Apple TV+ library is also incredibly small -- there's little excuse to go back and see what new shows are in there because there usually aren't any.
I wonder how many people are burnt out on dramas that have 8-10 episode seasons, end on a cliff hanger, and you have to wait 1-2 years for the next season. At this point, I've just stopped watching any series that isn't "done" regardless of the streaming service.
High quality is not enough. I've watched a few Apple TV shows and I agree that they are high quality but that doesn't mean I want to watch them all. Many of them simply don't interest me or suit my mood. With just a few notable exceptions most Apple TV+ shows, while ostensibly different genres, all kind feel like they fit in the same box.
I don't think that op is implying anything wrong with a small library. It's more that you don't open the app and browse it. New shows that might be available are unknown, simply because you have not opened the app on your TV. Because of this, to save money, users will only subscribe for a month, then wait a year before they resub to find new shows.
I often open Netflix and just browse new additions. I can do this often, because I know the library will add new shows and movies every week.
What does this question aim to illustrate? I don't personally watch any tv these days but recall being in my 20s and having less obligation, burning through shows with my spare time. If someone said "more than they offer", what possible retort could you have?
Back when I read comics, I only ever read trade paperbacks, not monthly issues. I want to read a whole story arc. The downside of that is it could take six months to several years for each new TPB volume to get released. By the time volume 4 came out, I've forgotten how volume 3 ended. TV feels like that now!
I'm the same way. I usually end up re-reading or re-watching books/seasons just ahead of a newly released volume/season. Since I like the content it isn't a big deal, but after a long enough time it can start to seem like a chore. I'd be nice if they put out some well edited summaries for past volumes/seasons. Sometime you'll see recaps, but often they're either too thin to be useful or they only tell you the important things that will matter later which can actually spoil things by putting a spotlight on foreshadowing.
> Slow Horses has been almost impossibly well-received by critics and audiences. Now in season 4, I think this may actually be one of the overall-highest scored TV shows ever in terms of ones that have run this many seasons.
Me, and definitely so many! But I am still a sucker for them, they produce really good shows and I'll watch them. I think part of the problem was the writers strike from 2023 there was a lot of momentum lost from that and I think a lot of reorganizing / reconfiguration as well. Hopefully 2025 will usher in some stability in the TV industry.
I’m done watching new series. Tons of downsides, waiting for the new season is only one of them.
Shows that I loved and I was invested in got cancelled after two seasons, the ending was rushed because the producers got better gigs, later seasons got dumbed down and lost what made them special, constant pushing of political ideologies, lazy writing, cookie cutter dramas, same actors in every Spanish shows…
Yeah, when I seldom have the chance to watch something, I’m good with an episode of Monk, Friends or other classics I haven’t seen in two decades…
It's incredibly draining and exhausting. As an audience member, you need to constantly be "on" to understand the show. Sometimes, maybe even often times, this is what you want. But when you don't then you can't, meaning there's no way to enjoy the show while also not committing to it. These are high-commitment shows.
Also everyone just forgets all the nuances when a new season come out 1 year later. Typically, this is fine, but since these shows really rely on those nuances you end up getting disconnected from the show.
I liked TV better back when there were a few "main story arc" shows, but the majority were random, unconnected plots. Like the X-files where most of the shows were "monster of the week" but they would occasionally return to some main theme and move it forward. We're re-watching Deep Space 9, and I think that series had the right ratio.
As opposed to something like Game Of Thrones, which was basically a single 70 hour movie split arbitrarily.
Whatever the reason may be, the article outlines a few possibilities, I do agree there is a ton of great content on Apple TV+ that people are sleeping on. I recently watched "The Morning Show", "For All Mankind", and "Presumed Innocent." All were absolutely incredible shows, and none of my friends had heard of them (people who are usually very up to date with shows) furthering that their marketing is not the best for their tv content. Ted Lasso seems to be the only show of theirs that I've felt like broke through all the noise and is most widely known.
However, I do think they have been marketing their movies a lot better. One the new movies "Wolfs" with Brad Pitt, and George Clooney had billboards all over my city. I know many people that did watch that the first week it came out.
Humorously, many Apple TV+ series begin with the message, "An Apple Original."
What if Apple renamed Apple TV+ to just Apple Originals? The branding they are already using? Then we wouldn't have 3 different uses of "Apple TV" (the iPhone app, the streaming box, the subscription service)... and it's so much clearer to a customer what it means.
I personally wonder if a huge part of this, is just that customers have no clue what "Apple TV+" even... is. Does it have something to do with the Apple TV box being advertised when they bought their iPhone? And customers don't read, the title says all they need to know (or lack thereof).
Or another solution (for any employees reading): Spin it off the Apple brand. Don't use the name Apple on it. Come up with some stupid name along the lines of Pluto, Popcornflix, Freevee, or whatever have you; and offer an ad-supported free tier. Watch the viewership explode. Remove the ad tier afterwards.
They are going to license them to Amazon Prime, which will charge an additional-on subscription like they do for Paramount+. Needless to say, that will eat further into Apple’s already nonexistent margins.
