Apple Changes to DRM may result in consequences for rural users and underserved communities HDMI adapter no longer playing Netflix, Hulu, etc

[I.R.Baboon]

I am new here so I apologize if this is not in the correct place. 
 

9to5mac posted an article last week on an issue I’ve been experiencing since updating to iOS 16. I am following up with my local Apple Store. If that does not yield results I intend to open a case with my connections at Apple Enterprise support for a statement. I have an account through my work in IT. I’m not completely clear yet on if this is a choice by the Apple team or the streaming service providers.

 

source article: https://9to5mac.com/2023/01/04/ios-16-break-drm-content-hdmi/amp/

 

The Core Issue:

For communities like mine the wait time for Starlink is almost a year, and local satellite providers charge hundreds of dollars for internet service speeds most consumers would consider unacceptable for a phone plan 10 years ago. This puts families in a rough spot where they need to consider re-subscribing to traditional satellite television or simply unsubscribing from all major streaming services. Running DSL to our property is out of the budget(forget about fiber). This is before we even consider the number of people living in temporary accommodations like RVs or campers. I have not seen any acknowledgment from apple regarding the issue since the forums first began reporting on it in October. 

Furthermore, they continue to sell the dongle on the Apple Store without any notice to consumers that the product allegedly no longer supports major streaming services. I have seen several instances where forum users report buying multiple dongles($50/each) under the assumption that they a

have a defective unit. I have seen no statements from major streaming service providers regarding changes to their DRM features

 

 

Background:

My family lives in a rural area and cut the cord 2 years ago. If you are wondering how rural, I spent $400 on a yagi antenna setup just to get decent cell service inside the house. Everyone has been using Apple’s official AV Adapter to play video over HDMI from iPhone to the TV. We recently updated to iOS 16 and noticed that we could no longer play Prime Video and some Netflix content. The phone screen mirrors just fine, we can browse the catalog without issue, but when launching DRM protected media it goes to a black screen on the TV. Hulu was especially strange because instead of a black screen we get an exaggerated hitching effect where the video/sound plays for a few frames, hangs, plays a few frames, hangs, etc. content cannot be consumed. 
 

I have tested on multiple phones and dongles, and can confirm the issue is only present on devices running iOS 16 or later. 

The Devil’s Advocate:

Needs change with time and I understand that external HDMI devices are a major source of copyright violation and piracy. Businesses are well in their rights to sunset compatibility and features at their leisure. However, it is a mark of poor customer service and customer negligence to sunset a major feature of an officially supported product without informing the consumers of the change, even after the fact. This may be the result of poor communication between vendors, poor product management, or a sign that apple does not care about peripherals in the time between the factories and the landfills. 

 

The solution:

I’ll continue working on my end for a statement from Apple support on the adapter issues. This issue could be quickly resolved by Apple and the service vendors with a public statement regarding the DRM changes and a very visible note on the AV adapter website/box stating that it will not work for most major streaming services. 

[DrMacintosh]

I'm inclined to believe that this is a bug. There are some extremely old devices out there that can still play protected content. 

[Aragorn-]

I'm not really sure what being rural has to do with it? You can be rural and use an AppleTV, Roku, FireTV or Nvidia Shield or whatever. You can also live in the middle of a city and want to tether your iphone via hdmi.

 

Personally the idea of tethering my phone to the TV is horrible, regardless of where i live. There are dozens of more suited devices, and many cost less than what Apple charge for that dongle in the first place.

 

As for the bug, well Apple are the ones that need to sort it out. One of the great things about the Apple ecosystem is your entirely beholden to their whims and desires. Thats what you signed up for.

[mr moose]

2 hours ago, Aragorn- said:

I'm not really sure what being rural has to do with it?

 

He's saying there is no other internet other than via his mobile which is an iphone, he bought a device to let him stream content to his tv now he can't.  I don't know what the limitations are of the particular setup he has, but superficially my first question is why should consumers have to buy new devices just to get around artificial limitations imposed after the purchase?

 

 

[SignatureSigner]

Can always get a 4g or 5g enabled laptop 

they cost more but they do more.

 

still is an interesting 'bug' that hopefully will be fixed.

