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Regarding stickiness. Apple introduced the following: * News+ * Apple card * Apple Arcade * And they already have Apple music Am leaving TV out of this lis

by graeme 8y ago

Regarding stickiness. Apple introduced the following: * News+ * Apple card * Apple Arcade * And they already have Apple music Am leaving TV out of this list for now. Most people may not want a particular service. But it’s highly likely a good chunk of apple customers will want at least one or two of them. And then that becomes a factor at switching time. For instance, I’ve considered Android in the past. What has always stopped me are two thoughts: ‘What about privacy?” and “what about imessage?” Note that these don’t need to be sticking points for you. I’m saying they’re sticking pointed for many. Now, apple is adding three new service sticking points, to add to their music sticking point. People will think things like “I really like reading Apple News everyday/I like getting the WSJ”. “Those games are so fun for my kids” “Ugh, I’d have to get a new credit card if I switch phones?’ Apple already has a strong ecosystem effect, especially in the US. These will add to it. The apple watch and airpods are another stickiness factor that’s growing rapidly as well. I left off TV: I’m not sure how it adds to stickiness. Apple is making it widely available on third party devices. So you can still get a show you want even with no apple hardware. Will there be some tie in to apple hardware announced when the service launches? Or some kind of bundle price that itself adds stickiness? Unclear, the strategy behind the TV service is still a bit opaque. Personally, I’m excited for Apple Arcade. Don’t know how the games will be yet, but it has potential and will be a nice complement to having a nintendo switch. News in Canada is....ok, though it’s unclear to me how much I’m getting with paid vs the free version and I may not keep it. Depends how much value I get from the wsj.

treis 8y ago
>Regarding stickiness. Apple introduced the following: I don't think any of those things are all that sticky. I think it's more about leveraging their client base to push into what are essentially commodity industries. Like the credit card. Apple's offering is more or less the same as everyone else's. They will still get some % of iPhone users because it's the most convenient option. Even a few % translates into millions of users and 10s-100s of millions of annual profit. Amazon is a few years ahead of Apple in doing the same thing. They have a gigantic second mover advantage in any sort of app or online service. Whatever they make can be the default option and they have a built in 30/15% price advantage from the app store fees. >I left off TV: I’m not sure how it adds to stickiness I think this is the best example to illustrate my point. Video streaming is not really a commodity. It's a balkanized landscape of minor fiefdoms controlling content. There's a handful of big movie studios, a bunch of TV producers, all of the different sports league, and other live events. It's not like music where Apple can produce a Spotify competitor with relatively little effort. Competing with Netflix means producing originals and doing a better job of buying content. It's much much harder.
- graeme 8y ago
  Yes, they’re also revenue plays for apple. But that doesn’t mean they don’t add to stickiness. That’s a big purpose of prime after all: prime generates revenue, but it keeps people on amazon. The credit card cuts amazon’s transaction fees, but it keeps people on prime and shopping on amazon. No single point of apple’s offering is all that important for stickiness, but I think it will add nicely to their ecosystem effect.
mrweasel 8y ago
>Apple already has a strong ecosystem effect, especially in the US I don't believe it's as strong as Apple would have people believe. It may be that I fail to understand Apples US reach, but I don't see that owning an iPhone makes customers stay with in the Apple ecosystem. I would be surprised if even 25% of Apples iPhone customers have an existing subscription to an Apple service. The new products/service also seems like a failure to plan for beyond the US marked. Neither of the four service seem like something that would be enticing to customers in other countries. To me it seems like Apple has come to the end of the road, there are no new device or service, to they attempt to make a little profit in four niche markets.
- graeme 8y ago
  >It may be that I fail to understand Apples US reach, but I don't see that owning an iPhone makes customers stay with in the Apple ecosystem. I would be surprised if even 25% of Apples iPhone customers have an existing subscription to an Apple service. Here’s a short list of some of the things that may keep someone on apple. Most people don’t use most of them. But even having 1-2 may keep someone. * apple watch * apple health data * iCloud photo libraries (sharing with family etc) * imessage * certain apps only on ios/mac * privacy * apple music * itunes music library * now, apple news, apple arcade, apple card * airdrop * airpods * integration between iphone, ipad, apple watch, mac, etc Apple has about 50% us market share, so a lot of those involve social or family ties. Outside the us these are less important: most people in Europe use whatsapp for example, negating imessage. But the point is, for each of those bullets, there’s somechunk of people who are deeply invested in it. It csn be a bit hard to imagine on the outside, because most non-apple services are cross platform. But imagine if you couldn’t use gmail, youtube, netflix etc when switching from android to iphone. It would make you think a lot harder about the choice. These aren’t great examples because they’re more important than the apple services, it’s just to illustrate the idea: if you leave the apple ecosystem, there will be things important to you that you can no longer do. More prosaic android examples would be things such as homescreen customization, better notification management, etc. anyone switching from android has to give those up, and they help prevent switching from android to apple.
  - 8y ago
kokey 8y ago
Personally I'm very excited about News+. When News launched I was hoping it would become something like News+ eventually. I think this could be what saves good journalism, I like to get news from a spread of publications especially with different biases and the existing subscription contracts would make this impossibly expensive.
- atombender 8y ago
  What disappoints me about Apple News+ is the lack of good UI for long reads, which must surely be the point of including things like the New Yorker. You can save articles, but there's no good UI to queue up what to read and then read them later. I use Pocket for this sort of thing -- seems like a missed opportunity. (Right now you can't even remove magazines after adding them. Really feels like a beta product.)
- joegahona 8y ago
  What does News+ provide you with, which News did not?
  - toasterlovin 8y ago
    Full access to the nations leading magazines. New Yorker, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, etc. I don’t care about those, personally, but they’re some of the best long form writing around.
    - joegahona 8y ago
      All of these magazines are on the free version of Apple News, but I haven’t done a deep-dive into how much of their content is available, so I get it if the “full access” part is important to you. I do wonder how important this is to most people though.
      - toasterlovin 8y ago
        I wonder too. The only reason I think this has any chance in hell of working is that I didn’t think anybody would ever use the non-plus version of News. But they do.
eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
I disagree with those being sticky. I have a fleet of Apple devices and iMessage and FaceTime are absolutely sticky but they just don’t compare to what Apple introduced at the recent event, which I think was all pretty weak. I was interested in News, because of the WSJ, but it’s not even the full Journal. I’m still amazed Apple is not doing anything about robocalls. This is an area where software can improve the situation, and I do believe this is related to privacy. And instead we get the latest iOS with...more Animoji.
- ksec 8y ago
  Agree. The only thing that could be very sticky for me would be Apple Card, I don't mind losing one or two percentage of rebate for the Financial Monitoring, ease of use, and my personal Data.
- graeme 8y ago
  >I was interested in News, because of the WSJ, but it’s not even the full Journal. There was a lot of back and forth on this, but I think it is the full journal. Is there a section that’s supposed to be excluded? You can go to an article, hit share, and open it in apple news to test. I didn’t mean these things will be as sticky as imessage and face time. Just that they are factors that expand the ecosystem for some users. Apple news has been very popular in the US, so news+ will probably be a no brainer for some people. If done well, games will be sticky for a ton of people, and so on. The question isn’t “would I use that?” It’s whether others would.
  - eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
    Yep I’m definitely considering others, not only myself, as best as I can. But I don’t see these things being attractive to even non-technical users. Or not enough of reasons to keep them on the Apple ecosystem. It seems like basically up-sells to me to increase revenue off the existing customer base because they know they cannot keep increasing iPhone sales YoY. I do think News is probably the best bet. It’s something I’ve wanted for a while because not many people are going to pay 5-10/month for numerous news sources that are often regurgitating the same news. But I doubt it would keep me on Apple. And isn’t this something that could eventually easily be replicated by others?
untog 8y ago
It's worth mentioning that Apple Music is available on Android, and there's no reason to doubt the TV offering will be as well. News+ and Arcade are perhaps less likely, but the fact that Music is available on Android at all suggests that Apple are looking to make money from their services rather than use them as a lock-in tool.