> “If you’re a fan of a show on Apple TV,” says Ray, “you have this fear that it’s not being appreciated, it’s not being seen, and you have to tell people about it because the platform itself isn’t going to do it.”
Or even shows in general! There's so much TV now, I don't care who is watching what I'm watching. And shows seem to get renewed or not based on opaque processes and metrics I don't feel capable of knowing, let alone supporting.
I don't know but Frog and Toad is one of my two year olds favorite shows, as is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie on Amazon. Both based on books, both really well done in my opinion.
Apple was really onto something in getting the streaming rights to all of the Peanuts content. The Snoopy Show is quality old-fashioned, non-hyperkinetic, mellow cartoon toddler fodder.
Yeah, I really enjoyed one of their holiday movies too (Ryan Reynolds is in it, I forgot the name), I hope they keep it up with just introducing just high quality content.
This article touched on a point that I feel is very relevant: unexpected show cancellations, apparently now happening for Apple TV+, as well.
Netflix and Disney+ trained me to not even watch a show until it's concluded because it could get cancelled and I don't want to invest my small amount of free time on entertainment that might not even finish. It does produce a self-fulfilling prophecy where people with the same mindset as me on this do the same, and then the rating for something I (and probably they) are interested in aren't high enough and it gets cancelled.
What should worry them, though, is that it also led to the final step for them; I cancelled my Netflix and Disney+ subscriptions with no intention of renewing them around a year ago. The end result is that "TV series"-style shows are effectively dead to me; I've shifted my time on them mostly to novels (that are basically behind-the-curve on this trend, hopefully forever), followed by single-player video games, and finally movies. (Why didn't movies take the first slot? Because I'm only willing/able to give 30-60 minutes of continuous time to entertainment most of the time, and it's very unsatisfying to pause a movie to resume later.)
The continuous, immediate feedback on series performance coupled with a reputation of acting on that feedback immediately is killing the traditional television medium.
On top of all of that, Apple TV+ has the added albatross of requiring their hardware for the shows, as if they were somehow a siren song to get people more tightly nestled into their ecosystem, and therefore dooming their shows to failure, at least amongst people who don't want to pay for overpriced hardware running software of degrading quality over the years (I switched to Linux in 2016 because it was more reliable than my MacBook Air; being better than Windows isn't good enough anymore, especially when Linux has a greater catalog of software these days).
The needs of Apple, Inc weigh on their Apple TV division, they don't help it, and the sins of the streaming services against actually finishing a story further increase the trust deficit with Apple TV+. No amount of marketing is going to turn that around.
The walled garden certainly keeps me out of the apple ecosystem. I love MacOS but I don't want to pay a premium for vendor lock-in and I infer that most (if not all) apple products are double-edged in that manner.
I personally think this is the major reason their ratings are so low. My parents want to watch Ted Lasso, and I told them to subscribe and watch it. "We can't, we have a roku, and I'm not paying $200 for another box." Imagine millions doing this and you see the result.
To be fair the device and service have, like, the same name. Assuming some relationship between them is obvious. Also, this is Apple, the guys who are very dedicated to pairing hardware and software together.
I will get roasted for this, but I enjoyed Foundation. Decent sci-fi with some cool visuals and interesting concepts. It just had nothing to do with the actual books.
From my limited experience with Apple TV (Master of the Air and whatever that terrible Nasa one was) they seem to suffer from the same problem as most throw away TV shows on the streaming services - They lack writers who know anything about the subject matter and they couldn't care less about attention to detail.
They attempt to cash in on the emotional value of these dramatic events without doing the legwork required to do it properly and so it falls flat upon its face.
Maybe Apple should hold a yearly event building hype for their new and ongoing shows. That's by far spots Apple's best marketing channel for every other product they have
Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, and maybe Severance aside, I'm not sure if there's much mass market awareness of Apple TV+ shows. But I'm also uncertain whether any of the streaming services aside from Netflix, Amazon Prime, (HBO) Max, Disney+, and maybe Hulu via brands like FX are able to successfully market their original content. Paramount+ maybe via Star Trek and the one-man empire that is Taylor Sheridan and his Sheridanverse (the Yellowstoneverse?), but that seems like a more limited IP stable than Disney's. There's a lot of noise, a lot of subscription fees, and a lot of losers. Apple might've produced Killers of the Flower Moon and slapped their name on Coda, but they're in a completely saturated and user-fatigued market.
They also made a massive deal with MLS that led to Messi coming to the US, and they've done a terrible job of getting an mainstream attention for that, even though it's a _great_ viewing experience -- you can watch every game, including 4 games at the same time if you want, and rewatch them whenever you want and the production quality is decent.
If nothing else, they should be doing a full court press to get newspapers and ESPN etc to increase their coverage of MLS, even the Miami Herald is barely covering soccer and Miami is full of soccer fans and the team just set the all time single season points record and has one of the greatest athletes of all time on the field.
A few issues speaking as someone who lives in the greater 305 area:
1. Marketing is primarily to get people to come to games as opposed to watching the team on TV. Problem is, nobody wants to go because the stadium is 45 minutes away without traffic.
