Zarf Updates

A few days ago I pulled up the iTunes Store app on my iPad, hit the "TV Show" tab, and saw this:

Turns out, Apple has revamped its store setup in the iOS 17.2 update. (See post at 9to5Mac.) Used to be you could buy TV content in two places: the "TV Show" tab of the iTunes Store app, and the "Store" tab of the TV app. And the two tabs were laid out differently! It was just confusing. So as of this month, they're dropping one option and referring you to the other.

Okay, that makes sense. iTunes is for music; TV is for TV (and movies).

But like I said: the two tabs were laid out differently. They offered different browsing views. And Apple didn't merge the features together. They just dropped one.

So now browsing for TV shows sucks. It's broken for me, and for people like me.

I watch a moderate amount of TV. Mostly sci-fi shows. I'm not watching TV every night, but I like to keep an eye on what's on. If something looks cool, hey, I'll watch an episode or two. If I like it -- or if I realize I'm on episode 5 -- I plunk down money for the season pass. Then when the next season rolls around, I plunk down money for that.

Thus, my regular question: "What's new in SF/fantasy TV?" My habit is to check this every week or so.

Sidebar: You've already noticed something weird. I said "I plunk down money for the season pass." Uh, who does that? Sorry! It's me. I do that.

For various reasons not discussed here, I avoid monthly TV subscriptions. I don't have Netflix, or Disney+, or Paramount+, or AmazonPrime, or HBOWhatever. I don't even subscribe to AppleTV+ -- despite Tim Cook's puppydog eyes. I realize this makes me a freak in this modern TV world.

So I'm really asking: "What's new in SF TV that's available for purchase on Apple's store?" This makes my TV-browsing problem harder.

However, my peculiar habit is not the primary problem with Apple's TV UI. I promise it sucks for lots of people, not just me. The problem is...

The problem is, Apple has never really believed in search. The media stores have a search tab, but it's simplistic. Titles; maybe actor names if you're lucky. There's no notion of "advanced search". No "sort by". No selectors for genre or year or format.

(No natural-language search either. I tried typing "recent scifi" into the search bar, but the results were pretty much the same as "scifi". Plus actors named "Fi* Sci*". It certainly wasn't limited to recent shows -- Star Trek Enterprise and TNG both popped up in the TV results.)

The old TV-tab-of-iTunes wasn't ideal, but it basically offered me the view I wanted. It had a Genres list; you could select "Sci-fi"; it showed you a page with current shows. You might have to browse into "Hot picks" or "New box sets" or a couple of other lists, but you could get the current goods.

Another sidebar: The pickings have been slim this year, which is not Apple's fault. We're in the neck of the shows that didn't get made because of the Hollywood strikes. Also, the CW has finished cancelling its "nonthreateningly diverse" romps (Arrowverse, Nancy Drew, etc) -- those were a cheesy staple of my TV time, now gone. And the streaming wars have intensified, of course. I've missed all the recent Star Wars and Marvel shows; they never appear on Apple's store.

But I've got some stuff to watch. Paramount and Amazon let their shows trickle out over time. I was late seeing the musical episode of Strange New Worlds, but I got there. Sandman. Wheel of Time. Also, the strikes pushed Apple to bring a lot of anime on board; I'm not a voracious anime fan but Hell's Paradise was my thing. I didn't like Wednesday but it was worth a try. And so on.

Well. The old TV-tab-of-iTunes is gone now, and the Store-tab-of-TV is garbage. It just isn't designed for people like me. I want to look at a chronological list and scroll until I've seen what's new. Come back next week, do it again. So what do I even do with this?

This list includes recent SF, but it's certainly not a list of recent SF. There's no genre filter and no way to sort by date.

The store page has a "New & Noteworthy" list, but it's not browsable, and it's mostly movies. It has "Top TV Box Sets" and "Top Season Passes" -- again, not by genre and not by date. There's a "Browse by Genre" list, but if I select "Sci-Fi" I get a mix of movies and TV shows.

This "Shows with Buzz" list is the closest I can find to what I want:

But this doesn't distinguish between the Apple store and other services that Apple has app agreements with. Note all the Star Wars stuff:

I know, I'm the guy who refuses to subscribe to Disney+. But that page isn't just Apple and Disney+. It's an unlabelled mix of services, half of which I've never heard of: Bravo, Hulu, Viki, Crunchyroll, Pluto, Tubi, Freevee. Nobody has all of those.

The MacOS TV app is set up the same way, as of MacOS 14.2 Sonoma. In case you were wondering. It used to have separate tabs for "TV Shows" and "Movies", which was slightly better. But that tiny convenience is now gone. (At least the "Genre" selector includes SF now, which it didn't before, sheesh.)

At this point, it seems like the best option is third-party search tools. JustWatch has genre, year, and a "Provider" selector that includes Apple. The filtering is... I'm still trying to figure out the filtering but I can probably get something out of it. Better than Apple's UI, anyhow.

By the way, I have the same problem buying books.

Books are not the same as TV. There are so many SF books being published these days (including indie and self-publishing!) A chronological list of "what's new in SF" would be useless. It would just be swamped every week; I'd never get through it.

(I frequently browse Tor.com's All the New SF/Fantasy Books list; it's an excellent resource. But the title is not remotely accurate. It's "A Few SF/F Titles From Selected Traditional Publishers.")

Still, I wish Apple's bookstore would let me do queries. "Show me new releases from authors I've bought before". Or, better, "New releases from author I follow." (Apple has never had the notion of following an artist... shush, nobody remembers Ping.)

