Apple unveils TV streaming platform and credit card

[The AchieVer]

Apple unveils TV streaming platform and credit card

 

 

Apple has unveiled its new TV streaming platform, Apple TV+, at a star-studded event in California.

 

Jennifer Aniston, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey were among those who took to the stage at Apple's headquarters to reveal their involvement in TV projects commissioned by the tech giant.

 

The platform will include shows from existing services like Hulu and HBO.

Apple also announced that it would be launching a credit card, gaming portal and enhanced news app.

 

The event was held in California and Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook was clear from the start that the announcements would be about new services, not new devices.

It is a change of direction for the 42-year-old company.

Image copyrightAPPLE

Image captionSteve Carell, Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston

Apple TV

There had been much anticipation about Apple's predicted foray into the TV streaming market, dominated by the likes of Amazon and Netflix.

 

The Apple TV+ app was unveiled by Steven Spielberg and will launch in the autumn. 

Spielberg will himself be creating some material for the new platform, he said.

Other stars who took to the stage included Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell, Jason Momoa, Alfre Woodard, comedian Kumail Nanjiani and Big Bird from Sesame Street.

 

The app will be made available on rival devices for the first time, coming to Samsung, LG, Sony and Vizio smart TVs as well as Amazon's Firestick and Roku.

Image copyrightAPPLE

Image captionOprah Winfrey spoke of the potential of a book club on Apple TV+.

The subscription fee was not announced, and notably absent from the launch line-up was Netflix, which had already ruled itself out of being part of the bundle.

 

"The test for Apple will be, can new content separate them out from their competitors and can they commission and deliver on fresh new content that can reach audiences in the same way that Stranger Things has for Netflix for example?" commented Dr Ed Braman, an expert in film and production at the University of York.

Apple Card

Image copyrightAPPLE

Image captionThe physical version of the card is made of titanium and does not have a card number or signature space on it.

The Apple Card credit card will launch in the US this summer.

 

There will be both an iPhone and physical version of the card, with a cashback incentive on every purchase.

 

The credit card will have no late fees, annual fees or international fees, said Apple Pay VP Jennifer Bailey.

It has been created with the help of Goldman Sachs and MasterCard.

News stand

The firm also revealed a news service, Apple News+, which will include more than 300 magazine titles including Marie Claire, Vogue, New Yorker, Esquire, National Geographic and Rolling Stone.

The LA Times and the Wall Street Journal will also be part of the platform, the firm said.

 

It added that it will not track what users read or allow advertisers to do so.

Apple News+ will cost $9.99 (£7.50) per month and is available immediately in the US and Canada. It will come to Europe later in the year.

 

Unlike TV+, the news platform will only be available on Apple devices.

Image Copyright @robpegoraro@ROBPEGORARO

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Gaming 

Image copyrightAPPLE

Image captionApple Arcade will offer 100 games not available elsewhere.

A new games platform, Apple Arcade, will offer over 100 exclusive games from the app store which will all be playable offline, in contrast with Google's recently announced streaming platform Stadia.

It will be rolled out across 150 countries in the autumn but no subscription prices were given. 

 

in 2018 analyst firm IHS Markit valued the global gaming market on iOS, Apple's operating system, at $33.5bn.

There is space within that market for a platform like Apple Arcade which is not financed by in-app purchases or advertising, said IHS director of games research Piers Harding-Rolls.

 

"Apple's decision to move up the games value chain with a new, curated subscription service and to support the development of exclusive games for its Arcade platform is a significant escalation of the company's commitment to the games market," he said. 

 

"Apple joins the other technology companies Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Amazon and others in investing directly in games content and services."

Analysis: Dave Lee, North America technology reporter, at the Steve Jobs Theater

Apple is making an aggressive push into several markets in which, thanks to sheer scale alone, it immediately becomes a massive player.

 

Its TV service has been long in the making, and Apple has amassed a roster of big stars, as expected. 

 

A bigger test will be how creative those ideas will be - a lot of Netflix's success has been about finding new talent, not throwing money at already famous names. 

 

I also have reservations about how many boundaries Apple will be prepared to push with its creative endeavours: if it's as controlling with its television as it is with its brand, it will create a catalogue bereft of risk-taking. 

 

But TV is just a small part of what Apple is going for here. It wants (and needs) to turn its devices into the portal through which you do everything else - TV/film, gaming, reading the news... and you'd presume other things in the very near future. 

 

The announcement of a credit card shows how far Apple is prepared to go to make sure life is experienced through your iPhone. 

 

As Oprah put it on stage: "They're in a billion pockets, y'all."