2. Fans of other teams aren't going to skip their own team's games to watch Messi. They've been able to watch him in a world-class team for close to 20 years, so now that he's nearly 40 and walks around most of the time, they aren't as interested.
3. Miami is full of soccer fans that are fans of their favorite teams from their home countries.
4. Ticket prices are outrageous. So are parking passes. The new stadium isn't even breaking ground yet. Miami fans are used to getting screwed, and hosting Messi in this current mess is not helping.
5. ESPN will never advertise for a competitor unless they are forced to. ESPN lost the MLS rights to Apple TV+.
Apple TV+, Apple Card, Apple News+, and Apple Arcade where all launched there. All have been, for Apple's size and scale, business debacles. Apple TV+'s debacles are well documented in this post, Apple Card is in the news today for incompetence (and has lost billions from Goldman Sachs, and has never launched outside the US), Apple News+ is doing okay with 19 million subscribers, and Apple Arcade has caused no shortage of public publisher ire (#1).
Edit for #1:
Apple Arcade has been a dumpster fire on the backend...
Apple Card doesn’t seem like a loss for Apple and customers however. Just Goldman Sachs. Though it does seem like Apple may have given GS overly optimistic data.
Apple Arcade from a user standpoint seems okay. (I have only played two games from it, but keep the subscription for other family members).
Apple TV I forget about, even though I have enjoyed some great content on it.
News, while I have it, I have never used. Same with Apple Music. (Which I think is in the same bundle of things).
Wonder what's the most dispensable Apple service. I'd guess either Apple News or Apple Fitness+. I don't think these Apple One services are chipping away hugely from Apple's bottom line, but it almost feels a little like a retread of the '90s when they were making everything from the Newton to printers to the Pippin. At least software services are cheaper to build than real gear!
Apple has always been kind of not great at marketing, simply because their attitude has always been "the product markets itself."
That isn't to say they don't, it's just a cultural attitude inside the company. It's a crying shame because their content teams have obviously great taste and are willing to experiment, and they must be pulling their hair out over this, but yeah – AAPL should not only do more and better marketing, but consider licensing their content out in a limited fashion to draw people in, especially if they're going to maintain 'the product markets itself' – I can still buy iPods in BEst Buy, for an example.
People WANT apple to succeed on this content front. The Apple Vision program especially would benefit from high quality content, well-marketed, especially to drive adoption and thus reduce cost; amazing immersive/interactive content is the killer app for AR/VR if you ask me.
Let silly Zuck make dumb avatars and fake lowbrow games, if I'm going to project content directly onto my eyeballs, let it be Oscar-worthy.
I don't really think that's true, Apple has always marketed quite aggressively. In fact they invented (or at least popularized) the CEO keynote ad to say nothing of their history of more traditional ads going all the way back to their 1984 ad [1]. As for the AVP, they pretty clearly want it to be a productivity thing as opposed to a video game machine that every other consumer VR product is, which is consistent with their historic ambivalence to video games. In fact, I'd say that it's Zuck et al who are making "Oscar-worthy" VR experiences (or at least enabling them), while Apple's are basic and derivative [2].
I think it was their exceptional design in the 2000s. They were never the first, but they were exceptional at appearing to be an innovator on the originality of their product design. I have not been impressed with apple design innovation for some time though, they've gotten stale.
I think the other part of the problem is Apple historically has such tight control over marketing and messaging. It does not encourage its people to work on something on the fly, experimenting with new channels or formats, or delegating to local agencies.
I agree that Apple isn't great about marketing it's shows, but part of the issue is that their shows just aren't that good. I imagine if you're into the Apple ecosystem, you probably get ads for them, but from the outside, it's crickets. I subscribed literally for Ted Lasso and have debated canceling every month since I finished it.
I agree that Severance was good, but it came out in 2022, and the next season isn't coming out until 2025. Shrinking is another I like, but it came out in early 2023 and just started season 2 this month. I wanted to like Silo, having read the books, but something from the trailer just makes it seem off. I'll probably get around to watching it eventually assuming I don't cancel soon. The others don't appeal to me.
I think if you're ok watching the content weekly and only watch an hour or two, if feels like there is content there, but if you binge like most people who stream do, there is hardly anything there. Most people would probably be better off to subscribe for a month or two a year and cancel the rest of the time.
> "...but part of the issue is that their shows just aren't that good..."
Hard disagree from a personal view. Also statistically, I don't think you can strongly claim this since many of their shows have lots of awards if you go off that metric. I haven't done the calculations but I would guess that their content to award ratio is even higher than many other networks.
>I haven't done the calculations but I would guess that their content to award ratio is even higher than many other networks.
That is probably true, but only because they have so little content overall. It is nice that it's not choke full of low budget reality nonsense and foreign stuff, but they also have basically none of the back catalog of content that other services have.
There's a popular if snarky narrative that Ted Lasso started out as a straightforward comedy and then became too enraptured with character trauma-drama schmaltz. When The Bear got more focused on each character's struggles in season 2, people mocked it by likening it to Ted Lasso.
