Apple Prices TV+ Video Service at $4.99 a Month, Hitting Netflix and Disney (bloomberg.com) 74
Apple said its TV+ original video subscription service will launch Nov. 1 for $4.99 a month, undercutting the price of rival offerings. From a report: The Cupertino, California-based technology giant made the announcement at a Tuesday event focused on new versions of the iPhone. The service will be free for one year with purchases of new Apple devices, Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said on stage. The TV+ service is entering a crowded field that already includes Netflix Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Hulu and AT&T's HBO. In November, Walt Disney plans to launch a Disney+ streaming service, with a giant catalog of titles, for $6.99 a month. Netflix's entry-level subscription is $8.99 a month in the U.S. Netflix and Disney shares fell after the announcement on Tuesday, while Apple stock climbed.
I'd pay $10 - $15 per month (Score:2, Interesting)
If they opened up the entire Apple iTunes catalogue as part of this service. All movies, all tv shows, all music.
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Be careful what you wish for. They would first have to pretty much outright buy all the big content owners in order to do that as they will never in a million years agree to that deal. After Apple bought all the major content owners they will be happy to kill off the competition and sell you this subscription for $150/month.
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Apple could - literally - buy most of the content owners with their cash on hand.
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Disney Market Cap: 244.48B
Apple cash on hand: ~210B
They'd have to do it surreptitiously through a broker, because a company like Apple buying up a controlling interest in Disney would send the price through the roof, but unless they have a crazy number of shares held by their current leadership, I'm pretty sure they could easily do so with those numbers. In fact, if you assume that SJ's widow would vote in a manner favorable to Apple, and thus ignore the shares that she owns, Apple could very nearly buy
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>They'd have to do it surreptitiously through a broker,
theres's laws about that these days . . .
An entity must file with the SEC within 10 days of acquiring 5% beneficial ownership--so unless they can another 46% within 10 days of hitting 5% . . .
Now, in the *old* days . . . William Durant was forced out of GM by the banks. He formed Chevrolet, and it, it's subsidiaries, his friends the DuPonts, their buddies and companies all started buying stock in GM . . . and after a while, he marched into the ann
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Which major movie and TV studios are privately held?
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pretty much outright buy all the big content owners in order to do that as they will never in a million years agree to that deal
I think you underestimate what corporations will be willing to do for a buck. The $15 a month price might Not be adequate for Apple to make a profit off this deal After they agree to pay as much as the content owners would require them to pay in order to reach a deal, and/or some of the content owners might be already restrained by prior exclusivity deals, Or have in their
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Obligatory Q quote (Score:2)
Considering that Apple Arcade is also 4.99$USD a month, this means you're willing to pay 10~15$USD for Apple Books alone. You must really like books.
"Eat any good book lately?" - Q
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Exactly. It isn't about a few dollars a month. It's about the catalog.
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Only to get promptly sued for monopolistic practices. Doing so would pretty much kill the competition and will almost always be deemed intentionally anticompetitive and monopolistic.
A very fine line here.
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People shouldn't be holding back good things for fear that "uh oh we're making this too good, the government won't like it"
No one is going to look at Apple as a streaming monopoly anytime soon anyway.
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They have no rights to do that for the vast majority of that content, which is actually owned by Disney.
What you should actually expect to see is a lot of content start to disappear off of iTunes outright after Disney+ launches. Disney is not going to be selling their rights to anyone else anymore.
I got Netflix and Prime (Score:3)
and I still torrent more and (gasp) watch YouTube more than those two. What sucks about YT is the click bait thumbnails and 1000's of copy cat shows although I used those to also weed out shows.
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Also, Kodi + Sickbeard on the NAS are just such a great combo for keeping up with ongoing series.
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Yah I have couple Shields although the last update causes an annoying slow down when scrolling through shows in Netflix. I noticed shows that I liked Departures https://www.youtube.com/user/D... [youtube.com] and Long Way Down https://www.youtube.com/channe... [youtube.com] have been removed from Netflix and went to YouTube.
Hits no one (Score:3)
I think the price is great, possibly between them and Disney leading a charge across the streaming industry for lower prices...
But the Apple price service is not going to replace Netflix or Disney+, both of which have much larger content libraries.
The Apple pricing reflects that it will be an add on service, the same way Disney is priced knowing people will get it in conjunction with Netflix, not as a replacement....
It remains to be seen if AppleTV+ really has many compelling shows to watch.
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I think the price is great,
$4.99 is $4.99 too much if you don't have anything worth watching on your channel. It all depends on content and according to TFA, Apple has nothing but scraps lined up so far.
possibly between them and Disney leading a charge across the streaming industry for lower prices...
That would be fantastic, but Apple won't be able to do much without getting some content in their library first. Once they have worthwhile content will it still be just $4.99?
It's much better than "scraps". (Score:2)
$4.99 is $4.99 too much if you don't have anything worth watching on your channel. It all depends on content and according to TFA, Apple has nothing but scraps lined up so far.
I don't think what Apple has lined up are scraps at all... they have a number of shows with an extremely large budget [macworld.com], across a range of interests.