 

 

 

 

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[The AchieVer]

Apple TV+ Is Much More Than a 'Netflix Killer'

 

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Apple announced several new servicesearlier this week. Apple TV+, the star of the lineup, will launch this fall with some high-profile original content -- something that has become key to the success of any over-the-top streaming service.

 

Apple also announced Apple TV Channels, an aggregation service that will pull together content offerings from cable and satellite channels, as well as other OTT services, such as Hulu.

 

With this announcement it could be argued that Apple is hedging its bets. It's trying to be both a streaming service -- or "Netflix killer," as some media reports have branded Apple's OTT play -- and an ecosystem player along the lines of Roku.

What is notable is that instead of Apple TV Channels existing solely on an Apple product, the service will be available through devices from Roku and Amazon, and even on smart TVs from companies that could be considered Apple's biggest competitors, including Samsung and Sony.

 

"Apple is evolving into a services company," said Joel Espelien, president of the Corum Group.

 

"They will increasingly offer services that run outside of Apple devices -- but always work best on Apple devices," he told the E-Commerce Times.

 

"The TV announcement was a baby step, but still a step towards offering real bundles to consumers," added Espelien. "They clearly want to offer full subscription services -- as with music also. They just don't have a mix that works yet for TV, so are going with a safer 'channels' marketplace type approach to start."

 

Big Presentation but Small Payoff

To make its announcement, Apple pulled out all the stops, featuring an onstage appearance by media icon Oprah Winfrey. In some ways, the event arguably overshadowed the announcement.

 

"If it were any other company except Apple making the announcement, there would have been a huge yawn from the market," remarked Steve Blum, principal analyst at Tellus Venture Associates.

Perhaps Apple tried to pull out the stops to draw attention away from what it didn't announce.

 

"It was a mixed bag, because we don't know how deep its content catalog will be. We don't know pricing, and we don't even have a firm date on when it is launching," said Greg Ireland, research director for consumer digital transformation and multiscreen video at IDC.

 

"What we saw was that it was billed as a competitor to Netflix and Hulu, and we have some information that big stars are creating content," he told the E-Commerce Times.

 

"But we already knew they were spending a lot of money, so now we have to wait and see, and assess how impactful this will be," added Ireland.

 

"The Apple TV service, at least what we know of it, isn't significantly different from any other OTT service," Tellus' Blum told the E-Commerce Times.

 

"They're putting the pieces together a little differently -- they're borrowing business model bits from several different platforms, but overall it's still the same business model," he added.

However, what could make it different are Apple's branding and its ability to leverage its existing customer relationships and hardware/software ecosystem.

 

"It's a fair question whether that's going to be enough to make it stand out in the TV business, but it's a unique advantage and Apple is smart to use it like this," said Blum.

OTT Market - Competitive but Not Crowded

It would seem that Apple's entry into the OTT space might come at the expense of another service, but this likely isn't the case. Even at US$10 to $15 per service per month, consumers seem to be willing to subscribe to more than one.

 

"Our survey data shows that consumers subscribe to two services, and this is the growing market as it inches up, so there is room for multiple services," noted IDC's Ireland.

 

Apple can grow in the OTT space, but that doesn't have to be at the expense of Amazon Prime Video, Hulu or Netflix.

"There are opportunities for a good handful of OTT services to have success, so Apple TV+ doesn't need to be a Netflix killer to be successful," added Ireland, "but a lot will depend on how they want to define success."

 

Apple appears to be breaking the traditional OTT mold while rewriting the playbook, to mix metaphors.

 

Apple will "have exclusive programming, as the big OTT players do, and that will help it position its video brand as it has for HBO and Netflix -- but it's just icing on the same cake as everyone else's," suggested Blum.

 

"This is a lot like the early days of digital satellite TV in the mid-90s," he added.

"There was some programming that was unique to particular platforms -- DirecTV's NFL package, for example -- but for the most part programming lineups were identical," noted Blum. "What distinguished them was bundling. Dish, for example, focused on low-cost packages and distribution. DirecTV and U.S. Satellite Broadcasting were launched via RCA's then-formidable consumer electronics retail channel."

Competition for Content

To be successful in the OTT space will require a certain amount of content.

Today, there is simply more programming than ever before, thanks to original programming on broadcast TV, basic cable, premium cable, and now OTT services. It has fractured the audience, but the major players are willing to make a big splash to get eyeballs.

 

What once was the domain of paid-TV services such as HBO and Showtime now includes Netflix, Amazon and Hulu. For Apple to be taken seriously, it clearly needed to include its own must-see TV.

The paid-TV services traditionally have paid big dollars to develop content, and Netflix entered the space by going the same route. The question is, what happens if the content investment doesn't pay off?