>When The Bear got more focused on each character's struggles in season 2
Honestly, that seems to be part of the playbook for almost every show now. I wonder if people just didn't notice it much until the Bear or Ted Lasso, or maybe just because it's more of an abrupt departure from the main story line in those shows instead of just being a b-plot part of a normal episode.
Really hard to agree with this. The shows I've enjoyed most recently are primarily on Apple. Slow Horses, Ted Lasso, Severance, Silo, Dark Matter, Foundation. And, unlike Netflix, Apple seems willing to bring back well regarded shows for a second season, instead of canceling for something new.
I agree that Severance was good. I suppose they'll come out with a new season right about the time I think about canceling again. I have also been watching Shrinking, but it's not really enough to keep me on the platform. Apple's content seems to be getting well known actors and then putting them into random shows and hoping that people will find out about them via word of mouth or something. There is also basically no back catalog worth watching like there is with other streaming services.
What content? They have almost none. Granted with the segmentation in the streaming market, none of the big players have much going on, but at least you can usually find something to watch on the others. Once you catch up with the 2 or 3 interesting ones on Apple Tv, there is basically nothing to watch.
This includes movies, but browsing their "originals" list, so far I (or my wife) have enjoyed (in no particular order):
Slow Horses
Lessons in Chemistry
Severance
Ted Lasso
Shrinking
Mythic Quest
Roar
CODA
The Problem with John Stewart
And we are looking forward to checking out, in no particular order:
Palm Royale
For All Mankind
Criminal Record
Killers of the Flower Moon
Foundation
Strange Planet
The Morning Show
Greyhound
They're not all knockout hits. Overall we just feel safer trying something new there. If we don't like it, it's usually just because it's not for us, and less because it feels like an algorithmic, soulless cash grab.
They have much less content, but if you value quality over quantity, I don't think that's an issue.
When I look at the Apple TV+ catalog, I can see myself giving an honest shake to _most_ of their content. I simply can't say the same for other services. I understand why they are flooding the zone if they have the resources, but there's a finite amount of content one human can watch.
If Apple releases 50 shows and 80% are up my alley, I get the same amount of enjoyable content as Netflix releasing 400 shows but only 10% are worth my time.
I think my issue is that it's not 80% up my alley. I see a bunch of decent looking shows that are probably good for their audience, I'm just not their audience. But even for stuff where I'm their audience, they often feel to be lacking something.
It's subjective. Most of my friends and colleagues stopped using Netflix as soon as sharing accounts were messed with. It was just not worth it. While Apple has a lot of great or at least decent sci-fi (or close) shows from past few years.
I don't use Apple equipment at all, it's unpopular here, but Apple TV subscription was the only thing from them I really though may be worth it.
Also shows on each platform are largely different depending on country, to the point where it's a pathetic fraction of what US has. It puts Apple TV in a bit better light.
Apple TV+ library is also incredibly small -- there's little excuse to go back and see what new shows are in there because there usually aren't any.
I wonder how many people are burnt out on dramas that have 8-10 episode seasons, end on a cliff hanger, and you have to wait 1-2 years for the next season. At this point, I've just stopped watching any series that isn't "done" regardless of the streaming service.
> Apple TV+ library is also incredibly small
That’s fine, it’s small but mostly high quality. How much TV do you want to watch?
High quality is not enough. I've watched a few Apple TV shows and I agree that they are high quality but that doesn't mean I want to watch them all. Many of them simply don't interest me or suit my mood. With just a few notable exceptions most Apple TV+ shows, while ostensibly different genres, all kind feel like they fit in the same box.
I don't think that op is implying anything wrong with a small library. It's more that you don't open the app and browse it. New shows that might be available are unknown, simply because you have not opened the app on your TV. Because of this, to save money, users will only subscribe for a month, then wait a year before they resub to find new shows.
I often open Netflix and just browse new additions. I can do this often, because I know the library will add new shows and movies every week.
What does this question aim to illustrate? I don't personally watch any tv these days but recall being in my 20s and having less obligation, burning through shows with my spare time. If someone said "more than they offer", what possible retort could you have?
Back when I read comics, I only ever read trade paperbacks, not monthly issues. I want to read a whole story arc. The downside of that is it could take six months to several years for each new TPB volume to get released. By the time volume 4 came out, I've forgotten how volume 3 ended. TV feels like that now!
I'm the same way. I usually end up re-reading or re-watching books/seasons just ahead of a newly released volume/season. Since I like the content it isn't a big deal, but after a long enough time it can start to seem like a chore. I'd be nice if they put out some well edited summaries for past volumes/seasons. Sometime you'll see recaps, but often they're either too thin to be useful or they only tell you the important things that will matter later which can actually spoil things by putting a spotlight on foreshadowing.
Pesonally, I prefer quality over quantity.
> Slow Horses has been almost impossibly well-received by critics and audiences. Now in season 4, I think this may actually be one of the overall-highest scored TV shows ever in terms of ones that have run this many seasons.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2024/09/06/i-am-beggi...
I believe it has been renewed for season 6.
