Apple Hires Amazon Fire TV Head to Spearhead Apple TV Business
Apple has hired Timothy D. Twerdahl, the general manager and director of Amazon's Fire TV business, to be the vice president in charge of Apple TV product marketing, reports Bloomberg. Twerdahl joined Apple earlier this month.
Twerdahl has been in charge of Fire TV since 2013, overseeing two generations of the product and its rise as one of the more popular internet-connected set-top boxes. At Apple, Twerdahl will report to Greg Joswiak, VP of iOS and iPhone Product Marketing.
The move will allow Pete Distad, the former head of Apple TV product marketing, to concentrate on helping Apple land content deals, which are headed by Eddy Cue. Before joining Apple in 2013, Distad was senior vice president of content distribution at Hulu.
Having Distad join content negotiations is intended to shore up content for Apple TV, according to Bloomberg, as efforts to secure exclusive content deals for Apple TV have stalled in the past due to failed negotiations.
With the fourth-generation Apple TV, Apple was originally aiming to provide a full a la carte television service that could replace traditional cable and satellite packages, similar to Sony's PlayStation Vue service. However, Apple unsurprisingly saw pushback from both content and cable companies after using negotiating tactics described as "assertive" and "hard-nosed," declining to back down from the terms the company wanted. Apple scaled back its TV ambitions in the past couple of years, though it considered both a slimmed-down subscription service and purchasing Time Warner.
In addition to leading product marketing for the Fire TV, Twerdahl was also the senior director of internet TV at Netflix and a vice president of consumer devices at Roku, according to his LinkedIn.
Popular Stories
The upcoming iOS 18.4 update for the iPhone includes a smaller but meaningful improvement for Apple's in-car iPhone mirroring system CarPlay.
Specifically, CarPlay now shows a third row of icons, up from two rows previously. However, this change is only visible in vehicles with a larger center display. For example, a MacRumors Forums member noticed the change in a Toyota Tundra with a...
Daring Fireball's John Gruber today shared some strongly-worded comments about Apple's delayed personalized Siri features. Gruber is a well-known Apple pundit who has been writing about the company for more than two decades.
In a blog post titled "Something Is Rotten in the State of Cupertino," Gruber said Apple's credibility has been "damaged" by the delay:Keynote by keynote, product by...
Despite being released over two years ago, Apple's AirPods Pro 2 continue to dominate the wireless earbud market. However, with the AirPods Pro 3 expected to launch in 2025, anyone thinking of buying Apple's premium earbuds may be wondering if the next generation is worth holding out for.
Apart from their audio and noise-canceling performance, which are generally regarded as excellent for...
iPhones are finally getting a much-requested setting, but availability is limited.
The upcoming iOS 18.4 update introduces an option to set a default navigation app, other than Apple Maps, but unfortunately this new setting is limited to users in the EU. There, you can now set an app like Google Maps or Waze as your default navigation app on the iPhone by opening the Settings app and tapping ...
If you've been following iPhone rumors over the last few years, you may remember reading reports that Apple flirted with the idea of introducing a super high-end "Ultra" model that would either replace its Pro Max device or sit above it in Apple's smartphone hirearchy. These reports appeared in the pre-launch iPhone 15 and iPhone 16 rumor cycles, but ultimately came to nothing. Now though, the...
Apple's upcoming iPhone 17 Pro models are expected to feature a significant design overhaul, and a new image apparently taken on an assembly line for the unreleased devices appears to confirm the biggest rumored change.
Render of an iPhone 17 Pro model shared by Jon Prosser
The iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are rumored to adopt a horizontal camera bar reminiscent of Google's Pixel...
Apple is planning for a major design overhaul of the iPhone, iPad, and Mac interfaces with the introduction of iOS 19, iPadOS 19, and macOS 16 later this year, reports Bloomberg. The update will "fundamentally change" the look of Apple's operating system, introducing a more consistent cross-platform experience.
Apple plans to update the style of icons, menus, apps, windows, and system...
The Apple Intelligence features that Apple introduced with iOS 18 are not pushing people to upgrade their iPhones, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reiterated today. Apple's recent Siri failures are also going to have an impact on 2025 iPhone shipments, which the market is beginning to realize.
As early as last July, Kuo said expectations that Apple Intelligence could drive iPhone upgrades were...
Apple made a major misstep with the way that it handled the delay of Apple Intelligence features for Siri, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said today. Announcing the delay through a press statement was a bad decision, and Apple should instead have gone through official channels.
Kuo referenced the well-known "Antennagate" PR crisis when the iPhone 4 launched in 2010, and the way that then Apple...