They have an alternate history space race thing, a future world thing with the I think the Aquaman guy, and also a big drama series with Jennifer Aniston/Reese Witherspoon/Steve Carell and
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Netflix is successful partly because it is available everywhere. Every smart TV has it, every phone and tablet can get it.
Disney and Apple need to make sure they have decent apps available for all smart TV platforms at least.
how long before cable 2.0? with all in one? (Score:2)
how long before cable 2.0? with all in one.
One bill
One set multi screen / multi account rules. Aka not an mix or max devices vs max streams at a time or an mix of added fees to add more
One app / UI / login / account
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probably not worth it. (Score:2)
They have a couple of shows that have an interesting idea but not worth $60 a year.
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That's the good thing, though. If Apple only has a few shows you want to watch, you can binge-watch them in a month or two and then cancel your subscription and wait until the new seasons are available.
Not going to sub (Score:1)
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If you watch the previous keynote (not the one from today september 10th 2019, the one before that) they take a long time to preview some of their exclusive shows. "For all Mankind" seems like a good one.
That's amazing. (Score:2)
Never thought I'd see Apple not charge at least $99.99 for something!
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My 4th-generation iPod shuffle says hi.
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Besides, this is basically just the software equivalent of another dongle. Those are usually $19.99.
can apple and disney do it ? (Score:1)
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netflix cost is because they are having to purchase the rights almost everything. That is why they dropped marvel and all the other outside IP for shows they are creating.
Apple is hoping to get all of its groupies to spend the $60 a year and just produce original content using a handful of people, like Oprah, to pull the non-groupies in. Then once you are in t
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Netflix didn't drop Marvel shows because of cost. They lost the right to air these shows so that Disney can keep them for Disney+. Netflix is going to in house productions because without Disney content to fill out their line up there isn't much out there for them to stream (Disney own a TON of content that you might not realize is actually Disney owned).
Available on Roku and Android TV? (Score:2)
Re:Available on Roku and Android TV? (Score:4, Informative)
Will it be available on Roku and Android TV?
A shame TFS didn't link to the actual Apple press release [apple.com].
Though it doesn't directly answer your question, it lists "...available on the Apple TV app on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iPod touch, Mac and other platforms, including online at tv.apple.com..." Emphasis mine; I'd venture a guess that it probably will be, as the press release explicitly listed all the Apple platforms, so "other platforms" suggests non-Apple stuff.
Also the last piece of that is worth noting: available online at tv.apple.com. They have already confirmed that this will work with Chrome and Firefox, not just Safari, so that alone will be a platform-agnostic way to use the service.
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Except that most of the devices in question have no general-purpose web browser.
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A laptop with an HDMI output has Firefox, which is a general-purpose web browser.
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There is a good chance it won't be available on your platform of choice. There are a lot of them. Just off-hand I can think of:
Android
Panasonic smart TVs
Roku
LG smart TVs
Kodi
Toshiba smart TVs
I think only Sony and Samsung TVs actually run Android, all the others need separate apps developing specially for them.
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"Subscribers can watch Apple TV+ originals both online and offline, ad-free and on demand, on the Apple TV app, which comes pre-installed on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV and iPod touch and will soon be on Mac with macOS Catalina. The Apple TV app is also available on select Samsung smart TVs, and will come to Amazon Fire TV, LG, Roku, Sony and VIZIO platforms in the future. Customers can also sign up and watch Apple TV+ originals on the web at tv.apple.com."
So yeah, they're at least claiming they intend to make it available on as many platforms as they can.
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Good to know. That's definitely the right approach. Apple's days of using content to drive hardware sales are in the past at this point, mostly because they got undercut price-wise too badly for too long by products that were good enough to get the job done.
This is a very new concept for Apple (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously - being the low-cost alternative? They literally have no experience in that position.
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I don't think "alternative" is accurate. The Apple TV+ service will not be an alternative to people who are already using the other services -- its a potential low-cost add-on service for them to add to their ticket ON TOP of the other services, And after Apple eventually expands the service: the price will likely increase over time. Similar to the reasoning of free for the first year.... You know "first one's free"... next one will be $5 a month. As for what the price will be in futur
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You can complain all you want about a 3~4% increase in price, but up in the Great White North, 5 United States dollars equals
6.58 Canadian dollars as of this writing. I can't wait to see Apple's view of the exchange rate. I'm hopping for 6.49$CAD but it wouldn't surprise me in the least to see Apple asking 7.49$CAD or even 9.99$CAD.
I hope they look at Netflix's low-end prices (single screen, 480p) as a baseline.
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Apple says streaming TV service to cost $5.99 a month in Canada, launch Nov. 1 [financialpost.com].
I was wrong, they priced it under the exchange rate. Colour me impressed!
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Apple is one of the few to actually price things properly - at the exchange rate.
In Europe, Apple's prices also include VAT (and local sales taxes, which are built into the price) and because consumer laws demand 3 years of warranty, the cost of AppleCare for that as well (since the law mandates it, it's priced in). This often brings the price up to the nume
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Apple is one of the few to actually price things properly - at the exchange rate.
