Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday

#101

Post by chipotle_coyote » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:23 PM UTC

andor wrote: post #90

necubi wrote: post #83

To me, the clear indication that they're serious about this transition to services will be making them available on third-party devices. Android has ~55% market share in the US, and >80% globally. Roku has 35% of the smart TV market (through both their dedicated devices and TV integrations), Apple has ~15%. A video streaming service that's only available on iOS and Apple TV will be inevitably niche, and no real compe…

"To me, the clear indication that they're serious about this transition to services will be making them available on third-party devices" This just happened: "Apple is putting iTunes on Samsung TVs" - https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/6/18170797/samsung-2019-tvs-...

That's a big—and new—step for Apple, and I'm sure it's connected to the video service. They don't want it to be "Apple product exclusive," even if I'm sure they'd rather you use Apple products to watch it.

But Apple hasn't ever been quite as exclusive as they're painted to be when it comes to peripherals and services. They've had iTunes on Windows for a very long time (yes, it's kind of a trash fire, but it's still there), and that was mostly to support the iPod. They have iCloud for Windows. Apple Music has an Android app, is supported by Sonos and Amazon Alexa, and even has a web-based API (no official "cloud player," but there's an open source one out there which Apple knows about and is apparently okay with as long as it doesn't use the word "Apple" in its name). And, of course, a lot of non-Apple products can receive AirPlay, and they appear to have gotten fairly aggressive in the last few months at moving AirPlay 2 into the third-party market.

So, Apple Services have been on third-party devices for years; they've just historically been a lot less enthusiastic about it than companies like Spotify and Amazon have been. I would expect to see them be way more enthusiastic from here on.

Re: Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday

#102

Post by DVassallo » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:28 PM UTC

onetimemanytime wrote: post #93

ksec wrote: post #19

I continue to wonder why they don't have or push iPhone as a Services ( The iPhone Upgrade Programme ) and continue to rely on mostly Carriers for Financing. By offering iPhone up to a 4 years terms and bundled with AppleCare+ Thief and Loss and iCloud Backup. With Optional Apple Music, Apple News Magazine, Apple TV and Apple Game. All paid via an Apple Branded Credit Card within Apple Pay backed by Goldman Sachs. Yo…

AAPL has to report quarterly revenues, or 4 times a year. Time will come for what you said in due time. Apple is valued close to a $ trillion so growth must be in double digits or else. Apple will look to replace with its own version, whatever is making money in its App store. Like Google did and is doing by keeping clicks to ads or Google services.

Apple makes $60B net profit/year, with $120B in book value (assets - liabilities). It doesn’t need any growth to justify its $900B value. All it needs to do to keep that value is to not shrink too much.

Re: Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday

#103

Post by chipotle_coyote » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:29 PM UTC

joegahona wrote: post #97

scarface74 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify is in a much worse competitive position than Netflix. Nothing separates Spotify from Apple Music. Any competitor can license music from all of the music providers. There is no reason for most people to keep both Spotify and Apple Music. Netflix has spent years negotiating TV rights to third party content and releasing its own. Apple has a long way to go.

> _Nothing separates Spotify from Apple Music._ Does Apple Music have something similar (or as good as) Spotify Discover? That's a differentiator for sure.

I think Apple Music is good for discovery. Probably not as good, but for many of us it hits the "good enough" mark. I confess I'm an Apple Music subscriber mostly because I'm just in that ecosystem, and it's relatively low effort; I'm also a Tidal subscriber because it was the only service integrated with Roon (a music server package I use), although I'm still debating that one.

Re: Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday

#104

Post by scarface74 » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

joegahona wrote: post #97

scarface74 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotify is in a much worse competitive position than Netflix. Nothing separates Spotify from Apple Music. Any competitor can license music from all of the music providers. There is no reason for most people to keep both Spotify and Apple Music. Netflix has spent years negotiating TV rights to third party content and releasing its own. Apple has a long way to go.

> _Nothing separates Spotify from Apple Music._ Does Apple Music have something similar (or as good as) Spotify Discover? That's a differentiator for sure.

Something similar. Yes. I’ve heard that it wasn’t as good. But is that something you would want to base your company on?

