This morning was the opening of Disney’s “Park Pass” Reservation system. I managed to get a couple of reservations, and I (might?) write about that process later. In the meantime, what is your favorite Disney World waiting page:
Big news for the Apple nerds in the audience: the new versions of My Disney Experience and Shop Disney Parkswork on the latest iOS 11 Beta. Get back to refreshing for Fastpass+ selections!Yay! MDE is back!
NOTE: The following is a little outside of the normal realm of content here at *Rope Drop [dot] Net. Since every Disney site seems to be blindly reporting the news about Disney’s streaming service, however, I felt a little context was in order.
This week has been an interesting week for content models and content delivery. On Monday, Netflix purchased the intellectual portfolio of a comic creator Mark Millar.. In his usual, modest, humble approach to things, Millar likened the move to Disney’s purchase of Marvel back in 2009. Though I, obviously, don’t agree with that sentiment, the move is consistent with Netflix’s clear strategy of becoming a content creator and owner, not just a content delivery mechanism. See, e.g., Netflix’s commitment to spending $6 billion on original content in 2017. The same goes for, predominantly, tech companies Amazon and Apple, who have also made clear moves into the content ownership and content creation space.
With all of those moves by technology companies into the content creation and ownership space, is it any wonder that earlier today, Disney—a long term content creator and owner—announced that by 2019 it would stop distributing its movies via Netflix and start its own streaming service. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see the clear trend of content creation and content delivery converging. Since Disney, unlike the tech companies discussed above, already has the content library (and the ability to produce new content), it needs to develop the technical side of things. That’s why the biggest news out of Disney’s announcement is probably its acquisition (for a cool $1.58 billion) of a majority interest in BAM Tech, one of the leading providers of video streaming on the web. Disney is now poised to use technology it owns to deliver its content (including ESPN content) directly to its consumers, without having to deal with some kind of technological middle man. After all, if Netflix, Apple, and Amazon are going to position themselves as silos of content delivered by their own respective technologies, shouldn’t Disney position itself to do the same thing?
Of course, the proliferation of streaming services with their own content silos might not be the best end game for consumers. Discussion has already started online as to how many streaming services we will need to subscribe to in order to watch the various content we’re interested in. With Disney throwing its hat in the ring today, my answer to that questions is: 1 more service than I thought I had to subscribe to yesterday.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, My Disney Experience, the Shop Disney Parks App, and even the Disneyland App (per the comments to my original post), all crash at launch on the iOS 11 Beta (currently, in developer beta 4 and public beta 3.) I’ve submitted bug reports using Apple’s beta feedback system (and been contacted to test a fix or two), but the crash is still occuring.
If you’re planning a trip to Disney World in the near future, and you want to use MDE for things like refreshing Fastpass+ selections, I would recommend not installing any iOS 11 beta. There is always a chance that the next iOS beta will fix things, but I think it’s possible that the fix for this crash requires Disney to submit a new version of its apps that is compiled against the iOS 11 SDK. That would mean no fix would come before iOS 11 is actually released (which has, historically, been in mid-to-late September.)
It’s the time of year when people begin experimenting with Apple’s latest round of iOS betas (despite recommendations from pretty much everyone in the technology industry that they should hold off.) For those of you who are Disney World fans, however, I have a special PSA: My Disney Experience and Shop Disney Parks do not work on the first iOS Public Beta. Though this could be an annoyance for people who are looking to do some shopping via the Shop Disney Parks app, it could really hamper someone who is planning on visiting the Disney World in the near future (imagine not being able to refresh to find new Fastpass+ selections?).
At this point, it’s too early to tell if the issues are something that will be resolved by future iOS updates (in advance of the final iOS 11 release later this fall) or if this is something that Disney is going to have to fix on its end. Until this is resolved, though, you should probably hold off installing iOS 11 on your iPhone if you want to use either of these apps. (Or, you could do what most people recommend, and just not install the betas at all.) Also, as a reminder, this is not anybody’s “fault’. This beta process is designed to allow these types of issues to be found and corrected before the actual release date, instead of people running into these issues with the actual versions of the software.