Do you think someone who watched the first episode and didn't "feel it" would love the show if they stuck with it? Asking for myself.
Everyone is different, but it's certainly much more common to love that show than to hate it.
I can remember not being enthused about the first two episodes of Our Flag Means Death, but loving the rest of the show, so you never know.
> I wonder how many people are burnt out
Me, and definitely so many! But I am still a sucker for them, they produce really good shows and I'll watch them. I think part of the problem was the writers strike from 2023 there was a lot of momentum lost from that and I think a lot of reorganizing / reconfiguration as well. Hopefully 2025 will usher in some stability in the TV industry.
I’m done watching new series. Tons of downsides, waiting for the new season is only one of them.
Shows that I loved and I was invested in got cancelled after two seasons, the ending was rushed because the producers got better gigs, later seasons got dumbed down and lost what made them special, constant pushing of political ideologies, lazy writing, cookie cutter dramas, same actors in every Spanish shows…
Yeah, when I seldom have the chance to watch something, I’m good with an episode of Monk, Friends or other classics I haven’t seen in two decades…
Yep. Often the plot covered by a whole season would have been 3-4 episodes at most in a 26-episode season 20-30 years ago.
The trick is to stop watching before the cliffhanger.
The cliffhanger is just a advertisement for the next season.
But shows are now mostly one large arc now. So really every episode from the first to the last is an advertisement for the next season.
It's incredibly draining and exhausting. As an audience member, you need to constantly be "on" to understand the show. Sometimes, maybe even often times, this is what you want. But when you don't then you can't, meaning there's no way to enjoy the show while also not committing to it. These are high-commitment shows.
Also everyone just forgets all the nuances when a new season come out 1 year later. Typically, this is fine, but since these shows really rely on those nuances you end up getting disconnected from the show.
I liked TV better back when there were a few "main story arc" shows, but the majority were random, unconnected plots. Like the X-files where most of the shows were "monster of the week" but they would occasionally return to some main theme and move it forward. We're re-watching Deep Space 9, and I think that series had the right ratio.
As opposed to something like Game Of Thrones, which was basically a single 70 hour movie split arbitrarily.
Whatever the reason may be, the article outlines a few possibilities, I do agree there is a ton of great content on Apple TV+ that people are sleeping on. I recently watched "The Morning Show", "For All Mankind", and "Presumed Innocent." All were absolutely incredible shows, and none of my friends had heard of them (people who are usually very up to date with shows) furthering that their marketing is not the best for their tv content. Ted Lasso seems to be the only show of theirs that I've felt like broke through all the noise and is most widely known.
However, I do think they have been marketing their movies a lot better. One the new movies "Wolfs" with Brad Pitt, and George Clooney had billboards all over my city. I know many people that did watch that the first week it came out.
For all mankind is a great show - nobody ever heard of it, but it's great
Every time I hear about some show, what goes through my head are:
1: Do I need to buy another subscription?
2: Will I need to sit through ads?
If the answer is yes to either question, I'm not interested. I already have more TV that I want to watch than I can watch.
(I don't mind paying for shows outright, though.)
Apple TV+ generates less viewing in one month than Netflix does in one day.
(source: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2024-07-21/apple-...)
Humorously, many Apple TV+ series begin with the message, "An Apple Original."
What if Apple renamed Apple TV+ to just Apple Originals? The branding they are already using? Then we wouldn't have 3 different uses of "Apple TV" (the iPhone app, the streaming box, the subscription service)... and it's so much clearer to a customer what it means.
I personally wonder if a huge part of this, is just that customers have no clue what "Apple TV+" even... is. Does it have something to do with the Apple TV box being advertised when they bought their iPhone? And customers don't read, the title says all they need to know (or lack thereof).
Or another solution (for any employees reading): Spin it off the Apple brand. Don't use the name Apple on it. Come up with some stupid name along the lines of Pluto, Popcornflix, Freevee, or whatever have you; and offer an ad-supported free tier. Watch the viewership explode. Remove the ad tier afterwards.
Cross license the first season to other streaming apps, while not removing it from Apple TV+.
Like what you saw? Want more? Subscribe.
They are going to license them to Amazon Prime, which will charge an additional-on subscription like they do for Paramount+. Needless to say, that will eat further into Apple’s already nonexistent margins.
> “If you’re a fan of a show on Apple TV,” says Ray, “you have this fear that it’s not being appreciated, it’s not being seen, and you have to tell people about it because the platform itself isn’t going to do it.”
I've never had this issue with Apple TV shows.
Or even shows in general! There's so much TV now, I don't care who is watching what I'm watching. And shows seem to get renewed or not based on opaque processes and metrics I don't feel capable of knowing, let alone supporting.
I don't know but Frog and Toad is one of my two year olds favorite shows, as is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie on Amazon. Both based on books, both really well done in my opinion.
Apple was really onto something in getting the streaming rights to all of the Peanuts content. The Snoopy Show is quality old-fashioned, non-hyperkinetic, mellow cartoon toddler fodder.
