MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.
Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1176476
Apple's own subscription services and a few additional items like Apple Pay, AppleCare and iCloud. What Apple is launching this year will boost this even further with TV+, Card, Arcade and News+. These are a new set of specific services that, apart from Card, will require subscriptions and will deliver Apple-specific content. Unlike previous Music and TV offerings, what Apple has embarked on is a high degree of involvement in the content creation process. These will be Apple TV shows, Apple video games and Apple-directed News feeds. This is quite the watershed moment. Apple, a company dedicated to providing tools to content makers and content consumers, choosing to be involved in the lottery-like game of choosing and backing winners in creative works. Can a company with good taste about devices and software successfully extend that capability to content? That seems to be the question many are asking: How good is Apple at creating hits? The process of hit creation is difficult but it's not completely random. There are many individuals who have skills or taste. And Apple's approach seems to be to hire people with such skills. These "executives" then proceed to attach people with great track records in hits and who may have the star power to attract audiences. It's not a matter of complete guesswork. It's actually the approach most "streamers" have: They hire studio executives, attach talent to projects and spread bets. This is why there has been a rush by streamers to secure programs and A-listers. There might be a variety of subscriptions users are likely to pay for but there is a fixed number of bankable names in the business. But let's pause here to think more deeply about what is happening. Without much notice, we are seeing a content world where distributors are locking up talent and creating a studio model where production, talent and distribution and display are under one roof. This is exactly where the movie industry was in the so-called golden age of Hollywood. The era of the studio system. An era that ended with divorcement— the complete separation of exhibition interests from producer-distributor operations or the forced divestiture of theaters by production/ distribution. Another observation to be made is that the bundling and binding of content into specific distributors creates a walled garden effect. This extends beyond video content