. The report originated from Bloomberg and has since been confirmed by The Wall Street Journal who has added some insight into the rumors as well. Interestingly it seems that apart from your typical hardware upgrade to the Apple TV, Apple is said to have had more ambitious plans for the device and were actually planning on offering TV shows and movies exclusively over the internet where customers could purchase content using their Apple ID.
However it seems that due to resistance from content providers, Apple could be changing their plans. For instance instead of acquiring the rights from media companies themselves, Apple would instead rely on cable providers to acquire the programming rights and use them as a proxy. What this means is that if you wanted to watch certain shows on the Apple TV, you might need to have a subscription with the cable provider as opposed to dealing with Apple directly. Other reports for scaling back include Apple’s original demand for full seasons of shows, which has now been reportedly scaled back to just five episodes of back catalogue as per the industry standard.
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