[Aragorn-]

3 hours ago, mr moose said:

He's saying there is no other internet other than via his mobile which is an iphone, he bought a device to let him stream content to his tv now he can't.  I don't know what the limitations are of the particular setup he has, but superficially my first question is why should consumers have to buy new devices just to get around artificial limitations imposed after the purchase?

 

 

Tether the phone to the TV via hot spot, or employ a "4G/5G Router". Surely a FAR better end result than having to drag a cable out and plug your phone in constantly?!

 

It seems the "bug" has also broken AirPlay to Apple TV, which suggests its probably not a bug, but an intentional "feature". Ofcourse it could be a bug, but given it effects airplay as well as this shonky HDMI thing, its not small in scope and you would have expected Apple to have sorted it out quickly. If they havent, theres probably a reason for it. I dont know the reason, Apple probably does.

 

DRM sucks, but if you choose to play in that ecosystem, then you have to deal with its suckyness.

[Helpful Tech Witch]

1 hour ago, Aragorn- said:

Tether the phone to the TV via hot spot, or employ a "4G/5G Router". Surely a FAR better end result than having to drag a cable out and plug your phone in constantly?!

 

It seems the "bug" has also broken AirPlay to Apple TV, which suggests its probably not a bug, but an intentional "feature". Ofcourse it could be a bug, but given it effects airplay as well as this shonky HDMI thing, its not small in scope and you would have expected Apple to have sorted it out quickly. If they havent, theres probably a reason for it. I dont know the reason, Apple probably does.

 

DRM sucks, but if you choose to play in that ecosystem, then you have to deal with its suckyness.

Since it broke air play it’s definitely a bug.  a headline feature of airplay is casting content from your phone to tv

[wanderingfool2]

15 hours ago, DrMacintosh said:

I'm inclined to believe that this is a bug. There are some extremely old devices out there that can still play protected content. 

Not necessarily a bug, it might have been a "feature" of HDCP.

 

Based on what was said here, with the black screen my guess is it's all to do with HDCP.  I know I get similar things occurring on monitors (back when some monitors didn't support HDCP, or at least ones that required more modern HDCP), it's actually a reason why I own a flashable HDCP stripper...so when I run into display issues I can just use it instead of dealing with the headaches that comes with HDCP (and figuring out what might be the cause).

 

Anyways, I digress.  With HDCP there are blacklists, revocations etc, so maybe there was some "compromise" (and I mean that loosely) that made the chips on the phones no longer HDCP compliant.  From Apple's perspective, they wouldn't be allowed to keep updating without effectively removing it and it's unlikely a firmware change could make it more secure.  I hope that makes sense, it would explain why the HDMI adapter's aren't working.  Just my guess though, airplay not working though is likely due to similar issues  (not being able to identify the device it's running on)

 

It could very well be a bug, but if it was a bug then Apple needs to justify why they have left the bug in there for 2 months already without a patch (there have been 4 patch releases since that time) and without issuing a statement to when and why.  After all, people buying an official adapter should expect it to work or at least receive a statement on why it doesn't work.

 

Either way, Apple really should be making a statement in regards to this; unless they are hoping that not enough people use it and will eventually give up.  Then again, if it is an HDCP compliance issue that is unfixable without a hardware change then I would be surprised if Apple would really announce it (as you can bet there would be lawsuits launched)

 

3 hours ago, Aragorn- said:

Tether the phone to the TV via hot spot, or employ a "4G/5G Router". Surely a FAR better end result than having to drag a cable out and plug your phone in constantly?!

That's not always really a solution though.  Depending if you are data limited, you won't want to start tethering or using 4G routers...I know they are watching movies, but in some cases you can download the movie prior to playing (like while you are in town on a wifi connection, and just save a few movies to watch later).  Also, if you have it plugged into the TV already, it's not too difficult to plug in the phone.  Probably the same effort of me turning on the media PC I have connected to my TV.

 

3 hours ago, Aragorn- said:

DRM sucks, but if you choose to play in that ecosystem, then you have to deal with its suckyness.

You don't have a choice...unless you want to pirate.  The bigger issue is that there is such a requirement for DRM protection, you can't really avoid it these days without violating copyright.  All TV's have HDCP compliance, all devices have HDCP compliance, etc.

