Apple TV+ Curbs Costs After Expensive Projects Fail to Capture Viewers

[PeLaNo]

I don’t know why, but I just find Apple’s content kind of cringey to watch. I wish they would stop all this and just focus on technology.

Paying a ton of money for high profile actors and directors doesn’t guarantee success.

I found many of their sci-fi to be really excellent tbh. Foundation, Severance, Dark Matter to name a few.
This viewership to me is just marketing problem. I know a lot of Apple users that don’t know they can try Apple TV+ for free for few months. They need some more viral “moment” for the service

 

[steve09090]

I think in recent years Tim has lost his way a bit as the king of efficiency. The car project, modem development and now Apple TV+. Maybe Apple Intelligence in the future?

Apple has always spent money in development. The thing with Apple is they always let development be their guide, and budget is never really a consideration, until it because time to make decisions on a development roadmap. Mark Rober, and actual ex Apple Engineer has talked a lot about this.

Modems was Jobs. Tim cut it because they went far enough and couldn’t Improve on Qualcomm and more efficient to pay for it. Efficiencies.

Sapphire Glass was also a Jobs thing. Jobs wasted billions with nothing coming from it at all. Zero, nada.

Operation Titan was a bust but lead into Apple Carplay which is often the single most important thing that many people use when deciding on a car. I certainly won’t buy a car without it. They always get a lot of tech come from development. Vision Pro spatial computing is another. So it has also been very useful. But nevertheless, Cook stopped it.

Apple TV+ is still going and if they are making budget cuts, it’s just budget cuts. IF they have made cuts, they are being more wise with their spending.

So, I’m not sure where he has 'lost his way' because he has been consistent all the way through. Jobs was wasteful, but with a purpose. Cook let’s things goes but always, always reigns it in at some point.

 

[PeLaNo]

I think in recent years Tim has lost his way a bit as the king of efficiency. The car project, modem development and now Apple TV+. Maybe Apple Intelligence in the future?

Not really. Apple is always trying new things and what Tim did by creating more service revenue streams for Apple is good for the company. If he didn’t do that Apple would lose substantial revenue from people not eager to upgrade iPhone every year.
Now they can focus on making HW product that last and making money on services to compensate.

 

[PeLaNo]

Maybe making stuff people want to watch while also stopping overspending on Hollywood cliché shows will bring some viewers to platform.

Why should i waste time of some boring Morning Show while I can watch House of Dragons or other top tier TV show for less money.

*(Maybe just buy HBO for this billions that were spend on crappy Apple shows to capture some viewer-base and let them <HBO> create shows for you was the move. Right now there are like 3/4 TV shows worth watching on Apple TV why should people waste time on boring, repetitive and copy-paste titles?)

Buying HBO is really interesting move. Apple also goes with high quality shows so it’d be perfect fit with HBO content strategy

 

[PeLaNo]

1 show is 1 show. Obviously a limited offering with ultra-expensive shows won’t work. Build your own stars instead of paying ridiculous amounts for seasoned actors who had their prime 20 years ago.

Exactly. And this is what Netflix has been doing for the past few years. They often cast actor who’s not really well know but with very good scripts the show still can do very well.

 

[tennisproha]

That’s probably true. They have this massive amount of $’s for actual production, which is obviously starting to bite, and they should probably have more for marketing. Make it more compelling. This comes down to Eddie Cue.

If they spruiked stuff like the content, the sound, the Vision Pro and also, especially that "for only $9.99 every family member has access no matter where they are in the world…. " it would make a big difference. And then do the Apple thing and upsell to Music, and Fitness etc and soon they will be paying for Apple One+ etc.

I have Apple One because of Fitness, but I haven't had a chance to check out any of the shows mainly because of time, but also, there isn't as much word of mouth hype like there is for a new Netflix or HBO show to get me excited about it (I guess except for Ted Lasso, which I did see).

 

[dampfnudel]

Apple has always spent money in development. The thing with Apple is they always let development be their guide, and budget is never really a consideration, until it because time to make decisions on a development roadmap. Mark Rober, and actual ex Apple Engineer has talked a lot about this.

