Thoughts on AppleTv+ launch
I am reflecting on the AppleTV+ launch after having read some articles and watched some interviews by Dan Rayburn and other analysts. In principle more or less everyone knew that Apple would make a move into the space at some point. Now with the dominance of Netflix and the polarisation of the big consolidated integrated players like Comcast and AT&T and Time Warner and Disney having proclaimed their desire to go it their own way with Disney Plus (Interesting to see that Plus is now the new name of extending your brand with new streaming services. It used to be "Play"..) I wonder how much room there is for any decent content line up even though you had an impressive line up of Hollywood stars at the launch. I predict that this first push is just to get them going and inevitably an acquisition has to be made in order to sustain a decent line up to compete against the big players with multibillion dollar content investments. Also, positioning is key. What will it be? It cannot be "just another streaming service" but with the Apple user experience. It will not be enough. Also, if you look at streaming device penetration in the US, Apple is a distant number 2 with approximately 15% after Roku with more than 35%. I am in general not convinced that the fragmentation is the way to go. People are already really fed up with the ”paralysis” of not finding anything to watch which opens up the question of how you potentially can aggregate a cross platform service in the future. Technically this is possible to do already now with platforms like Android TV but commercially it will be challenging to get this done. Maybe the long term play will be that we have 3-4 platforms with ”decent” offerings such as Apple, Disney, Amazon and AT&T/Time Warner and whoever picks up Roku. Thoughts? #streaming #OTTvideo
Connecting the Dots for Media Tech Companies
5 年On the plus side - ?1) yet more "original" content and lots of cash to spend on it and 2) Apple is FINALLY opening its ecosystem to include non-apple devices (guess they realized they would be REALLY late to market with a TV!). On the down side - late to a crowded market, unknown business model or pricing, nothing that "rocked" the space (Steve Jobs would be so disappointed) like a complete rethink on content discovery, UI, sharing, etc.
Head Media Solutions @GoogleCloud | Advisor
5 年My couple of thoughts. For Apple TV+ apple is taking on a horizontal company (Netflix available on all platforms and devices) with a vertical offering( only available on apple ecosystem). In turn limiting the addressible market for content investment. So it will be interesting. For Apple channels - the technical challenge is long solved. But the game is on the app store fees. Of course apple doesn't need to pay itself app store fees. While other services on top do. While going head on with Roku or Amazon. This is where the differentiation could be. Apart from that when the pricing and more details of offering comes out. It will be interesting.
Without that unique quality content AppleTV would not make me switch to the Apple ecosystem. So it is just about the Apple lovers for now and to your point, what would make them switch?