 

My personal opinion is that things such as HDCP only hinder regular users (as I've run into HDCP issues)...and yet I can now circumvent it easily.  People who are pirating don't care much about HDCP, it's "easily" by-passable if you wanted to record something

[BabaGanuche]

On 1/10/2023 at 10:58 AM, Aragorn- said:

Tether the phone to the TV via hot spot, or employ a "4G/5G Router". Surely a FAR better end result than having to drag a cable out and plug your phone in constantly?!

Not in all cases. For example if I used my phone as a hotspot I got 15 GB a month if shared my phone's screen I had unlimited data. The obvious choice was to just use a HDMI cable.

[ewitte]

This is why I haven't had an Apple phone since the 3gs.  Apple ALWAYS wants to tell users how to use their products.

[ewitte]

23 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You don't have a choice...unless you want to pirate.  The bigger issue is that there is such a requirement for DRM protection, you can't really avoid it these days without violating copyright.  All TV's have HDCP compliance, all devices have HDCP compliance, etc.

 

My personal opinion is that things such as HDCP only hinder regular users (as I've run into HDCP issues)...and yet I can now circumvent it easily.  People who are pirating don't care much about HDCP, it's "easily" by-passable if you wanted to record something

It's a bit ironic that all the work they put into these technologies makes it harder for those "playing by the rules" and pushes more people into piracy.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

On 1/10/2023 at 4:59 AM, SignatureSigner said:

Can always get a 4g or 5g enabled laptop 

they cost more but they do more.

 

still is an interesting 'bug' that hopefully will be fixed.

Well that'll require an additional internet plan. So why not just get a regular laptop and tether. 

[Roswell]

I think this has little to do with Apple and much more to do with the ever changing HDMI DRM implementation.

[mr moose]

15 hours ago, ewitte said:

It's a bit ironic that all the work they put into these technologies makes it harder for those "playing by the rules" and pushes more people into piracy.

It's a bit fucking stupid that we have technology that can self drive cars, predict weather patterns, generator deep fakes and voice recognition, phone on the screen in the car and mobile internet faster than some peoples home network, etc (this shit was all pipe dreams in the 90's), but you can't plug your phone into a fucking TV because of "a bug" or "DRM"

 

 

Good to know these companies are only tracking how we use products to "improve" them for us...

 

 

[Ashleyyyy]

you can hotspot your iPhone's internet can't you?

[Donut417]

3 hours ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

you can hotspot your iPhone's internet can't you?

In the case of US carriers only data used by your phone is unlimited. Once you teather or hotspot you are subject to usage limits. In my case it’s 4 Gigs per line. 

[Aragorn-]

The US certainly has some weird rules around mobile contracts.

 

In the UK, data is data. Unlimited tariffs do exist and will be fairly pricey and wont actually be unlimited (they'll usually have some fair use policy in the T&C). Typically you'll get a monthly data limit and you use that for whatever, it doesnt matter if its tethered or directly on the phone, or in a 4g router/mifi type device.

If your using a lot of 4G data at home for TV viewing, it would be very likely someone here would simply buy a 4G sim with a decent contract and use that in a 4g router/MiFi type device. Infact various carriers sell specific tariffs intended specifically for that use and they'll even come with the router unit, usually marketed as "4G/5G Broadband". Also means you can tailor the "broadband" SIM carrier to whichever gives the best signal/performance at home (which may not be the same carrier that gives the best service on your portable device that you travel around with!)

[Ashleyyyy]

11 hours ago, Donut417 said:

In the case of US carriers only data used by your phone is unlimited. Once you teather or hotspot you are subject to usage limits. In my case it’s 4 Gigs per line. 

wait seriously? that's so stupid. where i live if you have an unlimited data plan it really is unlimited. no matter if it's hotspot or not. 

[Donut417]

7 hours ago, Ashley MLP Fangirl said:

that's so stupid.

Even more stupid by the fact that some providers like T Mobile offer Home internet services with unlimited data (lowest priority across the network). But if you have their highest plan, magenta max, its only 40 Gigs of high speed data before you are throttled to like 3G speeds.

[seanondemand]

Man, as appealing as the idea of rural living can be (open spaces, no noisy neighbours, space for hobbies, land), rural internet sucks and there is truly nothing you can do about it, and in 2023… that’s kind of a dealbreaker.