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Does Apple have any other trick down its sleeves than signing up big star names and hoping for the best?
If they spend enough money, they'll eventually get a hit. It will happen. Sort of there with Ted Lasso.

Apple really needs a show like The Sopranos, or Breaking Bad--something culturally significant--to pull away from the other streaming offerings.

I am holding out hope for Foundation.
 
I went ahead and cancelled my free TV- trial I had for the past 15 months. Yep it is TV- to me, no + about it at all. I got the free trial when I bought an ATV 4K, then got a 3-month extension to it after buying an iPad Air 2020. Over the past 15 months I never found a single series worth streaming. I watched 2 or 3 movies that were okay, but not great. The documentaries were of little to no interest to me, and I tend to love documentaries. TV- is simply not worth 5 cents to me, much less $5/month.

I love my ATV 4K streaming box, and I use it for at least 75% of what I stream/watch. But the TV- service is not worth my effort, much less the money it cost. First of all, Apple has nearly no programming! Seriously! Compare Apple's number of offerings to Amazon's Prime Video. Amazon has several times as many shows and movies. Compare TV- to Hulu, Netflix, or any other popular streaming service, and Apple has a very small fraction of shows and movies as the others. So first, and before they charge a dime for TV-, Apple needs to populate it with enough shows and movies to make it worth a dime. Next, they need to have good shows and movies, not just the handful of genres that mostly appeal to only the 15-35 year olds. Apple hasn't thought this through.

It’s probably just not for you.
 
TV- is mostly geared towards the 35 and under crowd, though produced mostly by older farts my age. Go figure!

Boy is this true. Popular music as well.

It’s an interesting point in life when we discover that we are not the target audience anymore.
 
I appreciate how anytime there is Apple TV+ news, people feel the need to explain in excruciating details why they don’t pay/plan to pay for it. We get it, it’s not Netflix, nothing speaks to you and there is no back catalogue.

Haven’t watched the trailer yet, but the very basis of the show reminds me of Pixar’s Soul setting. I’ll go watch and see what direction they are taking with it.

Well said. The usual complainers waste no time to let us know how not interested they are.
 
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I appreciate how anytime there is Apple TV+ news, people feel the need to explain in excruciating details why they don’t pay/plan to pay for it. We get it, it’s not Netflix, nothing speaks to you and there is no back catalogue.

Haven’t watched the trailer yet, but the very basis of the show reminds me of Pixar’s Soul setting. I’ll go watch and see what direction they are taking with it.
"people feel the need to explain in excruciating details why they don’t pay/plan to pay for it."

You're on a fanatic site where people discuss RAM speed and the revolutions per minute of hard drives (or the lack thereof, these days). That you're complaining of people detailing their feelings of the ATV+ product is surprising.
 
"people feel the need to explain in excruciating details why they don’t pay/plan to pay for it."

You're on a fanatic site where people discuss RAM speed and the revolutions per minute of hard drives (or the lack thereof, these days). That you're complaining of people detailing their feelings of the ATV+ product is surprising.
There’s plenty of threads where people already discuss why they don’t like Apple TV+ and/or why they think Apple shouldn’t even bother. The article is about a new show and its trailer. Let’s discuss that. At most say “Not something that’ll convince me to subscribe”, but no need for a nth diatribe. It’s as if anytime MacRumors posted on the front page that there is an iPadOS X.X update, I went on about why I haven’t bought an iPad yet.
 
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If they spend enough money, they'll eventually get a hit. It will happen. Sort of there with Ted Lasso.

Apple really needs a show like The Sopranos, or Breaking Bad--something culturally significant--to pull away from the other streaming offerings.

I am holding out hope for Foundation.

I do not think that is going to happen simply because Apple is making shows based on a business market study. Its very obvious in their offerings, its like they are trying a soup recipe.

"What brings viewers? Big stars? ok add that. We need some current social/political issue to stir interest ok add that too. Scifi has a strong following right? Ok lets make a SciFi WITH big star names , surely that will sell"

this doesn't work with film/tv because I believe there is still an element of art to it. Apple is treating it like a business product.
 
I do not think that is going to happen simply because Apple is making shows based on a business market study. Its very obvious in their offerings, its like they are trying a soup recipe.

