Apple May Strike Pay-TV Partnership With UK's British Telecom, Pre-Loading Apple TVs With BT Apps

Let's please not start pre-loading 3rd party apps onto iOS devices.

How about a nice metallic sticker on the top of the unit, too? "BT Inside".

Why stop with just the main unit?

Let's please not start pre-loading 3rd party apps onto iOS devices.

How about a nice metallic sticker on the top of the unit, too? "BT Inside".

EE is not a brand of BT!

It is, I'm afraid.

BT bought EE in January 2016.

They kept the 'EE' name and branding for the cellular service, but integrated the core business operations into BT.

EE is not a brand of BT!

It is.

This is how AppleTV grows out of its niche market. Steve Jobs once said that it’s impossible to compete directly with cable providers because when you sign up for cable, they give you a free box so most people aren’t going to go out and buy another box.

The solution there is to make AppleTV the box cable companies give you. Apple should be partnering with more cable companies.

Great. Wish US pay TV providers would do this. But they make too much money on their power sucking set top boxes.

I’m with BT for mobiles and internet so if I can get a free AppleTV 4K as part of my package then all the better! :-)

People are getting all worked up over Apple pre-loading apps, in the manner that, say, companies selling PCs preload the apps of "partner's" (read, "companies giving them piles of cash") into the Windows image on the PC. But I don't think that's what is being presented here. This doesn't sound like Apple stuffing EE's apps onto the Apple TV you or I might buy in the Apple store, it sounds like Apple providing EE/BT with special Apple TVs (that EE/BT will then provide to their customers) that have these apps preloaded:

Specifically, the telecommunications brand would offer Apple TVs to EE customers, coming pre-loaded with apps that deliver pay-TV content like BT Sport and channels from other broadcasters....

I don't see any problem with this - you buy an Apple TV in an Apple store (or some other normal consumer-facing store), and you get... an Apple TV. With no "third party bundled junk" cluttering it up.

But, if you contract to get TV service from some cable TV company, who "gives" you an Apple TV as part of the deal, it not only makes sense that it would come with an app from said cable TV company pre-loaded (not replacing any of the default apps, just there on the home screen), it might help a lot of less tech-savvy customers use the Apple TV in lieu of a cable box (remember, most of their customers are not readers of Apple tech news websites). Think of it this way: for the last however many decades, if you order cable TV service, the cable company hands you a box which has software on it to let you watch their TV service - only, it used to be a proprietary "cable box", now it's an Apple TV. Which can do all the other Apple TV things, as well as watching said cable company's programming.

Now, if Apple said, "some cable company is giving us money, so we're going to put their cable TV app on every Apple TV we sell", then, yes, I'd find that annoying - with that rising to infuriating if the app couldn't be removed (and well beyond infuriating if the app couldn't be hidden, or if it got in the way of using the Apple TV for other purposes). But I don't think that's what we're seeing here.

Coincidentally...BT are discounting the 64gb 4k Apple TV to £179 today...

https://www.shop.bt.com/products/apple-tv-4k-64gb-mp7p2b-a-D3XW.html?utm_content=RR00&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgZ_0-JT33QIVGYjVCh3ZngFEEAkYAiABEgIhVPD_BwE