Apple has gone Hollywood.
The tech giant best known for making iPhones, iPads and MacBooks on Monday morning unveiled its plan for a new streaming video service known as Apple TV+.
“We believe deeply in the power of creativity” CEO Tim Cook said from the stage of the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple’s Cupertino, Calif., headquarters. “Great stories can change the world, move us and inspire us, surprise us and challenge our assumptions.”
As part of Apple’s video efforts, the company also unveiled a redesigned TV app and a new offering, called Apple TV Channels, that will bundle programming from third-party entertainment companies like Showtime, Starz, HBO and CBS All Access.
Cook is no stranger to these bi-annual Apple events, where the company usually shows off new models of its most popular devices. But this year’s presentation has been a bit different than most. Apple invited partners and press to the event with an invitation featuring an old-school movie countdown clock and the phrase, “It’s show time.” Many of the people in the audience are Hollywood agents, producers and stars — not the typical app developer or software coder.
The Hollywood-themed event is also the first time that Apple has held one of these presentations solely for the purpose of highlighting its services business, which includes software and subscriptions like iTunes, Apple Music, iCloud and Apple Pay. Led by senior vp Eddy Cue, the services division has long played second fiddle to the products that are Apple’s bread and butter, but that’s changing. As people hold onto their iPhones longer, Apple is looking for new ways to keep them in its ecosystem — and make money off them. In 2017, Cook pledged that he would double quarterly services revenue to $14 billion by 2020. The company is well on its way to reaching its goal. During Apple’s most recent quarter, services brought in $10.9 billion in revenue.
Apple has spent the better part of the last two years putting the pieces in place for Monday’s event. After a long flirtation with Hollywood, Apple hired two television veterans in summer 2017 and gave them the task of building up a slate of original programming. Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht, respected from their days running Sony Pictures TV, quickly set about striking deals with top-tier talent. They bought a reboot of Amazing Stories from Steven Spielberg and a morning show drama produced by and starring Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon. They also struck a content deal with Oprah and inked a production pact with A24, the maker of such critically acclaimed films as Moonlight and Lady Bird.
With an install base of 1.4 billion users, Apple has a large audience to which it could promote this programming. Apple Music, a streaming music competitor to Spotify priced at $10 per month, has racked up more than 50 million subscribers in less than four years. (Spotify, which launched in 2008, has 96 million subscribers and 207 million total monthly active users.)
But the company has also stumbled on its journey to becoming a purveyor of entertainment programming. There has been showrunner turnover at several of its shows and concerns that Apple executives are getting hands on with notes that center around the desire for family-friendly fare and worries over the use of technology on screen.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter