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Dear Apple: Buy Sony Studios. You get a great back catalog, and you get plenty of modern franchise successes, such as Spider-Man,
I do not think they would not get Spider-Man, they would just got the existing films. There is a change of control provision in Sony’s contract with Marvel.
Jumanji, and James Bond.
Jame Bond belongs to MGM.
Yeah, it’ll cost you, but you would instantly become a ”must-have” service and can charge Netflix prices. Until then, enjoy having the afterthought of a streaming service.
Or they can build a service with content that they own free and clear with world wide rights. It might take a bit more time, but is likely to be more cost effective.
 
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I wish ATV+ would just add streaming of all the movies and TV shows in the iTunes library like Apple Music does for music. I’d easily pay the ATV+ subscription price if it could do that.

I have seen some decent shows during trial subscription. Tehran was outstanding. Long Way Round and Long Way Down were also great.
 
 TV needs their own reality show
so
Hookin' with the Cooks!
episode i scene 1
features our star hearing faint dog grunting noise while sleeping.
the alarm clock reads 4:17AM on the apple watch on a stand, near the bed.
the dog growl looms louder
louder
Our star hears flop flop- CRaSH!
"fudgie" he reprimands the brown- chocolate Labrador 3 month old puppy in a sleepy stupor
the lab runs down a flight of stairs with the chord in its mouth.
while a MacBook pro M1 is lying inverted in a V shape,  logo flickering and the chime goes on and off
our star grumpy exits the bed legs bent, slips on some slippers and staggers limply to the damaged laptop.
he bends over and methodically picks the ruins up,
flips the case over, which plays "heartache tonite" and "breaking my heart" within each other
he closed the lid, places the damaged MacBook on the night stand
while still groggy, reaches for the apple watch and accidentally spills water on that macbook,
which sputters,
sparks
and plays the paceman dead theme.
then goes into a blank eerie silence
our star utters to himself: "glad i don't CEO a implantable cardioverter-defibrillatory factory!"
yawwwns
then a large spark!
the MacBook welters into a an iPod nano 3rd gen. and sparks again. the last time.
our star looks tiredly while matting the hair on his head and say
"next time i bring home a product, i will make certain it has apple care!"

cue theme song music and opening credits
 
I haven't watched anything via Apple TV+ service in months. The number one reason: The Apple TV app (on Apple TV) absolutely SUCKS!

If Apple provided a separate Apple TV+ app that was STRICTLY for Apple TV+ content, there is a higher likelihood that I would watch more Apple TV+ content.

It is downright idiotic that the worst app on my Apple TV box is the app provided by Apple.

Mark
 
Honestly, I've been watching a few series and films over the last few weeks and I have to say that I truly enjoy the quality (Ted Lasso's first season was particularly enjoyable with lots of very positive messages without being too vanilla), 'The banker' and 'Palmer' were great, 'Servant' was excellent'... I have other ones on my list. For $6/month, for me, I think it's really worth it. Going out to see one single movie in a theatre (when they are open) is $40-$50 with popcorn. And the apple TV device in Dolby Vision on a 4K tv makes also a great experience. I also like the 'philosophy' behind the shows which are more inclusive and with a different approach on human experience, compared to other video streaming platforms. The shows are still very 'USA' oriented, but, with time, they will become more international. They are still building their catalog. Netflix was not that excellent in the beginning and they've grown into something impressive. Apple will make it happen also. I am particularly looking forward to the upcoming 'Foundation' series.
 
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I think that AppleTV+ is in early stages of development. I would not discount its future growth to a leading video streamign platform, even though right now it lags far behind Disney, Hulu and Netflix. The reason is that Apple as always in the long run, and maybe even happy to be behind, just like AppleMusic is behind Spotify.
 
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I haven't watched anything via Apple TV+ service in months. The number one reason: The Apple TV app (on Apple TV) absolutely SUCKS!

If Apple provided a separate Apple TV+ app that was STRICTLY for Apple TV+ content, there is a higher likelihood that I would watch more Apple TV+ content.

It is downright idiotic that the worst app on my Apple TV box is the app provided by Apple.

Mark
Apple added a separate tab back in December just for TV+ content. It’s there on the app across all devices.
 
That is exactly why they did it. :)

Yes. I mean, may be I am asking too much for a discussion on MR. But seriously most dont seems to have a clue on these unit economics and market. People are thinking customer will buy Apple products because of Apple TV+ ( Seriously ? ).
 
I think you have that backwards. Apple One came into existence because Apple TV+ and Apple Arcade are not strong enough to survive on their own. They are latching onto the success of Apple Music to survive.