by graeme 8y ago

treis 8y ago

>Regarding stickiness. Apple introduced the following: I don't think any of those things are all that sticky. I think it's more about leveraging their client base to push into what are essentially commodity industries. Like the credit card. Apple's offering is more or less the same as everyone else's. They will still get some % of iPhone users because it's the most convenient option. Even a few % translates into millions of users and 10s-100s of millions of annual profit. Amazon is a few years ahead of Apple in doing the same thing. They have a gigantic second mover advantage in any sort of app or online service. Whatever they make can be the default option and they have a built in 30/15% price advantage from the app store fees. >I left off TV: I’m not sure how it adds to stickiness I think this is the best example to illustrate my point. Video streaming is not really a commodity. It's a balkanized landscape of minor fiefdoms controlling content. There's a handful of big movie studios, a bunch of TV producers, all of the different sports league, and other live events. It's not like music where Apple can produce a Spotify competitor with relatively little effort. Competing with Netflix means producing originals and doing a better job of buying content. It's much much harder.

graeme 8y ago
Yes, they’re also revenue plays for apple. But that doesn’t mean they don’t add to stickiness. That’s a big purpose of prime after all: prime generates revenue, but it keeps people on amazon. The credit card cuts amazon’s transaction fees, but it keeps people on prime and shopping on amazon. No single point of apple’s offering is all that important for stickiness, but I think it will add nicely to their ecosystem effect.

