Apple Updates TV Box to Add Disney, Music, Weather Apps

August 28, 2013 Leave a comment

Apple Updates TV Box to Add Disney, Music, Weather Apps

Apple Inc. (AAPL) added programming from Walt Disney Co., Weather Channel LLC and music-video service Vevo LLC for Apple TV, stepping up the pace of bringing on new video content to its $100 Internet-connected set-top box. The material was added today with a software update, said Christine Monaghan, a spokeswoman for Apple. Two applications from Disney, Disney Channel and Disney XD, will have live and on-demand content, and will be available to subscribers of pay-TV services that carry the channels. Vevo and the Weather Channel will be available without a cable or satellite subscription, she said.Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook is adding more programming to Apple TV after years of calling it a “hobby” product and mainly keeping it as a tool to stream Internet video from iTunes or Netflix Inc. (NFLX) on a television. In June, Apple made ESPN and HBO programming available to customers who subscribe to those channels through their pay TV service.

Apple is competing against Roku Inc. and Microsoft Corp. to deliver Web video. Yet by adding applications from programmers and restricting access for some material to pay-TV subscribers, Apple is taking a different approach than Intel Corp. (INTC) and Sony Corp. (6758), which are negotiating deals to build services that will compete with existing cable and satellite plans.

In the latest update, Apple also added material from the Smithsonian Channel, jointly owned by CBS Corp. (CBS) and Smithsonian Institution.

To contact the reporter on this story: Adam Satariano in San Francisco at asatariano1@bloomberg.net

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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