Modems was Jobs. Tim cut it because they went far enough and couldn’t Improve on Qualcomm and more efficient to pay for it. Efficiencies.

Sapphire Glass was also a Jobs thing. Jobs wasted billions with nothing coming from it at all. Zero, nada.

Operation Titan was a bust but lead into Apple Carplay which is often the single most important thing that many people use when deciding on a car. I certainly won’t buy a car without it. They always get a lot of tech come from development. Vision Pro spatial computing is another. So it has also been very useful. But nevertheless, Cook stopped it.

Apple TV+ is still going and if they are making budget cuts, it’s just budget cuts. IF they have made cuts, they are being more wise with their spending.

So, I’m not sure where he has 'lost his way' because he has been consistent all the way through. Jobs was wasteful, but with a purpose. Cook let’s things goes but always, always reins it in at some point.

Well, at least Tim can recover some of the money recently lost with the creation of a new, higher priced tier over the Pro/Pro Max with the iPhone 17 “Slim” or whatever they call it.

 

[dampfnudel]

Not really. Apple is always trying new things and what Tim did by creating more service revenue streams for Apple is good for the company. If he didn’t do that Apple would lose substantial revenue from people not eager to upgrade iPhone every year.
Now they can focus on making HW product that last and making money on services to compensate.

Yeah, but the services should be compensating Apple better than they are.

 

[webkit]

Like streaming services?

2023 Revenue.
1. - $200B - iPhone
2. - $85B - Services
3. - $40B - AirPods, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Beats products, HomePod
4. - $30B - Mac

Numerous things fall under Apple "Services" including iCloud, Apple Pay, Apple Card, the App Store, AppleCare+, advertising revenue, Google's $20 billion or so payment to be the default search, etc.

What portion of the $85 billion is actually Apple TV+? Probably a fairly small amount.

 

[steve09090]

Numerous things fall under Apple "Services" including iCloud, Apple Pay, Apple Card, the App Store, AppleCare+, advertising revenue, Google's $20 billion or so payment to be the default search, etc.

What portion of the $85 billion is actually Apple TV+? Probably a fairly small amount.

I don’t know. So I guess my answer is Probably an amount. I wouldn’t want to speculate especially when Apple One+ covers a range. How does one separate music from Fitness from TV from News+? We are all just guessing because we have no data whatsoever other than an overall number for all of the services.

I think the main point is, Apple provide a suite of services and and they use one to bolster the other.

 

[ThirteenXIII]

to be honest, for me its not necessarily the content but the way AppleTV+ is presented and laid out. alot of apples current offerings are so confusing and hard to understand (coming from someone that works in technology) the user experience isn't great and all the programming is mashed in with up next and other confusing navigation options. its just a clusterf--- to me.

 

[thebart]

I'm enjoying Dark Matters. It suffers the same problem with many Apple shows in being slow but it does go to interesting places. Not finished with it yet but I have a feeling it could head for a very dark ending

 

[steve09090]

I'm enjoying Dark Matters. It suffers the same problem with many Apple shows in being slow but it does go to interesting places. Not finished with it yet but I have a feeling it could head for a very dark ending

Oh, you’re going to see a massive twist. It’s like wtf…. 😄

I watched the first 3 episodes without the wife. She doesn’t like SciFi. But she sat in on part of Epidode 4 and then I had to wait for her from then on. Loved it.

 

[dampfnudel]

I found many of their sci-fi to be really excellent tbh. Foundation, Severance, Dark Matter to name a few.
This viewership to me is just marketing problem. I know a lot of Apple users that don’t know they can try Apple TV+ for free for few months. They need some more viral “moment” for the service

Silo is pretty good too.

 

[im_to_hyper]

Keep the spending, just cross-publish the shows to disney+, Netflix and Hulu.