It’s just like Facebook stopped the growth of Snapchat just by introducing Stories.

There are literally almost two decades of failures in the streaming subscription music space. Like Jobs said about DropBox. Streaming music is becoming a feature not a product.

Re: Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday

#105

Post by petra » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

tssva wrote: post #100

necubi wrote: post #83

To me, the clear indication that they're serious about this transition to services will be making them available on third-party devices. Android has ~55% market share in the US, and >80% globally. Roku has 35% of the smart TV market (through both their dedicated devices and TV integrations), Apple has ~15%. A video streaming service that's only available on iOS and Apple TV will be inevitably niche, and no real compe…

Apple Music is available on Android, so I suspect any video service would be too.

Is it popular on Android ? Because last I checked, maybe a year ago , their Android app sucked.

Re: Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday

#106

Post by zmmmmm » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:35 PM UTC

One interesting question is how viable this can be if they continue their strategy of differentiation through privacy. Doing "services" for people intrinsically means knowing about them. What they watch, what they read, what they listen to, what they need, who they are. The more you know, the better you can "service" them. By pursuing this path they may quickly find themselves sucked into a slipperly slope that puts them into conflict with the primary identity they've tried to build up. You can see it already starting:

> divide up the revenue between developers based on how much time users spend playing their games

So they're going to spy on their users, huh? Of course, it's perfectly innocent, but they will quickly find that with deeper metrics they can better model what games to fund, etc etc. And before you know it they'll have a tab in their account page just like Google with a list as long as your arm of all the things they know about you.

Re: Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday

#107

Post by GeekyBear » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:47 PM UTC

Apple has long provided free services to the people who buy Apple hardware while selling the content that they have to pay to license from other content owners (while taking a cut of the sale).

So far, I'm not seeing a change in their business model so much as im seeing a change in how much focus is placed on the profitability of the latter.

If the rumors prove true and the streaming video content they produce in house will be free to those with Apple devices, but content they license from others costs money (with Apple taking a cut), this will definitely be Apple remaining true to form.

Re: Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday

#108

Post by torstenvl » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:47 PM UTC

Apple has almost always been a services company. It's deeply sad that its current leadership doesn't understand that. The only difference is that the service Apple used to provide was a friction-free experience on its platform.

It feels like the current Apple doesn't think of product experience as a service, with amortized costs built into the purchase price. In their eyes, at least insofar as it seems from my perspective, the relationship stops as soon as you decide to buy the product. Maybe a limited relationship exists afterward, if you buy AppleCare. But they don't seem to care one whit if the experience on their product sucks. Increasingly, Apple software argues with you instead of adopting the philosophy of "it just works."

I'm extremely unlikely to pay Apple for a content service, given its current track record of user-hostility.

Re: Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday

#109

Post by liquidify » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 8:49 PM UTC

Their products are stagnating because they are less robust and more expensive. The value just isn't there compared to some of golden era hardware. Obviously services can help them grow, but as user of apple laptops, I've felt abandoned for quite a while now. Their growth in those fields are stagnating because their price / quality ratio has reduced significantly.

Re: Apple's Reinvention as a Services Company Starts for Real Monday

#110

Post by blihp » Sat, Mar 23, 2019, 9:03 PM UTC

zmmmmm wrote: post #106

One interesting question is how viable this can be if they continue their strategy of differentiation through privacy. Doing "services" for people intrinsically means knowing about them. What they watch, what they read, what they listen to, what they need, who they are. The more you know, the better you can "service" them. By pursuing this path they may quickly find themselves sucked into a slipperly slope that puts…

Take the marketing pitch with a grain of salt. They've been keeping track of aggregate usage data pretty much from the beginning. Also, they already have to keep track of things like which apps/music/movies you have bought for accounting purposes at the very least. For subscriptions they most likely also have to track consumption (i.e. per access data) for royalty/revenue share payments.

I remember a story from the tail end of the Jobs era when they were trying to get their ad network going that their sales force was using as a selling point to advertisers the fact that they had metrics such as how many minutes a day users spent using various apps etc. They just don't share this data outside of Apple and also (according to their public statements) don't access the private data that you create.