Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Imagine Sony Music was founded with the intend to sell more Sony Discmans and therefor their music wouldn’t play on Philips CD-Players.

Netflix is more like a service provider. Both filmmakers and cineasts alike praise their creative freedom and whenever I want™ bingewatch-ability.

Disney is more a gatekeeper to their own proprietary content. They know how to buy and milk other franchises, but they are not good at giving an unknown director the chance to tell their story.
 
Last edited:
Who was paying for CBS All Access for the back catalog?
I mean, I didn’t. But “The Big Bang Theory” is the most successful multicam sitcom in the entire world right now, so... probably lots of people signed up for the back catalog.
Whether someone signed up for the new shows or not is irrelevant. At least CBS actually has a library of content. Apple doesn’t.
 
And if Microsoft would have build up its own phone hardware business from the ground up, it would’ve cost way more than one Nokia. So relatively speaking Microsoft saved a lot of dough.
If only they would’ve done this instead of buying Beats. At least they could’ve bought a respectable headphone brand.
No, it’s not. TV shows are either good or bad. HBO is known for a lot of good content, but that doesn’t mean everything they put out is good or others can’t match their quality. Even the first and last season of Game of Thrones are of vastly different quality.
**** nobody cares about. Mickey Mouse, Spiderman and Luke Skywalker are just overused franchises. That’s not what the movie business is about. You’ve got to be able to tell an exciting new story and then do it all over again. HBOs Chernobyl was the surprise of this summer and there won’t be a second season next year.
So far they haven’t hooked anyone, which is the most narrow audience possible. I haven’t watched Orange is the New Black, because I want to be a woman or in prison. It was a good story, some interesting new perspective. Narcos, Chernobyl, Game of Thrones. People don’t watch specific genres, they prefer good content over bad content. Make another show with zombies and people who liked the Walking Dead might not watch it at all.
Only because everyone now tries to be like Netflix, doesn’t mean there wasn’t a subscription based tv business before. HBO and Blackberry had their heyday before the revolution came along.
And Android is not even charging a license fee for their software. Half of the US economy would disappear, if it was run for profit and not domination.
But despite its name the iPhone is not a phone. It’s a touch-based mobile computer dressed as a phone. It had no competition until Android copied it.
But if you want to be the profit leader in a market, it must.
And this makes Apple Originals to Apple TV what Apple Maps is for the iPhone. A horrible mess that got better with time, but doesn’t turn a profit on its own. The difference is, Maps will be finished some day, most roads stay the same for decades. New tv content needs to be created every week, forever.
Tenacity is how Steve Balmer described Microsoft’s approach to win back a market dominated by iOS and Android. So we’re back at buying Nokia, the last do-or-die move before Microsoft conceded the mobile OS market to competitors. Apple already lost to Netflix, now they waste a lot of money in a failed attempt to stay relevant in the TV market.
And I’m absolutely sure, you are completely wrong. Content creation is not like designing hard- and software. You can’t out-innovate competition. As proven by Game of Thrones, the next season is not necessary better than the one before. People get sick of superhero movies and no one wants to see another adventure of Mickey Mouse. Much like in the music industry stars and styles always change. The major labels survive by sheer size and buying up one tiny new label after another. Apple doesn’t know how to stay relevant in this kind of business. They force downloaded everyone a free U2 album and music fans were appalled.
You don't get it. Your Microsoft/Nokia parallel simply doesn't hold water.
[doublepost=1566474296][/doublepost]
Aquaman was one of the worst pile of drool movies ever made.
A) That is objectively not true. There have been thousands and thousands of worse movies than Aquaman.
B) I was commenting on Jason Momoa's acting, which was fine. He was not the problem with that movie.
 
  • Like
Reactions: PickUrPoison
$6 billion for the first round of Apple TV+ shows. Tim Cook is the Joker burning Apple's cash pile:

apple_tv_plus.png


tim_cook_boondoggle.png
 
  • Like
Reactions: Gudi
Why would consumers care about profit-more markets? Why would consumers care about sustainability? The fact of all the metric points you pointed out profit and sustainability kind of shows why you don’t understand nor will you ever understand half of the complaints.

Regular consumers are not on this forum and do not post here. However, the arguments about profitability is that it does not matter if someone how big someone’s market share is if they cannot make money with it. As a customer, if I am going to invest (money, time, mental energy) in an ecosystem, I want to know that it will last. With respect to NetFlix, if they cannot build a sustainably profitable business, they will not be around long term. As a consumer, I am not sure I care whether NetFlix, Disney+, HBO Max, CBS All Access, TV+, etc. remain in existence. It does not take much to switch to a different app to watch shows and Apple’s TV app means I do not even need to know which service carries a show.
However, for people on here arguing about whether a service, whose details have not been announced, can be successful, understanding NetFlix’s financials makes sense. If their model works, then emulating its best parts and improving on its weaknesses makes sense. If it does not, then one needs to understand why it does not work to build a service that would work financially.

On the topic of Apple TV+, they can easily burn thru a large chunk of their cash and not have much to show from it. It’s why there is much skepticism about this service.