I agree. The Snoopy Show seasons 1 and 2 were great, and the third was good. I am hoping they will release another season of Snoopy in Space.
Yeah, I really enjoyed one of their holiday movies too (Ryan Reynolds is in it, I forgot the name), I hope they keep it up with just introducing just high quality content.
This article touched on a point that I feel is very relevant: unexpected show cancellations, apparently now happening for Apple TV+, as well.
Netflix and Disney+ trained me to not even watch a show until it's concluded because it could get cancelled and I don't want to invest my small amount of free time on entertainment that might not even finish. It does produce a self-fulfilling prophecy where people with the same mindset as me on this do the same, and then the rating for something I (and probably they) are interested in aren't high enough and it gets cancelled.
What should worry them, though, is that it also led to the final step for them; I cancelled my Netflix and Disney+ subscriptions with no intention of renewing them around a year ago. The end result is that "TV series"-style shows are effectively dead to me; I've shifted my time on them mostly to novels (that are basically behind-the-curve on this trend, hopefully forever), followed by single-player video games, and finally movies. (Why didn't movies take the first slot? Because I'm only willing/able to give 30-60 minutes of continuous time to entertainment most of the time, and it's very unsatisfying to pause a movie to resume later.)
The continuous, immediate feedback on series performance coupled with a reputation of acting on that feedback immediately is killing the traditional television medium.
On top of all of that, Apple TV+ has the added albatross of requiring their hardware for the shows, as if they were somehow a siren song to get people more tightly nestled into their ecosystem, and therefore dooming their shows to failure, at least amongst people who don't want to pay for overpriced hardware running software of degrading quality over the years (I switched to Linux in 2016 because it was more reliable than my MacBook Air; being better than Windows isn't good enough anymore, especially when Linux has a greater catalog of software these days).
The needs of Apple, Inc weigh on their Apple TV division, they don't help it, and the sins of the streaming services against actually finishing a story further increase the trust deficit with Apple TV+. No amount of marketing is going to turn that around.
> On top of all of that, Apple TV+ has the added albatross of requiring their hardware for the shows
You do not need Apple hardware to watch Apple TV+ -- I'm watching it just fine on my LG TV with WebOS.
> On top of all of that, Apple TV+ has the added albatross of requiring their hardware for the shows
What are you talking about? You don't need an Apple device to watch their TV service. https://www.apple.com/by/apple-tv-app/devices/
The walled garden certainly keeps me out of the apple ecosystem. I love MacOS but I don't want to pay a premium for vendor lock-in and I infer that most (if not all) apple products are double-edged in that manner.
I watch Apple TV+ on my Roku. No Apple hardware required
It’s surprising how many people think you have to have an Apple device to stream Apple TV.
I personally think this is the major reason their ratings are so low. My parents want to watch Ted Lasso, and I told them to subscribe and watch it. "We can't, we have a roku, and I'm not paying $200 for another box." Imagine millions doing this and you see the result.
To be fair the device and service have, like, the same name. Assuming some relationship between them is obvious. Also, this is Apple, the guys who are very dedicated to pairing hardware and software together.
Apple kind of did that to themselves. Even the name "Apple TV" isn't doing them any favors. https://www.apple.com/tv-home/
Their content is OK outside the MLS deal.
I will get roasted for this, but I enjoyed Foundation. Decent sci-fi with some cool visuals and interesting concepts. It just had nothing to do with the actual books.
From my limited experience with Apple TV (Master of the Air and whatever that terrible Nasa one was) they seem to suffer from the same problem as most throw away TV shows on the streaming services - They lack writers who know anything about the subject matter and they couldn't care less about attention to detail.
They attempt to cash in on the emotional value of these dramatic events without doing the legwork required to do it properly and so it falls flat upon its face.
Maybe Apple should hold a yearly event building hype for their new and ongoing shows. That's by far spots Apple's best marketing channel for every other product they have
Is there yet a convenient way to watch Apple TV with Chromecast?
Ted Lasso, For All Mankind, and maybe Severance aside, I'm not sure if there's much mass market awareness of Apple TV+ shows. But I'm also uncertain whether any of the streaming services aside from Netflix, Amazon Prime, (HBO) Max, Disney+, and maybe Hulu via brands like FX are able to successfully market their original content. Paramount+ maybe via Star Trek and the one-man empire that is Taylor Sheridan and his Sheridanverse (the Yellowstoneverse?), but that seems like a more limited IP stable than Disney's. There's a lot of noise, a lot of subscription fees, and a lot of losers. Apple might've produced Killers of the Flower Moon and slapped their name on Coda, but they're in a completely saturated and user-fatigued market.
They also made a massive deal with MLS that led to Messi coming to the US, and they've done a terrible job of getting an mainstream attention for that, even though it's a _great_ viewing experience -- you can watch every game, including 4 games at the same time if you want, and rewatch them whenever you want and the production quality is decent.
If nothing else, they should be doing a full court press to get newspapers and ESPN etc to increase their coverage of MLS, even the Miami Herald is barely covering soccer and Miami is full of soccer fans and the team just set the all time single season points record and has one of the greatest athletes of all time on the field.
