5 ms·

This is not about "cracking the walled garden"; we're comparing, well, not apples and oranges as much as Apples and Netflixes. This is about laying the groundw

This is not about "cracking the walled garden"; we're comparing, well, not apples and oranges as much as Apples and Netflixes. This is about laying the groundwork for Apple's new video service -- the question was always whether they wanted to use it as a way to sell overpriced TV pucks, like they've traditionally done with their services, or it was going to be its own thing. they wanted to have everywhere. If you're surprised that they're choosing "have it everywhere," it's probably because you haven't been following the mounting tidbits of Hollywood noise about the original content being produced for Apple. We're not talking about Carpool Karaoke anymore. We're talking new shows from J.J. Abrams, Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Ron Moore, Damien Chazelle. We're talking about new children's programming with Peanuts and Sesame Street. Shows starring Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carrell, Chris Evans, Reese Witherspoon, Aaron Paul, Jason Momoa. A series based on Isaac Asimov's Foundation. The point is, there is serious firepower happening here, to the point where it's pretty clear this is not "service as adjunct to hardware." This is Apple establishing an actual entertainment division.

CharlesW 8y ago
This is excellent insight, chipotle_coyote. The article is a poor take. For anyone who might not be aware of the history, Apple media products have always extended outside of the "walled garden". QuickTime appeared on Windows in 1991, iTunes for Windows was introduced in 2003, and Apple Music has been available on Android since 2015. AirPlay has been supported by 3rd-party devices for quite some time (close to a decade. IIRC).
jagger27 8y ago
This is the correct analysis. If you have any doubts that Apple can pull something like this off, you don't have to look very far. Right from the early days of the iPod Apple had the biggest players on the scene on board: Jimmy Iovine in that case. Apple is a much more powerful company than it was then and I see it as very likely they'll pull off a Netflix-sized coup.
lordnacho 8y ago
Then the player to watch for would be Disney. Huge, long history in the area, Mickey Mouse knows everyone in the entertainment business. Even though Apple has a gigantic pile of cash there's a real question as to whether they can actually make money this way. One could question whether you can just hire a bunch of famous movie people and then have a movie empire. I'm looking forward to the fight though. There's a good case that we're currently in one of the most productive eras in storytelling, mainly thanks to these titans clashing.
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
  Disney is definitely the elephant in the room, given all the properties they have rights to and/or controlling interest in. I don't know whether as an outsider, Apple can buy their way into this game, either -- although it worked for Microsoft in video game consoles, and if any outsider company has the money to try, it's Apple.
  - krrrh 8y ago
    It’s really worth mentioning here that Disney CEO Bob Iger has been on Apple’s board of directors since 2011. Also that when Disney acquired Pixar under Iger, Steve Jobs became the single largest shareholder of the Walt Disney Company.
    - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
      It is, but it's also worth noting that Disney is so far a notable holdout from supplying Apple with 4K copies of movies for iTunes. I'm not sure the two companies are all that buddy-buddy with one another these days.
cc439 8y ago
I'm honestly surprised at how much investment tech giants are pouring into 1st party tv/movie production and also by the consensus that these ventures are virtually guaranteed to succeed. From what I've observed over the past decade, the future of our cultural landscape is going to be that of increasing fragmentation to the point that there will no longer be a single, dominant culture for mass media enterprises to appeal to. The high production value of traditional HollyWood productions are only sustainable due to their mass cultural appeal. The problem is that mass culture is in fact, losing mass. These tech giants appear to have misread the signs of this pending sea change and interpret behaviors such as cord-cutting among younger generations to mean they are merely moving their consumption online and that their consumption habits remain otherwise unchanged. One only has to look at the popularity of services like YouTube and Twitch with Gen Z to see that this is in fact not the case. Younger millenials and Gen Z as a whole have completely changed their consumption habits to prefer niche content made by individual creators (or at most a small group) on the cheap. While YouTube stars like PewDiePie cannot be said to be "niche" due to the simple fact that his content captures more eyeballs per year than literally anything else by an enormous margin, the content itself isn't exactly something that appeals to a universal audience in the way that a traditional HollyWood Blockbuster or hit TV show might. Ironically, while Google was the tech giant best positioned to capture the future (at least in terms of how I see it developing), they've severly damaged the future potential of YouTube by playing games with the monwtization and promotion of popular channels while also making it impossible for new creators to make money before they've built their channel into a relative behemoth. While Apple, Amazon, Disney, et al are throwing massive amounts of capital trying to capture a slice of the streaming service market, they appear to have missed signs of cultural change which will likely cause that market to stagnate over the coming decade. I can't say that trying to create a YouTube competitor is a better idea at this point in time either as that market just isn't large or stable enough at this point in time to say there is even space for a second major servicd for small content creators. I can say the future of entertainment is going to look a lot more like YouTube, where the attention of tens of millions of eyeballs are spread over tens of thousands of channels, rather than a handful of sources for traditional mass media productions.
- chipotle_coyote 8y ago
leoc 8y ago
In other words, it's an iTunes-comes-to-Windows event?

