Apple Brings Apple Music, iTunes Movies and iBooks to China

[MacRumors]

Apple today announced that it would be bringing three of its entertainment services -- Apple Music, iTunes Movies and iBooks -- to customers in China today. This marks the first time customers in China will have access to Apple's entertainment ecosystem.

"Customers in China love the App Store and have made it our largest market in the world for app downloads," said Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "One of the top requests has been more great content and we're thrilled to bring music, movies and books to China, curated by a local team of experts."

Customers in China will be able to sign up for the three-month free trial of Apple Music starting on September 30. The service will include music from Chinese artists like Eason Chan and JJ Lin in addition to international artists like Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift. Likewise, iTunes Movies will include movies from Chinese film studios in addition to Hollywood blockbusters like Jurassic World and Avengers: Age of Ultron. iBooks will include free and paid Chinese language books.

Apple says that as a token of appreciation, the recent Chinese hit film The Taking of Tiger Mountain will be available for free to all customers in China for a limited time.

China has become increasingly important to Apple in recent years. Recently, the Cupertino company included China in the first wave of countries to be able to purchase the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus.

Article Link: Apple Brings Apple Music, iTunes Movies and iBooks to China

 

[Col4bin]

Hope Apple's bringing those same things to Android next--well at least iTunes anyway!

 

[wowotoe]

mmm..in China, people buy Xiaomi TV box for about $70 USD and watch/listen all kind of movies & musics for free. Including movies currently playing in the theater! If want to listen to music on the go, QQ Music offers streaming service for free.

 

[wesk702]

One of these days they're going to sell 20M of iPhones on an opening weekend and Wall Street will still be unimpressed.

2134: Apple sells 100M iPhones on opening week.
"Yeah, well that's cause they included Mars for the first time. No way they could sell that much if it was only Earth!"

 

[DragoniteD]

10RMB per month......=0=...We are paying $10 per month... 1 month = half year

 

[DingusKhan]

Pricing is extraordinarily cheap - 10 RMB/mo for Apple Music. That's only about $1.50 USD. ??

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/201...oks-to-Customers-in-China-Starting-Today.html

 

[DragoniteD]

One of these days they're going to sell 20M of iPhones on an opening weekend and Wall Street will still be unimpressed.

2134: Apple sells 100M iPhones on opening week.
"Yeah, well that's cause they included Mars for the first time. No way they could sell that much if it was only Earth!"

actually it's the 2nd time. 5s is the first time

Pricing is extraordinarily cheap - 10 RMB/mo for Apple Music. That's only about $1.50 USD. ??

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/201...oks-to-Customers-in-China-Starting-Today.html

Paid iBook starts at 0.5 RMB.... 8cents?...

 

[commander.data]

Apple says that as a token of appreciation, the recent Chinese hit film The Taking of Tiger Mountain will be available for free to all customers in China for a limited time.

Hopefully it doesn't automatically download like the free U2 album did.

 

[DingusKhan]

10RMB per month......=0=...We are paying $10 per month... 1 month = half year

Hit

Paid iBook starts at 0.5 RMB.... 8cents?...

That one I can understand. There are free iBooks and I've seen some at 99 cents on the US iBooks store. The "starting" prices could be the infamous "as low as" examples. As an investor, I'm more interested in the discrepancy in the subscription pricing.

Hopefully it doesn't automatically download like the free U2 album did.

I'm guessing they learned their lesson with U2!

 

[simon48]

How big is the competition in China for iTunes Movies?

 

[DragoniteD]

Hit



That one I can understand. There are free iBooks and I've seen some at 99 cents on the US iBooks store. The "starting" prices could be the infamous "as low as" examples. As an investor, I'm more interested in the discrepancy in the subscription pricing.

There will be difference in the Apple Music library, but still a large share of common pieces.
Also, movies are extremely cheap, and there are common movies in the US store & Chinese Store, at totally different price. (only cost about 1/5 to 1/3 in Chinese Store).

I bet there will be a lot of people moving to Chinese store after this release.

While the price very attractive to me, the cost of giving up the current music library and rebuild one kind of impede me from doing so...

 

[JosephAW]

This is a dumb question but what desktop OS's are they releasing this for? Windows XP or Yosemite?
What is the predominant operating system there? Ubuntu?

所有的电影将是成龙的电影。

 

[atropos]

Willing to give 10RMB pre month in China but unwilling to give away another 3 months free trial... way to go Apple

 

[mariusignorello]

Hopefully it doesn't automatically download like the free U2 album did.

I'm guessing they learned their lesson with U2!

Did it actually download or was there just a cloud icon indicating the item was provisioned but not downloaded yet?

 

[Maleption]

There will be difference in the Apple Music library, but still a large share of common pieces.
Also, movies are extremely cheap, and there are common movies in the US store & Chinese Store, at totally different price. (only cost about 1/5 to 1/3 in Chinese Store).

I bet there will be a lot of people moving to Chinese store after this release.

While the price very attractive to me, the cost of giving up the current music library and rebuild one kind of impede me from doing so...

If u want to buy things in Chinese store, you need Chinese debit/credit card. I don't think there will be a lot of non-Chinese switching to Chinese iTunes Store.

 

[Exponent]

IBooks in mainland dictatorial China...
I wonder how the censorship system works, and if Apple has to be the enforcer.

If so, that would be a Bad Thing.