"What brings viewers? Big stars? ok add that. We need some current social/political issue to stir interest ok add that too. Scifi has a strong following right? Ok lets make a SciFi WITH big star names , surely that will sell"

this doesn't work with film/tv because I believe there is still an element of art to it. Apple is treating it like a business product.

By that explanation Netflix should be out of business as they clearly do the same thing, just on a different scale.
 
I do not think that is going to happen simply because Apple is making shows based on a business market study. Its very obvious in their offerings, its like they are trying a soup recipe.

"What brings viewers? Big stars? ok add that. We need some current social/political issue to stir interest ok add that too. Scifi has a strong following right? Ok lets make a SciFi WITH big star names , surely that will sell"

this doesn't work with film/tv because I believe there is still an element of art to it. Apple is treating it like a business product.
You said: "based on a business market study."

Interesting you say that. I was reading this article from NPR that has an interview with Barry Diller and he also mentioned how TV shows and ideas are "algorithmic."

Is that what its happening here? Streamers are just creating series based on marketing studies and algo's?

If so, that is awful. A show is art. II'm not sure you can make great art with an algo or market study.
 
There’s plenty of threads where people already discuss why they don’t like Apple TV+ and/or why they think Apple shouldn’t even bother. The article is about a new show and its trailer. Let’s discuss that. At most say “Not something that’ll convince me to subscribe”, but no need for a nth diatribe. It’s as if anytime MacRumors posted on the front page that there is an iPadOS X.X update, I went on about why I haven’t bought an iPad yet.
"It’s as if anytime MacRumors posted on the front page that there is an iPadOS X.X update, I went on about why I haven’t bought an iPad yet."

People do that all the time. All. The. Time.

Just part of an Apple forum.
 
"It’s as if anytime MacRumors posted on the front page that there is an iPadOS X.X update, I went on about why I haven’t bought an iPad yet."

People do that all the time. All. The. Time.

Just part of an Apple forum.

Correct, the inability to stay on topic is strong with some. I don’t think however this is specific to Apple forums, it’s just the nature of some.
 
"It’s as if anytime MacRumors posted on the front page that there is an iPadOS X.X update, I went on about why I haven’t bought an iPad yet."

People do that all the time. All. The. Time.

Just part of an Apple forum.
Jesus. Keep justifying it all you want. People seem to be annoyed by it all the same.
 
Why are we going back to the one-episode-a-week schedules??
it’s so annoying, we’re going backwards… streaming services are now becoming tv channels.
 
By that explanation Netflix should be out of business as they clearly do the same thing, just on a different scale.

Yes and no. Some shows failed misrrebly but they had few with a strong following and were not in need of big name stars to sell the show. AFAIK the following are successful show without big star names:

Orange is the new Black, The Crown, Stranger Things, Narcos, Black Mirror, Money heist

But, Just like Apple tv+, that is not enough to subscribe to Netflix. Netflix also has a huge catalogue of other shows and movies people like to watch. If Apple did the same I am sure they will get a lot more subscribers. If it was just Netflix Originals I can see them going out of business.


You said: "based on a business market study."

Interesting you say that. I was reading this article from NPR that has an interview with Barry Diller and he also mentioned how TV shows and ideas are "algorithmic."

Is that what its happening here? Streamers are just creating series based on marketing studies and algo's?

If so, that is awful. A show is art. II'm not sure you can make great art with an algo or market study.

Well... obviously. If you watch current movies and tv show you can spot the exact formula or algorithms if you might. Its no surprised we are on Transfomers 17 and Fast and Furious 19. Some movies and tv show move out of that space but many of them are just copy cats of the previously successful one.. Remember the zombie craze when everything was about zombies, now we are in the super hero craze every film/show maker is making multiple super hero content.

If you go back in time say around pre-2005 films and shows were closer about finding a great idea and making money of that. You can go back and just see how much things were creative and different back then. There was much more risk taking. Now it seems they start with a budget like $30M and say "Okay, how can I make this return the most money back to me?"

Of course, I do not blame them. Making shows/films is extremely expensive and a long process. I think one episode of a show like Friends reached $10M budget. Who is willing to pay $10M/episode out of his own pocket money for the love of tv or cinema? Its a business after all and profit comes first.
 
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