 

"That is the big thing. How much money do you have to throw at it to be successful?" pondered Colin Dixon, principal analyst atnScreen Media.

"Apple can throw a billion dollars and that might be chump change to them, but when you are at a standing start you can't get there in six to nine months and have a creditable service," he told the E-Commerce Times.

 

"You have to license content, and people are smarter about licensing," Dixon added.

 

Netflix, for example, may have high-profile true "original" series, such as House of Cardsand Stranger Things, but a lot of the other exclusive "original" content, such as Babylon Berlin, was only purchased by Netflix. Bablyon Berlin actually was co-produced by German public broadcaster ARD and pay-TV channel Sky.

 

"There just isn't enough of that content out there; it is tied up," explained Dixon. "What Apple TV+ is offering is a mix of eclectic content and not much of it."

Pipeline for Shows

For show runners and would-be producers -- not to mention actors, writers and directors -- now could be a golden age, as the bar may be lowered just so that all these services can truly offer "exclusive" if not in fact "original" content.

 

"The broadcast networks have for their entire existence had to throw out a lot of shows and accept that not everything is going to stick," said Ireland.

 

"As a content provider, you need to have things in the pipeline," he said, "but as noted, Netflix has content that comes from other sources, and Netflix is a lot more than what they produce," explained Ireland.

 

Netflix has been able to pick and choose through its international partnerships. It can take a series such as Babylon Berlin, based on the success the show had in Germany and Great Britain, and the risk is mitigated because it only licenses the show.

 

That strategy has made Netflix a success.

"There is simply a breadth of content, so it doesn't have to appeal to everyone," noted Ireland.

Content That Doesn't Stick

However, it was high-profile programming such as House of Cards, not the imports of Scandinavian cop shows, that originally drew audiences to Netflix. The question for Apple, as well as any of the other OTT services that are built on the binge model, is what happens if there is no more content to license, and the truly original content turns out not to be so binge-worthy?

 

Apple could be taking a gamble by investing in high-profile offerings from Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey.

"Apple is wooing big talent, and in this way it's like a studio betting big on a movie to be a box office hit," said Ireland.

"If it isn't a hit, the studio has to figure out a way to recoup the costs, and it isn't clear if there are options when this happens to an OTT series," he added.

That is why network series tend to get the fall rollout with four or five episodes, and if those are a hit, the series gets a full season order. Amazon tried a similar approach by ordering a number of pilots and having viewers vote to see which they'd like to watch for a full season.

About the only hit of the bunch was the acclaimed series The Man in the High Castle, but that was an adaptation of a book that already had developed a cult following.

 

Trying to get the next big thing already has been a problem for broadcast networks, pay services, and basically every other content provider. Providing more content doesn't equate with better content for viewers.

 

"As HBO moves from highly curated limited content to significantly more content like Netflix, the danger is the quality will go down," suggested Roger Entner, principal analyst at Recon Analytics.

 

"As of last year, Netflix spent 10 times as much on original content to get as many Emmy awards as HBO," he told the E-Commerce Times. "Apple TV+ stands ready to fill that highest-quality, least-failure shows niche if HBO vacates it."

Lower Risk for Apple

Apple, of course, can afford to take risks on a full season -- at least financially -- in a way its rivals can not. When Netflix moved from a DVD rental by mail service to OTT streaming video service, it took a huge gamble with original programming.

"Netflix wasn't a multibillion-dollar company. They just made money from video, unlike Apple, and their overcommitment on content could have sunk them," explained Ireland.

 

For Apple, $2 billion invested in original content won't sink the company, and that gives them an advantage -- but only so far.

 

"It could be disappointing on both sides if the content isn't good," warned nScreen Media's Dixon.

 

On the one hand, early adopters who are disappointed by Apple's offerings aren't likely to remain loyal subscribers, so if the shows don't measure up out of the gate that could hurt Apple. On the other hand, the big name talent that Apple has attracted could equate lack of eyeballs with failure.

 

"I don't see Spielberg sticking around if Apple can't get his show out there," said Dixon.

 

"Apple is starting from nothing, which is different from, say, a Disney -- a company poised to launch its own OTT service. They have the content you know and already love, and it has name brand recognition," he added.

 

"Apple is a bit late to this market, but brings a lot of firepower," said Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates.

 

"Netflix pioneered the model, and Amazon improved on it," he told the E-Commerce Times. "Apple has to do something. The smartphone market is saturated and getting more competitive every day. Apple is trying to swing over to services, and this effort is part of that -- but it's beyond their existing expertise, so it won't be easy."

 

 

 

 

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