This has to be the most confusing Apple event I've ever seen. I don't feel like they articulated the value propositions of any of these services nearly as well as they could've.
Wishing the best for the company as they try to increase other revenue streams, I just hope News+ doesn't go the way of Newsstand.
I think the reason they didn't articulate the value is because the reason they created these businesses is to be in these businesses rather than to make an amazing product.
There are some products, a recent example being the Echo Dot, that are just so right (much like the original iPod) and then the services follow by which a company like Amazon makes money.
I wrote before this event that Apple is acting like Microsoft did in the 90s where it was afraid of losing its dominance so it would enter any market where it saw a competitor rising. If encyclopedia CD-ROMs were becoming a thing, Microsoft also had to be in that business with Encarta.
Apple sees streaming TV as a market it has to be in for strategic reasons. No one could argue that there aren't enough creative paths for someone to put out a good TV show. There's nothing in particular about Apple institutionally that would lead them to come out with original content except that original content is now the measure by which you get someone to stay in your garden rather than just distributing other people's content, which is how they started with iTunes TV shows/videos.
So I agree there was no surprise and delight. This was a company trying to make strategic financial decisions rather than presenting the consumer with a product they could use today (except for magazines . . . who wants magazines?). And they weren't good at hiding that it was strategic. They can talk all they want about low interest rates, but the bottomline is that they are extending their services revenue by taking a piece of the pie on debt that their customers incur when they use Apple Pay. They're now in the debt-interest collecting business.
The News business in particular makes no sense. For one thing, they already tried it when the iPad came out. Many people have tried it. No one seems to like it. And magazines are dirt cheap. And you can already read the articles online for free. When you use the Apple News app, it already directs you to articles from sources you'll now be paying for. If they had actually been able to line up multiple major newspapers and make a bundle, they would have had something. But getting a few featured articles from the WSJ isn't significant.
I thought out of all of them, the gaming service is the most appealing. I'm curious how well some of those games will play on Macs, though. And if being able to play them on every platform will be a requirement for developers. I prefer playing games on a Mac over iPhone, but a lot of Macs with integrated graphics can struggle with keeping frame rates at decent speeds compared to an iPhone.
Edit:
I was thinking more about today's announcement and how it was not consumer-focused vs. the original iPod and realized a parallel.
It has been said (maybe not about the last couple years, but recently) that we are living in the golden age of television. That there is a lot of great television available.
So what does Apple do? Fill a hole that doesn't exist.
When the original iPod came out, we were living in a golden age of MP3s BUT we did not have a great portable MP3 player. Yes, the MP3s were illegal, but as someone who was in high school and college at that time, Napster and Limewire were omnipresent and when the iPod came out that's largely what people were filling their iPods with.
It was only later that the iTunes Music Store came out with music files you could download for your iPod as the illegal services started to get shut down and waned in popularity.
Apple made a product that met that moment--the golden age of ripped MP3s available on file sharing services.
They did not introduce anything today that tapped into the golden age of anything we're in and added value to it. It was all "me too" (in the old sense of that phrase) offerings. We already have magazines. We don't need them anyway. We already have credit cards with better cash back deals. We already have amazing television offerings (OK maybe not as amazing as 5 years ago, but still pretty good and definitely a saturated market). We already have Oprah! I don't know what she was talking about saying she can now be in a billion pockets. She already has a pretty amazing podcast and she has her own television network. That promo video said that we've been "missing" her voice. Well her television network and her podcast and her magazine can't be doing too well if we've been missing her voice and need Apple TV Plus to hear it.
Edit 2:
When I try to think of value they could have added to this moment in time, it would be something that makes iOS devices better gaming machines.
They said games are the most popular thing on the app store. Probably true.
But most are junky and the input method of tapping on glass is poor.
However, iOS devices are light, portable, and have incredible processing power.
I don't know what the product would be. Maybe something as simple as a controller you pop your iPhone into but done more nicely than before.
And it goes along with a new streaming service, all of the games of which use this new controller which can also control games on your Mac and Apple TV.
I have an iPad I almost never use, and seeing friends with the Nintendo Switch I've often thought my iPad would be a lot more useful if it had some joycons on each side and some good games to play.
A gaming *product* (as in consumer device you can buy) that realizes the already existing potential of iOS devices would be more like the old iPod type Apple rather than the 90s-Microsoft-type Apple.