Six billion is not that large a chunk of their cash. If the service is successful, and/or has a positive effect on Apple’s ecosystem it will be great. If it fails to deliver, but the shows they produce are good, there will be residual value (they can be sold or licensed to one of the remaining players). Having worked on the technical side of the content industry for years, I cannot begin to guess which shows will hit or miss (nor for that matter, can anyone else, hence: Lonestar, Public Morals and Turn On). However, there is skepticism on here about every new product or service Apple introduces. There is rarely a connection between the skepticism and the success or failure of the products (go back and read the threads on the iPod, Apple Stores, iTunes Music/Movie stores, Apple Watch, etc.).

I have no idea if Apple will be able to make a compelling service at a compelling price, as I have heard no details about what it will be, how much it will cost and how it will be offered. I do know that it is not a big risk to the company to try it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Abazigal
Investors don't want to hear they "burned through 6 billion".

They did not “burn through” anything, they purchased IP. Whether that IP is valuable within a service of Apple’s, as a way to strengthen their ecosystem, cut customer acquisition costs or just as an asset to sell at some future date we have no idea. You choose to spin it in a particular way, that does not make it so.

Investors look at profitably, growth and customer satisfaction. They are typically less concerned with spending unless the company is failing on the first three.
 
They did not “burn through” anything, they purchased IP. Whether that IP is valuable within a service of Apple’s, as a way to strengthen their ecosystem, cut customer acquisition costs or just as an asset to sell at some future date we have no idea. You choose to spin it in a particular way, that does not make it so.

Investors look at profitably, growth and customer satisfaction. They are typically less concerned with spending unless the company is failing on the first three.

The burn was a hypothetical. If they don’t make a return, it’s called a burn. Please for the love of glory read the thread to understand the context.
 
The burn was a hypothetical. If they don’t make a return, it’s called a burn. Please for the love of glory read the thread to understand the context.

Thank you, but I completely understood the meaning of the expression “burn through”. However, your statement of “Investors don’t want to hear they `burned through $6 billion’” was in direct response to my post pointing out that even if the service was not successful, much of the IP would still have value that could be unlocked by selling or licensing it to someone else.

For them to have “burned through $6 billion” none of their IP could have any residual value, a proposition that seems highly unlikely.

That is the context.

P.S. I think the word you mean is “figurative”, not “hypothetical”.
 
“Apple is considering releasing three episodes of TV shows at once followed by weekly installments.“

— ugh. hate this model. drop it all at once.
Timmy needs your monthly payment you know.
 
Let's see: Disney+, cheaper and some content I'd actually watch and :eek: stream. As much as I hate streaming, I will probably capitulate.

AppleTV: More $$$ and nothing I want to "See".

Apple's throwing out billions of dollars with their latest bad decision. I'll skip funding this one.
 
AppleTV: More $$$ and nothing I want to "See".

Apple has not announced anything yet. Love that you have already made up your mind on a service with no price point based on rumors and a few trailers.

Apple's throwing out billions of dollars with their latest bad decision. I'll skip funding this one.

What is great about developing content, is that if they decide they do not want to remain in this business, they can always sell the IP and recover some, most, or all of their money from someone in the business. The Office and Friends are worth many times their production costs. Even if their service fails (for various reasons), much of the content is likely to be interesting to other competitors. Something not true for other products they might develop.
 
Apple has not announced anything yet. Love that you have already made up your mind on a service with no price point based on rumors and a few trailers.

I love it too, as I think different than Apple these days. :) No interest since production on several tv shows were announced. Thank you for noticing and loving my freedom of choice. :p
 
Even if their service fails (for various reasons), much of the content is likely to be interesting to other competitors. Something not true for other products they might develop.

Likely to be interesting? You’ve already made up your mind that competitors are interested in Apple’s content before it’s even been released?

Good thing you don’t work in the industry
 
Likely to be interesting? You’ve already made up your mind that competitors are interested in Apple’s content before it’s even been released?

I would never presume that I could pick winners or losers among these shows or movies (I saw Zoey Deschanel’s New Girl at the LA Upfronts, and did not think it would make a full season, but I loved Awake the next year). As I have noted several times, picking individual winners is very hard. On the other hand, Looking at the depth and breadth of their projects, and track records of their creators, I think it is safe to say there will be more than a few that will be well received by audiences and critics. I did not need to make “up [my] mind that competitors are interested”, given that Apple won bidding for several of these movies and series, their actions said that. While not every show or movie that they won will still be of interest to everyone else who bid, it seems safe to say that many will be.

None of this argues that TV+ will be successful. Every series and movie could be a hit with viewers and critics and yet the service could still fail for a million other reasons.
 
I love it too, as I think different than Apple these days. :) No interest since production on several tv shows were announced. Thank you for noticing and loving my freedom of choice. :p
Apple has dozens of projects in various stages of production, but has released trailers for only two or three. You have seen zero productions in their entirety, or for even five minutes of one single episode. How can that lead to an informed opinion?

Have you also decided your level of interest in books you’ve never read or music you’ve never heard?

There’s an old adage which states something like, “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” In most cases, you haven’t even seen the cover.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.