This wouldn't get me into new authors, but at least it would show me a stack of books I want.

(For new authors, see the Tor link above. Also, walking into real live bookstores is great. Bookstores! Where all the employees love books -- they're sure not doing it for the money -- and they love to put notes on the shelves to recommend you their favorites! Seriously, go to bookstores.)

(But yes, I buy more ebooks than physical books. So I still have the browsing problem.)

I'd love to complain about Apple's bookstore interface, but the truth is, I've never even tried it. Here, I'll go look now.

Okay, admission: this is a decent showing for "browse new SF". It's a narrow subset (like Tor.com, like bookstores) but it's got authors I like and books I've tried. If they turn this list over every month, I will add it to my regular browsing habit.

So what do we conclude?

It's easy to say "They're pushing their streaming service." Apple loves pushing AppleTV+. They give it a top-level Store tab and prominent "Apple Original" features on other pages.

But I don't think that explains the overall design. Does Apple want to push Disney+ and Amazon Prime and Crunchyroll too? Surely they get more money when I buy a-la-carte from Apple's own store. If I subscribed to those other services, Apple wouldn't get any of my money. (Or maybe a scrap through some customer-sharing agreement, but Apple can't be bullying that much money out of Bezos or the Mouse.)

I think it's down to Apple's oldest flaw: they imagine a perfect customer and design everything for that person. And, I hate to say it, but they don't think much of that person's taste. (The Apple customer has impeccable taste in hardware, of course. But media is different.)

Imagine someone who... doesn't care whether they watch TV or a movie tonight? I'm sure there's people like that. Anybody can flump on the couch and say "show me whatever." But TV and movies are different forms. It's possible to prefer one over the other. I need to be able to decide which to search for.

Imagine someone who... subscribes to every single streaming service? That's the only way I can interpret these mixed-up, unfilterable lists.

Imagine someone who... has never watched a SF show and just wants to try a popular hit? SF is a field I follow! At least a little bit. I've heard of most shows. That's why I want a chronological list. Over time, I will see every title. I'm not going to watch everything but I am going to make a decision about watching everything.

It's the "chronological timeline vs algorithm" argument! Really, it's exactly the same as Twitter. (Back when we still cared about Twitter.) The Algorithm is designed to be good for most people, but that doesn't mean it's universal. People really do engage with your stuff in different ways.

Same goes for books. I said the "new SF" tab was pretty decent. But I still need that "all new releases from authors I read" view. (Chronological!) They're both key to how I buy books, and Apple only gives me one of them.

This isn't a book-blog (I had that habit once, lost it, sorry). But as a bonus, here's what I think of those authors in the "new SF books" screenshot...

• Brandon Sanderson: I used to read some of his stuff, but now it's all embroiled in this multiverse and I can't possibly keep up.
• Megan E. O'Keefe: Read one of hers but didn't get into it.
• V. E. Schwab: Ditto.
• Travis Baldree: I read the coffeeshop book (first in the series). I like a cozy post-adventurer fantasy, but I have to say, that was too cozy for me. Try Gaie Sebold instead.
• Benedict Jacka: Urban fantasy author. I haven't followed his stuff but I've read a couple.
• Alix E. Harrow: Liked the Witches one, couldn't get into Doors of January, haven't decided whether I'll try this one.
• Jordan Peele et al: Not generally a horror fan.
• K. J. Parker: Loved the previous short-snarky-Byzantine-fantasy series. Will certainly devour this new trilogy.
• Michelle Sagara: I was into the Cast In series for a long time, but then it went on even longer and I burned out on it. Sorry.
• Kadrey and Khaw: I've read this one. Two skilled horror authors try to squick each other out at novel length. It was incredibly well-written and I want to bury it at the bottom of a lye pit.

I know that's a lot of ambivalence, but it's really a high hit rate for me. Like I said, I want to make a decision about a broad range of SF. I've tried every single author on that front page! ("Some authors in there", for the Peele anthology.) It's the right sort of list to show me.

Scrolling farther down that page, some selections:

(Hey, the list does change every few days, although most of the titles from Friday are still there. Will have to see if it's worth browsing weekly or monthly.)

• Josiah Bancroft: The Hexologists was a fun romp.
• Samit Basu: As titles go, The Jinn-Bot of Shantiport is pure Zarf-bait. On my check-it-out list.
• Carter Damon: Some kind of near-future first-contact SF. It's always risky when a self-published author self-describes their stuff as "a radically original plot", especially when the blurb make me think "hm, Eric S. Nylund".
• Lotta Warhammer books. I've never read those -- just not into the setting -- but it's worth keeping an eye on the authors. When they venture out into original work it's usually very readable.
• Some established authors that I'm into: John Scalzi, Patrick Rothfuss, Martha Wells. I don't need to search for this stuff. A new Murderbot always taps my social feed.
• Many established authors that I'm not into, or no longer into: Terry Brooks, Jim Butcher, Seanan McGuire, Larry Correia, C. J. Cherryh (she's great, I can't do twenty Foreigner books). Star Wars Yet More and The Infinite Flogging of Dune. I'm not complaining that the store lists this stuff; really the best place for it is right here, around page 3 of the results.

Comics: Aiyee, don't talk to me about comics. I hear Amazon finally finished murdering Comixology. I was out of comics for decades but I'm starting to pick up a hit graphic novel every month or two. Far Sector, Cosmic Detective, Tom King's Supergirl. In comics book stores. Stores are great.