Apple Is Considering Bundling Digital Subscriptions as Soon as 2020 (bloomberg.com) 35
Apple is considering bundling its paid internet services, including News+, Apple TV+ and Apple Music, as soon as 2020, in a bid to gain more subscribers, Bloomberg reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter. From a report: The latest sign of this strategy is a provision that Apple included in deals with publishers that lets the iPhone maker bundle the News+ subscription service with other paid digital offerings, the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing private deals. Apple News+, which debuted in March, sells access to dozens of publications for $10 a month. It's often called the "Netflix of News." Apple keeps about half of the monthly subscription price, while magazines and newspapers pocket the other half.
If Apple sold Apple News+ as part of a bundle with Apple TV+ and Apple Music, publishers would get less money because the cost of the news service would likely be reduced, the people said. As the smartphone market stagnates, Apple is seeking growth by selling online subscriptions to news, music, video and other content. Bundling these offerings could attract more subscribers, as Amazon.com's Prime service has done.
If Apple sold Apple News+ as part of a bundle with Apple TV+ and Apple Music, publishers would get less money because the cost of the news service would likely be reduced, the people said. As the smartphone market stagnates, Apple is seeking growth by selling online subscriptions to news, music, video and other content. Bundling these offerings could attract more subscribers, as Amazon.com's Prime service has done.
Sweet (Score:2)
Sweet!!
I canâ(TM)t wait.
If they want more subscribers (Score:2)
Raise the price of Apple TV+ to $20 a month and offer their entire catalog of movies and tv shows.
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Re: If they want more subscribers (Score:2)
Yeah right. I am not paying $20 for that, or any other streaming service, no matter what content they have.
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For All Mankind is okay, See is a bit meh. The service certainly isn't worth anywhere near $20/month, maybe $2/month at this point.
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I'm amazed they think they can make money selling news. Unless they do their own really high quality journalism I can't see news being something people will pay for.
The only ones that get away with charging for news are speciality sites like the FT, all the others are failing.
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My 2nd Generation is still going strong! (From 2010)
be smart. sit back and wait. (Score:3, Funny)
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I"m waiting for the Apple TV+ Pro Air... the thinner, lighter binging experience.
Just think of the money I'll save! (Score:2)
So, in addition to ignoring the individual services, I'll be able to ignore bundles, too? That sure adds up quickly!
Apple News not available? (Score:1)
I read the summary, and thought $10 looked like a good deal, but a search did not find Apple News in the app store. I use a Galaxy S7 handset. Is Apple News supported on my handset?
Re: Apple News not available? (Score:2)
Apple does not give a shit about Galaxy users. Go read Galaxy news.
No more subscriptions (Score:2)
I get live TV from hulu and for the handful of channels I don't get from hulu I pay for philo. In the end I spend about the same as if I stuck to DirecTV with the downside of not being able to skip commercials most of the time.
Cutting the cord was a mixed bag for my family. It's harder for my wife to understand she needs to switch apps for different shows and my 6 year old thinks everything is youtube. All of that and I pay about the same as I used to and I use up most of my allotted data cap on TV instead
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I'm not sure I would count that as cord cutting; all you've done is move from one live TV provider to another.
It does seem odd to me that it costs more to watch someone else's choice of programs at fixed times, but I guess we still live in an era when 'live channel' viewers can be milked..
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Subscribe to a Curated Narrative (Score:3)
I recommend saving your money and rely on your local news, and do your own research.
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Local news is some of the worst: https://youtu.be/_fHfgU8oMSo [youtu.be]
BBC and NPR are probably your best bets these days.
lessons not learned? (Score:1)
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Could you please relate the factual basis for your use of "forced"?
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Must be someone who never paid for cable TV.
Cable companies bundle 20-40 channels together and if you only want 1, you need to pay for the bundle. The bundles are expensive because they put a few high cost channels in there that you may have zero interest in, but since you want to watch 1 channel from the bundle, you get to pay for them all.
If you try to reduce your costs by eliminating cable TV and land line, keeping only the internet connection, costs go up because you have less services. It is cheaper
I’m sure they’re thinking about it (Score:2)
But I suspect they’d find the will backfire and will result in a net loss of subscribers, if they decide to *only* offer bundles. None of their services are particularly compelling on their own, and - other than Apple Music - the people mostly using them right now seem to be the Apple fans you would’ve predicted from the beginning.
And I say that as an Apple hardware user myself.
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Could you please relate the factual basis for your use of "only"?
3x nothing is still... (Score:2)
nothing...
Annuity (Score:2)
Every company wants to make an annuity out of you...like so many mosquitoes lining up to stick in their straw. A plague on all of them, if I cannot amuse myself with some good books, they cannot do it for me.
After Paying Serious Coin For The Devices?! Nope (Score:2)
After shelling out $1350 for a phone, $700 for a tablet, $200 for the TV box, $250 for wireless headphones, $300 each for speakers... seems to me I shouldn't have to pay a dime for services and content. And boring TV "entertainment" and mindless propaganda posing as "news" at that. Hard pass.
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I don't necessarily have a problem with it. Like you say, after I spent $2400 on a laptop, I wouldn't mind six months worth of Apple TV content, Apple Music, News, etc. As long as continuing after six months is opt-in rather than opt-out, I'm fine with it.
Appl (Score:2)
But I do not want all of this bundling and subscription crap from Apple.
Will Apple require participation -- just like IBM has in the past and Oracle does now?
That sucks.
Plus, the margins can be squeezed so much that the underlying businesses can't stay in business.
I prefer a full-employment economy -- not a sweatshop economy!
Almost (Score:2)
It doesn't beat my Apple-Disney-Netflix-Hulu-HBO-Amazon-app called uTorrent+VPN.
GLWT (Score:2)
First they need enough content on Apple+ to make it worth the subscription fee.
Personally, I'm waiting for the second version of the service... Apple][+
Not $1 more for Apple News+ (Score:3)
I like and use Apple Music regularly.
Although I've not watched Apple TV+ content yet, there are a few shows I have queued to see.
But Apple News+ is a service I un-want enough, that if the price of anything goes up at all to include it, I may cancel my subscription and move to something else.
I am presuming though that even if they offered a bundle, you'd still be able to get the individual services by themselves.
That's a pretty outrageous cut (Score:2)
50% is more than the gross margin of the monopoly cable TV companies [macrotrends.net] (they keep about 40%). It's fascinating / pathetic how we created a global information network which drops the cost of transmitting and distributing information like movies to near-zero, and yet the percentage taken by the distributor seems to be going up.