TV Shows Have Nothing to Do with Apple’s Brand (Premium)

Apple invested $14.24 billion on research and development in 2018, a sharp increase of 23 percent over the previous year and a figure that I assume has infamous cheapskate Steve Jobs rolling in his grave. Most of that sum is aimed at helping Apple overcome its reliance on a single product, the iPhone, which today delivers between 65 and 75 percent of the firm’s revenues, depending on how you measure things. But Apple is also investing in original content for a coming TV service, to the tune of over $1 billion. And … what?

Why on earth is Apple making original content?

Don’t get me wrong: That Apple would want to launch a video service of some kind makes plenty of sense. And it’s in good company: Roku and Amazon, Apple’s biggest competitors in the home set-top box market, both have their own video services that they offer alongside much more popular services like Netflix and Hulu.

But there’s a big difference between a video service---which would fit neatly into Apple’s growing family of services---and what is essentially a combination TV and movie studio that will pump out its own content. Few would object to Apple trying to create a cord-cutting solution like YouTube TV, or, better still, a monthly video subscription service that would to for movies and TV shows what Apple Music does for music. But it seems like the real focus of Apple’s coming service is indeed original content that would only be made available via that service. And the last thing anyone needs is yet another service to look for paid, original content.

More to the point, it’s not clear how this effort will benefit Apple in the slightest.

When the firm launched its first iPod way back in 2002, Steve Jobs said that he and Apple loved music, and simply wanted a better way to enjoy it on the go. That almost experimental offering grew into a legitimate, company-altering business, and it was for a time Apple’s biggest money-maker. But for that to happen, Apple had to get it all right as it expanded iPod to Windows, to new form factors, and to the iTunes Store, which forever transformed the music industry.

And not necessarily for the better, lest we forget our history: Apple’s original plan for 99 cent songs and $9.99 albums was quickly abandoned after record labels threatened to leave the service because the consistently low pricing undermined the revenue levels to which it had grown accustomed. We saw a similar backlash against movie and TV show pricing on iTunes, too: Today, new movie rentals often cost $5.99 or $6.99 per film, not the 99 cents or $1.99 price tags we first experienced.

But what’s Apple’s explanation for original content? That it …. loves TV shows? Seriously? Or is it that it loves the idea of TV shows, but most don’t fit neatly into the Disney-like Puritan worldview of Tim Cook and today’s Apple? What’s the theory here, that Apple will make only wholesome, G-rated content in a world that is drenched by th...