A few issues speaking as someone who lives in the greater 305 area:
1. Marketing is primarily to get people to come to games as opposed to watching the team on TV. Problem is, nobody wants to go because the stadium is 45 minutes away without traffic.
2. Fans of other teams aren't going to skip their own team's games to watch Messi. They've been able to watch him in a world-class team for close to 20 years, so now that he's nearly 40 and walks around most of the time, they aren't as interested.
3. Miami is full of soccer fans that are fans of their favorite teams from their home countries.
4. Ticket prices are outrageous. So are parking passes. The new stadium isn't even breaking ground yet. Miami fans are used to getting screwed, and hosting Messi in this current mess is not helping.
5. ESPN will never advertise for a competitor unless they are forced to. ESPN lost the MLS rights to Apple TV+.
If anyone wants the ultimate case study in failed Apple business expansions, go back and watch the March 2019 event (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZmBoMZFC8g).
Apple TV+, Apple Card, Apple News+, and Apple Arcade where all launched there. All have been, for Apple's size and scale, business debacles. Apple TV+'s debacles are well documented in this post, Apple Card is in the news today for incompetence (and has lost billions from Goldman Sachs, and has never launched outside the US), Apple News+ is doing okay with 19 million subscribers, and Apple Arcade has caused no shortage of public publisher ire (#1).
Edit for #1:
Apple Arcade has been a dumpster fire on the backend...
https://appleinsider.com/articles/24/07/31/apple-arcade-deve...
https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/10/08/ex-app-store-head...
https://mobilegamer.biz/inside-apple-arcade-axed-games-decli...
https://mobilegamer.biz/inside-apple-arcade-again-late-payme...
Apple Card doesn’t seem like a loss for Apple and customers however. Just Goldman Sachs. Though it does seem like Apple may have given GS overly optimistic data.
Apple Arcade from a user standpoint seems okay. (I have only played two games from it, but keep the subscription for other family members).
Apple TV I forget about, even though I have enjoyed some great content on it.
News, while I have it, I have never used. Same with Apple Music. (Which I think is in the same bundle of things).
Wonder what's the most dispensable Apple service. I'd guess either Apple News or Apple Fitness+. I don't think these Apple One services are chipping away hugely from Apple's bottom line, but it almost feels a little like a retread of the '90s when they were making everything from the Newton to printers to the Pippin. At least software services are cheaper to build than real gear!
I’d pay for Apple Peace and Quiet®, where they promise to stop trying to shove trials for useless Apple services down our throats.
I specifically got the Apple card because it was losing GS money and it made me laugh.
I’m also happy to take GS’s 4.x% interest
apple tv tv shows are generally bad, neutered "content"
And censored to appease the Chinese Communist Party.
Apple has always been kind of not great at marketing, simply because their attitude has always been "the product markets itself."
That isn't to say they don't, it's just a cultural attitude inside the company. It's a crying shame because their content teams have obviously great taste and are willing to experiment, and they must be pulling their hair out over this, but yeah – AAPL should not only do more and better marketing, but consider licensing their content out in a limited fashion to draw people in, especially if they're going to maintain 'the product markets itself' – I can still buy iPods in BEst Buy, for an example.
People WANT apple to succeed on this content front. The Apple Vision program especially would benefit from high quality content, well-marketed, especially to drive adoption and thus reduce cost; amazing immersive/interactive content is the killer app for AR/VR if you ask me.
Let silly Zuck make dumb avatars and fake lowbrow games, if I'm going to project content directly onto my eyeballs, let it be Oscar-worthy.
I don't really think that's true, Apple has always marketed quite aggressively. In fact they invented (or at least popularized) the CEO keynote ad to say nothing of their history of more traditional ads going all the way back to their 1984 ad [1]. As for the AVP, they pretty clearly want it to be a productivity thing as opposed to a video game machine that every other consumer VR product is, which is consistent with their historic ambivalence to video games. In fact, I'd say that it's Zuck et al who are making "Oscar-worthy" VR experiences (or at least enabling them), while Apple's are basic and derivative [2].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALOn35L3OMs
> Apple has always been kind of not great at marketing, simply because their attitude has always been "the product markets itself."
The power of Apple's marketing in action.
I think it was their exceptional design in the 2000s. They were never the first, but they were exceptional at appearing to be an innovator on the originality of their product design. I have not been impressed with apple design innovation for some time though, they've gotten stale.
I think the other part of the problem is Apple historically has such tight control over marketing and messaging. It does not encourage its people to work on something on the fly, experimenting with new channels or formats, or delegating to local agencies.
I agree that Apple isn't great about marketing it's shows, but part of the issue is that their shows just aren't that good. I imagine if you're into the Apple ecosystem, you probably get ads for them, but from the outside, it's crickets. I subscribed literally for Ted Lasso and have debated canceling every month since I finished it.
I believe Apple has some fantastic shows. Severance, Tehran, Silo, Slow Horses, Liason, Physical, For All Mankind (season 1).
