Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
Every indication points to the entertainment market being completely over-saturated. What makes Apple think they can do better than the existing studios?
love is just extroverted narcissism
"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3x more for fashionable hardware tends to succumb to the same thing last years clothing line falls victim to; becoming outdated and unpopular.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 is one hell of a COO, the guy knows how to get hardware made. The problem is he's not a product CEO like SJ was. I feel Tim should move back to COO and bring in a product guy like Tony Fadell or Scott Forstall to run the show. The recent defections are likely a sign that things aren't good internally at Apple.
Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws-Plato
Every indication points to the entertainment market being completely over-saturated. What makes Apple think they can do better than the existing studios?
Ever wonder if they said the exact same thing to Netflix a few years ago?
The world is flattening, which is opening up markets companies never even dreamed of before, so perhaps we can stop with this whole "over-saturated" theory now. Sure seems to me damn near anyone can make a buck these days as long as you can avoid infringing on someone else's patents, trademarks, or copyrights. Original content is a rather common-sense approach to doing exactly that.
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.