It is not. TL;DR : Apple needed some fixed investment cost services in order for bundling to work. There is no other way around it.

It was clear from the start Apple needed continuous sustainable services revenue. And a bundle of option ( whatever services or product that may be ) to be paid monthly. That was part of their Services Strategy announced in 2016 and begin in 2015. You cant have Apple Music [1] and iCloud alone because both have a fixed "unit" cost. i.e A fixed percentage of money ( COGS or COSS ) per revenue ( Songs are paid per play, or GB or Storage used on iCloud ) are deducting from revenue. That is the same to Apple News+.

In the case of Apple Arcade and Apple TV+, it doesn't matter if there are one paying customer, giving out for free ( as in current trial ), or millions of customers. They are going to have billions of up front capital investment and no revenue sharing to actors or studio / labels alike. [2]. Apple or Netflix owns those titles. As soon as the revenue cross their initial investment number, everything else is just pure profits. ( Same as Apple Fitness although that one is a little more complicated. )

If Apple only had iCloud and Apple Music, then they cant offer a bundle price cut because both are fairly thin margin. They are currently enjoying being mixed into Services Revenue number, which App Store [3] 30% cut and Google's $10+B [4] per year cover it up at a Gross Profit of ~65%. But as soon as you offer Apple Arcade and TV+ with the bundle. you can now have a bundle price that seems like a decent discount if you value Apple Arcade and TV+ as Apple priced them. Once this bundle sales reach a critical number, Apple has a way to profitability. Or as a way to further mask their growing Google and App Store Profits.


[1] Which is barely a success if you judge it by TAM or expected global market reach, it is however doing fairly well in US

[2] That is part of the reason why you keep reading these titles are expensive. For example actors in Friends are still collecting their decent revenue sharing decades after the show finished. With Apple or Netflix owned title actors are getting a up front payment instead of a possible hit in the future.

[3] Before some smart ass jumping in how a 30% cut could lead to 60% Gross Profit Margin. As they will *everytime* this come up on MR, Apple only book their 30% cut as their revenue number, not the 100% sales from App Store Revenue.

[4] That $10B+ is literally 99% pure Profits.
 
I have found Apple TV+ to be a tad too political for my liking and really not in my demographic.
I think you’re confusing political with substance. Some of the content seems to be addressing issues in our society today but that’s not a bad thing at all. I know some people just want to watch content that entertains but I’d rather watch something that has something to say and a purpose as opposed to merely being a way to pass the time.
 
Straight to streaming B-movies and mediocre series catalog won't make me interested. Seems like Ted Lasso and The Morning Show are only real quality shows in Apple tv+ at a moment. The second season of For All Mankind has been so boring with all those filler storylines so I can't see bright future there if the course won't change more coherent.

Foundation has potential to become a hit but trailer looks like original ideas may have been watered down too much and there is a big risk it will just make Asimov and Scifi fans angry. Fingers crossed there...
 
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Well, some people might like it. I have a free subscription until september, but I do not see myself continuing after that. I find it boring and I am not a big movie watcher anyway and when I do they are rarely the kind fo family friendly and boring as Apple wants them to be. Apple has to be careful and political correct not to scare anyone away and bit like Disney (Who produced Love, Victor, yet aired it om HULU). I do not see Apple ever making anything like The Mandalorian, Stranger Things or any of the popular crime shows. It also does not help that Sony made a deal with Netflix and all the other studious have made their own streaming services.
The family friendliness is what I feared before ATV+ launched (because that’s what reports said). But if you watch Cherry, this really isn’t the case 🙂
 
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Apple added a separate tab back in December just for TV+ content. It’s there on the app across all devices.
Because they realised the TV app is confusing. However, now their own service gets its own tab but the competition doesn’t. So it’s not a neutral solution. Their vision to create a one stop for all your content is not materialising.

Not a problem for me because there are only 2 channels in my country. And I can’t imagine any company investing to add more.
 
I love Ted Lasso and really appreciate the high quality production of the other shows, but right now Disney and Netflix blow Apple TV+ right out of the water. Netflix does not have the back catalogue it used to, but its new shows are top notch. We have HBO Nordic where I live and poor, low streaming quality SUCKS big time.

It is going to take some time and investment to build up their catalogue and right now I could happily live without it. When the entire 2nd series of Ted Lasso is available and Foundation which looks very promising, I will sign up for a one month binge :)

But saying that Apple does have the capital and technology to compete in the future.
 
