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Apple Planning To Make Original TV Shows and Movies as Hardware Sales Soften (venturebeat.com)
While investors seem to remain optimistic about the future of Apple, it's no secret that sales of its iconic hardware products have flatlined or fallen over the past year. From a report: We'll have to wait until January 31 to find out how the company performed over the critical holiday period. But for the moment, its most promising category of revenue has been "services," which includes things like Apple Music, and has been on a big winning streak over the past several quarters. Now it appears Apple is getting ready to make an even bigger bet in that category. According to a story just published by the Wall Street Journal, the company "has been in talks with veteran producers in recent months about buying rights to scripted television programs. It also has approached experienced marketing executives at studios and networks to discuss hiring them to promote its content." According to the story, the programming would be part of is Apple Music subscription ($6/month for an individual plan, $9 for a family plan.) The movie bit is deemed to be "more preliminary," according to the Journal.
Prices quoted in the summary are wrong. It's 9.99 for single user 14.99 for family. Either that or the currency symbol needs to be changed.
Instead of making their core products better, Apple decides to spend time and money on stuff that most likely will
be a waste of time and money and will bring NO benefit to the world.
Somebody, please tell me why Tim Cook is worthy of being the CEO of Apple, because from where I sit it looks like
he is leading the company into the abyss.
( maybe Tim Cook and Marissa Mayer can compare notes when it's all over )
Each show will feature bearded hipsters from San Francisco, dialog about organic food, and indie music from pitchfork.
An apple movie? How about a remake of:
I, Robot? I, Frankenstein? I know what you did last summer? I married an axe murderer?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
"While investors seem to remain optimistic about the future of Apple, it's no secret that sales of its iconic hardware products have flatlined or fallen over the past year..."
I see that the kitsch of paying 3x more for fashionable hardware tends to succumb to the same thing last years clothing line falls victim to; becoming outdated and unpopular.
Will the content be totally about promoting so-called "Social Justice" philosophies and ideals?
We've seen a lot of content like that being produced lately. We've seen long-established characters changed to a different race or gender or sexual preference or some other trait just to make the content more "inclusive", even if it makes no sense within story lines or established canon. Or we've seen new characters created with a trait like their gender, race, or sexual preference as their main defining characteristic, solely so focus can be put on it, and the rest of the character pretty much ignored.
Now is probably the wrong time to be dealing with such content. The American public, at least, is getting sick and tired of having this sort of crap forced on them at every opportunity by the media. Even in Europe, which has long been a stronghold of "Social Justice" philosophy, is getting very tired of all of it after dealing with the illegal aliens who have forced their way into those nations, only to commit crimes and terrorist attacks.
I can't see how there would be a solid future to this, especially from a financial standpoint, if they're force-feeding leftist ideology to an ever-shrinking portion of the populace. America is swinging to the right. The UK is swinging to the right. Europe is swinging to the right. Australia is swinging to the right. The majority of the citizens of the major markets that would pay for and consume "Social Justice" content are all moving away from those leftist ideologies. I don't see how giving them content they don't want and won't buy will succeed.
If this content avoids the "Social Justice" narrative, and perhaps even questions it and tears it apart, then it may have a chance for success. Otherwise, I can't see it being a success.
Tim Cook: Oh no! Hardware sales are falling! What can we do?
exec: Stop making stupid hardware and go back to making stuff people actually want?
Tim Cook: No no that can't be it. We've just saturated the market so we need to start doing something else.
The cake is a lie.
I like my 2012 15" Macbook Pro. Love it. But I haven't seen anything they've produced since that is worth buying. It's been a drive to lighten and reduce size and no other real improvements. They need to realize that some people don't want a 3mm thick computer at the cost of it becoming disposable in 3 years. Leave the option to change the battery and upgrade memory at the least. I'm going to be looking for a new laptop in another 3 or 4 years and it isn't looking like another Mac.
Agreed. TV for fanboys and snowflakes.
"Puffy the Android Slayer"
"Game of Scones -A Starbuck's Saga"
"I, Phone" - Humans and robot phones live in a future dystopia
"Family Guys" - A story of a transgender fluid girl and her eleven dads and 2 1/2 mothers.
Netflix recently remade "One Day at a Time" with a Latino family.
For Hollywood, reselling the same crap in a new box has always been a ticket to profit, or at least less loss. And the egos in Hollywood like to believe that their shows somehow contain a kernel of universal truth.
So I'm pretty sure the thinking is along the lines of "there's a whole bunch of Latinos who probably never saw One Day at a Time. If we remake it with a Latino cast, we can recycle 9 years of scripts for the cost of writing 2 years of an original program, and ODaaT was successful because of its timeless and placeless insights into the human condition, so of course Latinos will lap it up with a Latino cast. We'll make millions."
It's really no different than the recycling of Japanese horror movies into American horror movies, or, really, these modern versions of Shakespeare plays that get turned out once in a while, or even "The Office".
Dear Apple,
How about making products your customers actually want? Like a MacBook Pro that's actually a pro-level computer. Or, a "Cheesegrater" Mac Pro with Thunderbolt and USB 3/3.1?
See, here's the deal: no one wanted the trash-can Mac Pro. We wanted the existing model with the I/O capabilities you put in your home-user machines. But, it's too late. You've lost us. We're tired of paying premium prices for last-years already outdated technology.
And you guys are really missing the bus with your lack of VR-compatible hardware. Sure, VR might be a flash in the pan, but isn't the fact that you make NOTHING with the CPU/GPU power to support it worrying?
Yours,
RatBastard, a former Mac customer.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.