Companies can price services for different regions using a variety of different
methods: its a choice rather than there being a single "proper" way to do that...
For example, a media company's costs of delivering the media service
in country Y might be greater, because of different amounts of infrastructure and licensing expenditures
in that country, different deals with content companies --- Since various viewer reg
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The free year of service with an Apple product is smart. Get them locked in early, and hope that users forget a year from now once they're paying for it.
Those random charges from Apple just might be mistaken for iCloud or Applecare payments if you're not paying attention...
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People forget that just before the introduction of the iPad the analysts were predicting a $999 starting price which would enable Android tablets in the $700-800 range to be competitive. Then Apple announced $499 and everyone went nuts.
More Fragmentation = Less Interest (Score:3)
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Fragmentation is the best thing that could happen. It means competition.
What you and others who complain against fragmentation deserve is a monopoly which will charge you twice as much as the current cable/satellite co.
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Netflix used to have a monopoly.
They charged less and had more.
Now the monopoly wasn't a "true" monopoly; they were competing against cable, satellite, and OTA. Those other related industries kept Netflix's costs down and prevented them jacking up the prices.
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they were not a monopoly. They were buying market share with artificially low prices in order to hopefully become a monopoly.
Anybody who believed you could get all video content for $8 forever is an idiot.
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> Netflix used to have a monopoly.
On what exactly??
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I'm not paying a $100 flat fee to watch 5 hours of TV per week.
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The obvious one being the "Chinese-products-on-Amazon" problem. Good shows cost money, but if you can blanket the market with enough crap, people won't be able to find the good stuff. :-)
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Which is still less than having to sub to four outlets.
I have one, Amazon, and I have yet to hit anywhere near the bottom of their pool (as well as getting free shipping). Disney, NetFlix? Meh. I can live without the additional $360+ cost per year.
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that's fine. But understand that without fragmentation, you'd be forced to pay much more for shows you won't have time to watch anyways
networking effect falls, too (Score:2)
You get a recommendation from a friend. These assume a dvr.
OTA TV: Sure, I'll tape it, and we'll see if I get around to it.
Cable TV: Options differ, but everybody generally gets the same set of channels. Ibid.
Streaming: Oh, I'm on X, not Y. Dead. And/or torrent.
RedLetterMedia already poking fun of streaming sub (Score:2)
The Nerd Crew: D23, Star Wars, D23, Disney+, and Streaming Services [youtu.be]
Almost everybody wanted TV a la carte but didn't realize every streaming service was just going to end up nickeling and diming you for a few shows.
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Almost everybody wanted TV a la carte but didn't realize every streaming service was just going to end up nickeling and diming you for a few shows.
*sigh*
What people wanted was a la carte channel pricing. If the average cable bill is, say, $75/month (just TV, no boxes/rental/taxes/etc.) and the service includes 100 channels, people are paying $0.75/channel on average. If people know they're only watching maybe 20 channels, that ends up being $15/month, rather than 75. We can argue that the prices won't truly average out; ESPN is going to cost more than QVC (a home shopping channel). However, even if ESPN was $5/month, the next nine channels were $3/mon
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People will just switch services every month or two. It's relatively easy to do compared to changing your cable packages.
When I start up a Netflix subscription I immediately cancel it. If the end of the month comes and there is more I want to watch then I do the same again. I predict that we will start to see these services make cancelling a lot harder.
That "See" promo was painful (Score:2)
I forget the exact line, but - something like the third or fourth line of dialog made me literally cringe, it was so awful. It was the way a junior-high acting student would write "dramatic" dialog.
All I could think was - this video is intended to induce me to *watch*?
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I was interested in the show until that promo. It looks truly terrible. Battling people with sight? Please, that's the easiest plot device I could imagine. They could do so much more than Us vs Them.
Loss-leader (Score:2)
With this pricing it is clear Apple is not intending to make a profit on the Apple TV service. Instead it looks like it will be a loss-leader to entice people into the Apple ecosystem. iOS devices are the only mobile devices supported, and it looks the PC users are left in the dark too, with only Macs on the supported device list. Sure they list 'streaming sticks', 'smart TVs' and 'streaming boxes', but these will likely only be devices that have Airplay2 certification (ie. they already paid the Apple Tax).
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Apple is not in the business of losing money or even breaking even on any of its products.
If that were the case, then why make it free for new Apple product owners? This very fact makes it clear it is a loss-leader. A loss-leader isn't very hard for shareholders to understand.
Do I expect them to bump pricing once the service becomes popular? Sure... but they have to hook users in first.
Actually, what I see happening before the price starts skyrocketing is restrictions on iOS, macOS and Airplay versions being able to access the best quality content. By degrading quality on older devices (or even
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Ghost Hunters on Apple TV (Score:2)
What's that, Steve? It should be shaped like a coffin? And it should be a folding phone, so it could also work like a coffin? And it'll store fingerprints by storing your actual finger? And it'll have ancient glowing runes on the back and a lifetime warranty -- your life, that is??
Sounds great to me, I'll take ten of them.
What would I want to watch that they have? (Score:2)
I hope my TV doesn't catch on fire.