CharlesW 8y ago

This is excellent insight, chipotle_coyote. The article is a poor take. For anyone who might not be aware of the history, Apple media products have always extended outside of the "walled garden". QuickTime appeared on Windows in 1991, iTunes for Windows was introduced in 2003, and Apple Music has been available on Android since 2015. AirPlay has been supported by 3rd-party devices for quite some time (close to a decade. IIRC).

jagger27 8y ago

This is the correct analysis. If you have any doubts that Apple can pull something like this off, you don't have to look very far. Right from the early days of the iPod Apple had the biggest players on the scene on board: Jimmy Iovine in that case. Apple is a much more powerful company than it was then and I see it as very likely they'll pull off a Netflix-sized coup.

lordnacho 8y ago

Then the player to watch for would be Disney. Huge, long history in the area, Mickey Mouse knows everyone in the entertainment business. Even though Apple has a gigantic pile of cash there's a real question as to whether they can actually make money this way. One could question whether you can just hire a bunch of famous movie people and then have a movie empire. I'm looking forward to the fight though. There's a good case that we're currently in one of the most productive eras in storytelling, mainly thanks to these titans clashing.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago
Disney is definitely the elephant in the room, given all the properties they have rights to and/or controlling interest in. I don't know whether as an outsider, Apple can buy their way into this game, either -- although it worked for Microsoft in video game consoles, and if any outsider company has the money to try, it's Apple.
- krrrh 8y ago
  It’s really worth mentioning here that Disney CEO Bob Iger has been on Apple’s board of directors since 2011. Also that when Disney acquired Pixar under Iger, Steve Jobs became the single largest shareholder of the Walt Disney Company.
  - chipotle_coyote 8y ago
    It is, but it's also worth noting that Disney is so far a notable holdout from supplying Apple with 4K copies of movies for iTunes. I'm not sure the two companies are all that buddy-buddy with one another these days.

cc439 8y ago

I'm honestly surprised at how much investment tech giants are pouring into 1st party tv/movie production and also by the consensus that these ventures are virtually guaranteed to succeed. From what I've observed over the past decade, the future of our cultural landscape is going to be that of increasing fragmentation to the point that there will no longer be a single, dominant culture for mass media enterprises to appeal to. The high production value of traditional HollyWood productions are only sustainable due to their mass cultural appeal. The problem is that mass culture is in fact, losing mass. These tech giants appear to have misread the signs of this pending sea change and interpret behaviors such as cord-cutting among younger generations to mean they are merely moving their consumption online and that their consumption habits remain otherwise unchanged. One only has to look at the popularity of services like YouTube and Twitch with Gen Z to see that this is in fact not the case. Younger millenials and Gen Z as a whole have completely changed their consumption habits to prefer niche content made by individual creators (or at most a small group) on the cheap. While YouTube stars like PewDiePie cannot be said to be "niche" due to the simple fact that his content captures more eyeballs per year than literally anything else by an enormous margin, the content itself isn't exactly something that appeals to a universal audience in the way that a traditional HollyWood Blockbuster or hit TV show might. Ironically, while Google was the tech giant best positioned to capture the future (at least in terms of how I see it developing), they've severly damaged the future potential of YouTube by playing games with the monwtization and promotion of popular channels while also making it impossible for new creators to make money before they've built their channel into a relative behemoth. While Apple, Amazon, Disney, et al are throwing massive amounts of capital trying to capture a slice of the streaming service market, they appear to have missed signs of cultural change which will likely cause that market to stagnate over the coming decade. I can't say that trying to create a YouTube competitor is a better idea at this point in time either as that market just isn't large or stable enough at this point in time to say there is even space for a second major servicd for small content creators. I can say the future of entertainment is going to look a lot more like YouTube, where the attention of tens of millions of eyeballs are spread over tens of thousands of channels, rather than a handful of sources for traditional mass media productions.

chipotle_coyote 8y ago

leoc 8y ago

In other words, it's an iTunes-comes-to-Windows event?