I agree that Severance was good, but it came out in 2022, and the next season isn't coming out until 2025. Shrinking is another I like, but it came out in early 2023 and just started season 2 this month. I wanted to like Silo, having read the books, but something from the trailer just makes it seem off. I'll probably get around to watching it eventually assuming I don't cancel soon. The others don't appeal to me.
I think if you're ok watching the content weekly and only watch an hour or two, if feels like there is content there, but if you binge like most people who stream do, there is hardly anything there. Most people would probably be better off to subscribe for a month or two a year and cancel the rest of the time.
If you haven't already, check out Dark Matter, too!
I will. Thanks.
> "...but part of the issue is that their shows just aren't that good..."
Hard disagree from a personal view. Also statistically, I don't think you can strongly claim this since many of their shows have lots of awards if you go off that metric. I haven't done the calculations but I would guess that their content to award ratio is even higher than many other networks.
>I haven't done the calculations but I would guess that their content to award ratio is even higher than many other networks.
That is probably true, but only because they have so little content overall. It is nice that it's not choke full of low budget reality nonsense and foreign stuff, but they also have basically none of the back catalog of content that other services have.
If you think Ted Lasso is a bad show, there is something broken in you and we can’t be friends.
that's not fair, even though i know you're kidding. personally i'm tired of jason sudeikis.
There's a popular if snarky narrative that Ted Lasso started out as a straightforward comedy and then became too enraptured with character trauma-drama schmaltz. When The Bear got more focused on each character's struggles in season 2, people mocked it by likening it to Ted Lasso.
>When The Bear got more focused on each character's struggles in season 2
Honestly, that seems to be part of the playbook for almost every show now. I wonder if people just didn't notice it much until the Bear or Ted Lasso, or maybe just because it's more of an abrupt departure from the main story line in those shows instead of just being a b-plot part of a normal episode.
> [...] their shows just aren't that good.
Really hard to agree with this. The shows I've enjoyed most recently are primarily on Apple. Slow Horses, Ted Lasso, Severance, Silo, Dark Matter, Foundation. And, unlike Netflix, Apple seems willing to bring back well regarded shows for a second season, instead of canceling for something new.
The Morning Show, Severance, Silo, Tehran, Presumed Innocent, Ted Lasso, Slow Horses, Disclaimer, Shrinking, Loot, Severance, Where's Wanda?, Foundation, Cowboy Cartel (short documentary), Midnight Family, The Last Thing He Told Me, Invasion, Mythic Quest, Bad Monkey, Dickinson...
There's so many good shows on Apple TV.
So you've had about 5 years to watch 20 good shows. I've seen a bunch of these long ago. After that, what's left?
Severance is excellent, for all mankind was decent. Other ones I've watched were quitte bad indeed.
I agree that Severance was good. I suppose they'll come out with a new season right about the time I think about canceling again. I have also been watching Shrinking, but it's not really enough to keep me on the platform. Apple's content seems to be getting well known actors and then putting them into random shows and hoping that people will find out about them via word of mouth or something. There is also basically no back catalog worth watching like there is with other streaming services.
Tiny world is amazing
Apple is currently my favorite for content, so to each their own I guess.
What content? They have almost none. Granted with the segmentation in the streaming market, none of the big players have much going on, but at least you can usually find something to watch on the others. Once you catch up with the 2 or 3 interesting ones on Apple Tv, there is basically nothing to watch.
This includes movies, but browsing their "originals" list, so far I (or my wife) have enjoyed (in no particular order):
And we are looking forward to checking out, in no particular order: They're not all knockout hits. Overall we just feel safer trying something new there. If we don't like it, it's usually just because it's not for us, and less because it feels like an algorithmic, soulless cash grab.They have much less content, but if you value quality over quantity, I don't think that's an issue.
When I look at the Apple TV+ catalog, I can see myself giving an honest shake to _most_ of their content. I simply can't say the same for other services. I understand why they are flooding the zone if they have the resources, but there's a finite amount of content one human can watch.
If Apple releases 50 shows and 80% are up my alley, I get the same amount of enjoyable content as Netflix releasing 400 shows but only 10% are worth my time.
I think my issue is that it's not 80% up my alley. I see a bunch of decent looking shows that are probably good for their audience, I'm just not their audience. But even for stuff where I'm their audience, they often feel to be lacking something.
Ted Lasso ended almost 18 months ago. Definitely cancel. We should not be gifting anything to these giants.
>Ted Lasso ended almost 18 months ago. Definitely cancel. We should not be gifting anything to these giants.
That's a good point. Plus it's not like I can't resubscribe later and catch up on everything again.
It's subjective. Most of my friends and colleagues stopped using Netflix as soon as sharing accounts were messed with. It was just not worth it. While Apple has a lot of great or at least decent sci-fi (or close) shows from past few years.
I don't use Apple equipment at all, it's unpopular here, but Apple TV subscription was the only thing from them I really though may be worth it.
Also shows on each platform are largely different depending on country, to the point where it's a pathetic fraction of what US has. It puts Apple TV in a bit better light.
Their content generally fits the mix of other streamers. "Not good" is the most subjective of statements when it comes to film and television.