mrweasel 8y ago

>Apple already has a strong ecosystem effect, especially in the US I don't believe it's as strong as Apple would have people believe. It may be that I fail to understand Apples US reach, but I don't see that owning an iPhone makes customers stay with in the Apple ecosystem. I would be surprised if even 25% of Apples iPhone customers have an existing subscription to an Apple service. The new products/service also seems like a failure to plan for beyond the US marked. Neither of the four service seem like something that would be enticing to customers in other countries. To me it seems like Apple has come to the end of the road, there are no new device or service, to they attempt to make a little profit in four niche markets.

graeme 8y ago
>It may be that I fail to understand Apples US reach, but I don't see that owning an iPhone makes customers stay with in the Apple ecosystem. I would be surprised if even 25% of Apples iPhone customers have an existing subscription to an Apple service. Here’s a short list of some of the things that may keep someone on apple. Most people don’t use most of them. But even having 1-2 may keep someone. * apple watch * apple health data * iCloud photo libraries (sharing with family etc) * imessage * certain apps only on ios/mac * privacy * apple music * itunes music library * now, apple news, apple arcade, apple card * airdrop * airpods * integration between iphone, ipad, apple watch, mac, etc Apple has about 50% us market share, so a lot of those involve social or family ties. Outside the us these are less important: most people in Europe use whatsapp for example, negating imessage. But the point is, for each of those bullets, there’s somechunk of people who are deeply invested in it. It csn be a bit hard to imagine on the outside, because most non-apple services are cross platform. But imagine if you couldn’t use gmail, youtube, netflix etc when switching from android to iphone. It would make you think a lot harder about the choice. These aren’t great examples because they’re more important than the apple services, it’s just to illustrate the idea: if you leave the apple ecosystem, there will be things important to you that you can no longer do. More prosaic android examples would be things such as homescreen customization, better notification management, etc. anyone switching from android has to give those up, and they help prevent switching from android to apple.
- 8y ago

kokey 8y ago

Personally I'm very excited about News+. When News launched I was hoping it would become something like News+ eventually. I think this could be what saves good journalism, I like to get news from a spread of publications especially with different biases and the existing subscription contracts would make this impossibly expensive.

atombender 8y ago
What disappoints me about Apple News+ is the lack of good UI for long reads, which must surely be the point of including things like the New Yorker. You can save articles, but there's no good UI to queue up what to read and then read them later. I use Pocket for this sort of thing -- seems like a missed opportunity. (Right now you can't even remove magazines after adding them. Really feels like a beta product.)
joegahona 8y ago
What does News+ provide you with, which News did not?
- toasterlovin 8y ago
  Full access to the nations leading magazines. New Yorker, The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, etc. I don’t care about those, personally, but they’re some of the best long form writing around.
  - joegahona 8y ago
    All of these magazines are on the free version of Apple News, but I haven’t done a deep-dive into how much of their content is available, so I get it if the “full access” part is important to you. I do wonder how important this is to most people though.
    - toasterlovin 8y ago
      I wonder too. The only reason I think this has any chance in hell of working is that I didn’t think anybody would ever use the non-plus version of News. But they do.

eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago

I disagree with those being sticky. I have a fleet of Apple devices and iMessage and FaceTime are absolutely sticky but they just don’t compare to what Apple introduced at the recent event, which I think was all pretty weak. I was interested in News, because of the WSJ, but it’s not even the full Journal. I’m still amazed Apple is not doing anything about robocalls. This is an area where software can improve the situation, and I do believe this is related to privacy. And instead we get the latest iOS with...more Animoji.

ksec 8y ago
Agree. The only thing that could be very sticky for me would be Apple Card, I don't mind losing one or two percentage of rebate for the Financial Monitoring, ease of use, and my personal Data.
graeme 8y ago
>I was interested in News, because of the WSJ, but it’s not even the full Journal. There was a lot of back and forth on this, but I think it is the full journal. Is there a section that’s supposed to be excluded? You can go to an article, hit share, and open it in apple news to test. I didn’t mean these things will be as sticky as imessage and face time. Just that they are factors that expand the ecosystem for some users. Apple news has been very popular in the US, so news+ will probably be a no brainer for some people. If done well, games will be sticky for a ton of people, and so on. The question isn’t “would I use that?” It’s whether others would.
- eeeeeeeeeeeee 8y ago
  Yep I’m definitely considering others, not only myself, as best as I can. But I don’t see these things being attractive to even non-technical users. Or not enough of reasons to keep them on the Apple ecosystem. It seems like basically up-sells to me to increase revenue off the existing customer base because they know they cannot keep increasing iPhone sales YoY. I do think News is probably the best bet. It’s something I’ve wanted for a while because not many people are going to pay 5-10/month for numerous news sources that are often regurgitating the same news. But I doubt it would keep me on Apple. And isn’t this something that could eventually easily be replicated by others?

untog 8y ago

It's worth mentioning that Apple Music is available on Android, and there's no reason to doubt the TV offering will be as well. News+ and Arcade are perhaps less likely, but the fact that Music is available on Android at all suggests that Apple are looking to make money from their services rather than use them as a lock-in tool.