Be a multi-platform studio

Also using the same name essentially for a device and for a service is derptastic.

iCloud would be iPhone+ if the AppleTV/AppleTV+ thing worked I guess

 

[dampfnudel]

Numerous things fall under Apple "Services" including iCloud, Apple Pay, Apple Card, the App Store, AppleCare+, advertising revenue, Google's $20 billion or so payment to be the default search, etc.

What portion of the $85 billion is actually Apple TV+? Probably a fairly small amount.

Yeah, I would like to know exactly how much Apple TV+ is bringing in. Probably a number Apple doesn’t want to divulge.

 

[steve09090]

Yeah, I would like to know exactly how much Apple TV+ is bringing in. Probably a number Apple doesn’t want to divulge.

And how much is subsidised by Apple RAM & Storage.

 

[adib]

You really don’t need a huge budget to make something entertaining…

The whole industry needs a major realignment.

Pretty soon each show will be a 2-directors operation powered by AI-generated actors and actresses. Pretty similar to the machinima YouTube shows of the last decade, but more realistic.

 

[nathansz]

Silo is pretty good too.

I really liked silo

 

[adib]

Call me crazy but I want television from Apple about as much as a I want a laptop from Disney. Why are they even doing this? Does Microsoft have a TV network?

Yes it does.

 

[MacMikePro]

Anybody knocking Apple TV+ content is out of their minds. For the price, nothing comes close to Apple’s streaming value. Their original movies have been just ok, nothing great, but their series have consistently been incredible. Anyone here who says the shows don’t look good have simply been judging a book by its cover and are not even trying to watch them. Seriously, I have not been let down by an Apple series yet and I have watched a ton of their stuff. But I’m glad to hear that they’re reeling it in, what really needs to change is the paychecks for Hollywood A-listers. Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon getting $2 million an episode is absolute absurdity, that nonsense seriously needs to stop. And this is coming from someone who holds The Morning Show as a top-tier drama. These actors do not deserve to be THIS rich for what they do, they can be rich, sure, whatever, but that’s insane. The actor strike should’ve fix that obscene pay gap between the elite and everyone else.

 

[haydn!]

I don't think regulators would allow a Apple and Disney merger to go through, nor should they. Absolutely not in favor of bigger and more power companies, regardless of how they behave.

What reasons would they have to object? Usually, those kinds are of reviews are about ensuring a merged company doesn’t damage competition. Right now, with the exception of the Apple TV+, which we know now has a non-existent market share, both companies operate in largely different markets so there would be little change to the various market-shares and therefore no impact on competition.

All that said, I’m not sure they’re the right fit and it’s not something Apple would persue. A cross platform content licensing deal maybe, but outright take over but to prop up Apple TV+, not gonna happen, not at that scale anyway.

 

[svish]

Some of the shows on Apple TV+ are really good. However sometimes it takes a very long time between seasons which is not good. Expecting to see good shows on Apple TV+ in the future.

 

[bartmoss]

They just need better quality controls on their scripts. Invasion is probably the best example of something that only a complete moron could have greenlit, but there are countless more.

 

[Kaptajn Haddock]

Huge band of brothers fan. Strongly disliked The Pacific. Masters of the Air? Could have been great. Good visuals, decent cast except for the god awful Elvis lead that could have been replaced with a cardboard cutout, interesting story but horrible script. First episode should have established the core characters, given us a reason to care when they went into battle and some didn’t return. Hell given us the ability to tell one from the other for Pete’s sake. But no, they chose to waste 250m on a meandering plot that wasted three episodes in a POW camp and no payoff instead of air battles. Maybe it was for budget reasons, maybe the writers wanted to tell a different story than the one they were hired for, but regardless MotA was a disappointing end to the Playtone war trilogy that didn’t need to be.

I am a little late to the party, having only just binged BoB, and is in the midst of Pacific. So far the character build up is best in BoB, but I also like the brutality of Pacific, as it really gives me a sense of how horrific war is. I feel like BoB had the more romantic approach to war, where Pacific shows it more for what it is. What didn’t you like about pacific? Guess I will skip Masters of the Air.