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Just out of curiosity what did you not like that was too political?
To be honest, and in the eyes of an abroad viewer:

- the whole Oprah thing, she's just not so great over here in the Central Europe. Okay, she might done some things, but meh... she might be a "figure" in the US, but not so much here.
- the image headers all over the place promoting (at the time) Obama's interview with Oprah,
- Oprah's book club,
- LGBT productions: we can sympathize with LGBT societies, and we understand them, but watching documentaries about it's another meh. It would be more efficient to just plot LGBT stories into tv shows, just like Netflix does it.
- PRIDE banners, etc. sure we accept it.
- Welcome to America / Little America TV Show - that's the very American thing to do, some sob stories of self-made people/immigrants who made it to America and they made it.

It's all great and all, but not enough when it's the main course at the beginning of your poor existence.

We get it, it's hard out there, people have issues, the world is a nasty place, but that's not why I subscribe to Xbox Game Pass or Apple TV+.

And just like the other user said:
the liberal agenda stuff is gone!
i just launched the tv on safari and there was no Oprah promotions in my face.
It is changing and that's a good thing!

It would be better if they could release Fitness+ here, that's original and professional content.
 
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I absolutely love Apple TV (the hardware) and how fluidly it integrates with all other Apple's devices. Being able to tell Siri to turn on all of our equipment, play songs, movies, shows and more, is awesome and convenient. Even their software, interfacing and searching for content is light years ahead of other apps and services in it's simplicity and quality.

Where they've fallen short (and it's not even entirely their fault) is they caved to the demands of production companies, and allowed them to pollute Apple TV content with a plethora of crap apps, alternative streaming services. Each one pleading for another $5, $8, even more dollars per month. No one wants that. No one wants to subscribe to yet another platform just so they can find maybe one nugget of a show or movie that's exclusively on that "app", and then be stuck paying throughout the remainder of the year, hoping, waiting, for maybe another quality show to be released. We're bled dry from it, and it's just too much to even try to keep track of, so we just don't even bother.

But, this is how Apple is going to win. Producing and owning truly high quality content. Focusing on quality vs. quantity, and then maintaining a curated, high quality, simple (to use and pay for) platform. Once their library is well populated, people won't even glance at the dozens of other streaming services.

This is exactly right.

Another way Apple could win would be if they were to allow you to build a channel lineup of your own. Instead of apps, let us pick the networks.

e.g. I'd like one or two business networks and ditto news and nothing else. So I might pick a selection of these, depending on my choices: CNN, Fox News, CNBC, Fox Business, OAN, MSNBC.

I might pick 3 or 4 and nothing else. Some people might add in CBS,NBC,ABC,Fox, HBO, sci-fi, home and garden, MTV, .... Charge a dollar or two more per month for each channel I add.

Many people don't want 200 channels when they only use 4 or 40.

Add that to Apple TV+ and they'd have a huge winner. (Plus a virtual DVR if they did.)
 
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There’s only two possible reasons I can think of why Apple TV+ exists:

Firstly, to be an offering in the Apple One bundle.

Which compared to Prime still feels overpriced IMHO.

Secondly, so that Apple can learn how to make TV for when it launches its AVR and VR products.

Then it’ll have the knowledge and infrastructure to be able to create optimal content for these platforms to launch with - instead of relying on third parties (and probably have their plans leak etc).

Ditto Apple Arcade.

With AVR and VR TV content, an Apple One sub will seem more palatable also.

I think the second reason is why Apple TV+ really exists.

We’re just helping out with (and paying for!) the live alpha right now.
 
Stupid idea !

They should focus on Live Sports, first at the local level !

E.g., Little League Baseball & Softball !

Tim Cook is either NOT a very smart man, OR simply has NO smart men OR women around him !

Why would AAPL want to compete Head On with others who are already entrenched in a certain market, & Apple is way behind with little to NO chance to even catch up ?

The ONLY reason I can think of is they want to continue to get the stock price expansion of Netflix without actually having to deliver !

It's called "string them along" ... OR more precisely, Smoke & Mirrors & a Dog & Pony Show, Tim's specialty :)
Hahaha Tim Cook isn’t smart. Let me know when you’re CEO of a 2 trillion dollar company. There’s billions of dollars to be made showing little league baseball? They can barely get enough viewers to keep the little league World Series on ESPN.
 
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I do not think they would not get Spider-Man, they would just got the existing films. There is a change of control provision in Sony’s contract with Marvel.

Jame Bond belongs to MGM.

Or they can build a service with content that they own free and clear with world wide rights. It might take a bit more time, but is likely to be more cost effective.
MGM recently launched a streaming service that doesn’t include their catalogue of James Bond films.
 
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