 

[DragoniteD]

所有的电影将是成龙的电影。

You should be shamed of your ignorance. Just checked, the Jurassic World is now available for PRE-ORDER in US store for $20 bucks, while available for download in China store for 22RMB, around $3.5

 

[macs4nw]

Pricing is extraordinarily cheap - 10 RMB/mo for Apple Music. That's only about $1.50 USD. ??

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/201...oks-to-Customers-in-China-Starting-Today.html

Assuming for a second that price is correct, Apple will still make that up by sheer volume alone.....

 

[mariusignorello]

If so, that would be a Bad Thing.

Hahah capitals on Bad Thing.

 

[tango125]

Assuming for a second that price is correct, Apple will still make that up by sheer volume alone.....

I think it's correct, I just been on the store to take a look.

They are giving out one film for free. There are 50 being sold for 1 Yuan. Then even the most expensive, Jurassic World is selling for 22 Yuan, which is like 2 Dollars.

And to answer someone above, there is big competition in China, because a lot of the streaming is pretty much free, but I guess you can buy "quality" here, where the encoding is top notch. I mean they sell DVDs for around the same price.

Example for book is, I bought a book in Hong Kong for 80 odd HKD, which is about 10 dollars. The same book but in Simplified Chinese and printed on worse paper sold at less than 1 dollar.

 

[Shirasaki]

Pricing is extraordinarily cheap - 10 RMB/mo for Apple Music. That's only about $1.50 USD. ??

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/201...oks-to-Customers-in-China-Starting-Today.html

Ok, remember:
Chinese customers get such incredible low price in exchange for clean and censored localised contents. What you listen may not be available in China.

There will be difference in the Apple Music library, but still a large share of common pieces.
Also, movies are extremely cheap, and there are common movies in the US store & Chinese Store, at totally different price. (only cost about 1/5 to 1/3 in Chinese Store).

I bet there will be a lot of people moving to Chinese store after this release.

While the price very attractive to me, the cost of giving up the current music library and rebuild one kind of impede me from doing so...

Chinese store requires either local bank card to charge for account, or local credit card to purchase, as I aware. No iTunes gift card sold in Chinese market yet.

 

[Kajje]

Also, movies are extremely cheap, and there are common movies in the US store & Chinese Store, at totally different price. (only cost about 1/5 to 1/3 in Chinese Store).

While I certainly do not encourage the pirated industry trade, things are differently in Asia.

The pirated movie industry is deeply cultured here. Shops selling pirated DVD's are easiliy found. And I'm not talking about small shags in the corner of a dark allay. I'm talking big, clean, well lit shops on commercial locations, often in the mall, positioned right next to an international brand boutique fashion outlet.

Prices vary on the amount of DVD's you buy. Starts from $0.7 if you buy just one, $0.4 if you take 100 pieces. Not all copies perform the same and there's dvd players available to test before you buy.

Movie distributors (the licensed, official ones) are retailing blockbusters on DVD's for about $2.5 in a simple case until $6 in full retail carton/plastic box. Available in the big branded supermarkets like Carrefour.

People over here do understand that buying pirated movies is outlawed. But law enforcement in this field is practically non-existent. More and more people are willing to buy the official stuff, and $2.5 is the price they want to pay. However the biggest drive for them to buy these is not because its legallity, it's because they're probably better quality and have less potential to freeze up in the middle of the movie.

iTunes in China with US pricing is suicide.

 

[Shirasaki]

IBooks in mainland dictatorial China...
I wonder how the censorship system works, and if Apple has to be the enforcer.

If so, that would be a Bad Thing.

Don't worry. All contents will be applied to even stricter filter than American ratings.

While I certainly do not encourage the pirated industry trade, things are differently in Asia.

The pirated movie industry is deeply cultured here. Shops selling pirated DVD's are easiliy found. And I'm not talking about small shags in the corner of a dark allay. I'm talking big, clean, well lit shops on commercial locations, often in the mall, positioned right next to an international brand boutique fashion outlet.

Prices vary on the amount of DVD's you buy. Starts from $0.7 if you buy just one, $0.4 if you take 100 pieces. Not all copies perform the same and there's dvd players available to test before you buy.

Movie distributors (the licensed, official ones) are retailing blockbusters on DVD's for about $2.5 in a simple case until $6 in full retail carton/plastic box. Available in the big branded supermarkets like Carrefour.

People over here do understand that buying pirated movies is outlawed. But law enforcement in this field is practically non-existent. More and more people are willing to buy the official stuff, and $2.5 is the price they want to pay. However the biggest drive for them to buy these is not because its legallity, it's because they're probably better quality and have less potential to freeze up in the middle of the movie.

iTunes in China with US pricing is suicide.

And many Chinese users wish iPhone would be sold in localised reasonable price tag.

Digital content will be easy to do, but yeah, iPhone iPad iPod are hardware.

 

[thelookingglass]

mmm..in China, people buy Xiaomi TV box for about $70 USD and watch/listen all kind of movies & musics for free. Including movies currently playing in the theater! If want to listen to music on the go, QQ Music offers streaming service for free.

Yeah, I was about to say, how is this going to work in a country where people don't pay for media.

 

[atropos]

Yeah, I was about to say, how is this going to work in a country where people don't pay for media.

No, you just can't, hate to say it but they are born to be steal creative products and ideas.