These types of sales ($5 off the standard $19.99) are getting more common for Disney / Pixar movies (2 or 3 times a year, I’d estimate), but it’s still a good thing to be aware of if you’ve been thinking of adding one of the Pixar classics (Toy Story,The Incredibles, etc…) to your collection. Some of my favorites from the sale are:
It’s a big day for Star Wars fans, as Rogue One is now available for digital download. If Carolina wasn’t playing this evening, Elyssa and I would probably be watching it tonight with a bowl of Ample Hills ice cream. (Yes, I’ll have a review of that whole “ice cream via Amazon process soon.”)
If you need to prep for your Rogue One viewing, there’s always these Mighty Men of Mouse shows that feature the MMoM Guys, friend of the site Wes James, Elyssa, and me discussing the movies:
One of the things you’re frequently doing when planning your Disney World trip is calculating dates. (When is 180 days before the first day of my trip? When is 60 days before the first day of my trip?, etc…) Over the years, I’ve tried various options (TouringPlans’s Dashboard, Wolfram Alpha’s Professional Assistant App, and I even wrote my own date calculation program), but none of them were easy as I wanted the process to be. Enter, Siri.
“Hey Siri, what’s 180 days before April 20?”
“It’s Saturday, October 22, 2016.”
Siri Date Example
Boom. Done. It’s so simple. Why would I ever bother to do date calculations any other way? (I can also ask Siri to make appointment on my calendar or set a reminder for me, but that’s beyond the scope of this article.)
NOTE: Sadly, my beloved Alexa cannot handle this kind of date calculation (which bummed me out.) Also, Google’s “Ok, Google” assistant seemed to be able to handle the “in the future” calculation (e.g., “What is 60 days from now?”), but couldn’t handle the “days before” type of requests that are so common when doing Disney-related planning (e.g, “What is 60 days before April 20?”). Microsoft’s Cortana cannot do it either, but I don’t know anyone who uses her (except when playing Halo.)
iTunes is currently running a sale called the Disney Princess Collection. There are a variety of books, soundtracks (does anyone not own Frozen?), and apps that could help fill out your library. More importantly, however, is the sale on certain Disney movies (something that is pretty rare on iTunes). The following movies are all marked down to $14.99:
UPDATE: Cases specifically designed for the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7+ are now available at D-Tech.
If you’re like me, you might have “invested” in one of Disney’s customized D-Tech cases for your smartphone. Unlike in the past when Apple has decided to use the same body design for its updated phones, previous D-Tech cases (i.e., those designed for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus (or 6s and 6s Plus) will not really work with the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models. I say “really work”, because it looks like this:
Disney D-Tech iPhone 6 Case on an iPhone 7
Since the body size of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 7 is the same, the case fits the phone, but the camera on the new phone is positioned differently than it was on the iPhone 6. (I thought the problem might be the size of the lens, but it’s actually the lens’ position that causes the issue.) The interesting thing is the camera doesn’t actually seem to be impacted by the weird case over it. Here are 2 pictures of a white wall, 1 taken horizontally and 1 taken vertically, and you can see the only issue is some minor darkness in the the corner covered by the lens.
Horizontal
Vertical
That said, having a case cover part of the camera like this looks ridiculous (and I don’t plan on doing it.) (There’s also the issue of the bottom cutout looking funny over the place where the headphone jack used to be. That’s so minor, that I didn’t really even consider it.)
Such a lengthy explanation isn’t necessary for the iPhone 7 Plus models. The dual camera setup on that phone is just too big to fit the existing iPhone 6 Plus case. (I’m sure most people didn’t need me to tell them that.)
So, with that question answer, my next question is: What case, if any, should I get for my new iPhone 7? Let me know on Twitter if you have any suggestions.
If you’re the type of person who rushes out to install the latest version of software for your iPhone or iPad that you have probably already installed iOS 10 and have started playing around with the new stickers in iMessage (technically, iMessage is branded “Messages” by Apple, but whatever…)
If you’re reading this site than the first sticker packs you’ll probably want to buy are Disney related. Since the iMessage store can be a little confusing to use to locate them, I’ve provided my favorite, below. Be careful, though, each one of these sticker packs is $1.99.
