Apple TV Plus has a while, and Netflix should be worried

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• Apple TV Plus has a while, and Netflix should be worried

Apple TV Plus is at a crossroads and could finally become a real contender to entertainment giants like Netflix and Disney. Whether through its music players, smartphones, computers, laptops or smartwatches, the tech giant has continually outperformed its competitors to offer products that are, to say the least, indisputably desirable. However, Apple's streaming service didn't take off in exactly the same way immediately. Apple TV Plus was a latecomer to the streaming celebration, with blockbusters Netflix and Amazon Prime Video gobbling up most of the market when it launched in XNUMX. Even in XNUMX, the service maintains a modest XNUMX% audience share, just XNUMX% less than HBO Max, about XNUMX% lower than Disney Plus (according to data obtained by streaming analyst JustWatch ). But now, more than ever, the future looks bright for Apple TV Plus. CEO Tim Cook kicked off last week's Apple event with a preview of the streamer's upcoming releases, and there's no doubt the company is moving full steam ahead in its quest to deliver high-cost, high-budget, high-quality entertainment. to a growing number of subscribers.

An expanding library

When it comes to the popularity of a streaming service, the proof is in the pudding. If the movies and TV shows offered are not as attractive as elsewhere, subscribers, especially those who only want to pay for one or two platforms, will withdraw their habit. This means that Apple's frequent penchant for user loyalty has little bearing on the appeal of its transmitter. At launch, the Apple TV Plus library was missing, to say the least. The first season of the Jason Momoa-led sci-fi series See was, by most accounts, uninspiring, while The Morning Show, Apple's version of newsroom politics, failed to get the ratings. praise from critics that the company clearly awaited. For All Mankind marked a notable caveat, giving a truly unique take on the global space race, but it quickly became clear that Apple TV Plus would take time to gain momentum. Now, in late 2, a couple of years of library building should pay off for Apple, with countless series returning and brand new movies and TV shows slated for the streamer in the coming months. Season two of The Morning Show, for example, landed yesterday, while notable football comedy drama Ted Lasso received a second set of episodes in August (joining Mythic Quest as the only real show commissioned by Apple to impress critics and audiences).

(Image credit: Apple TV Plus) Then there's the highly anticipated Foundation, Apple's big-budget adaptation of Isaac Asmiov's novel series, a new animated show from Rick and Morty co-writer Dan Harmon, and the science fiction thriller directed by Sam Neill, Invasion. These projects will join Mr. Corman's surprisingly large original series in Apple's original entertainment catalog, as well as Cherry, The Mosquito Coast, Greyhound and Lisey's Story. But we are not done yet. Finch, the Tom Hanks-directed blockbuster about a homeless man and his robot dog, arrives in November, followed shortly by The Shrink Next Door, starring Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd. And perhaps the most exciting of them all is Martin Scorcese's $XNUMX million-plus film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro, which is currently in development with the support of Apple (it's going to be arrive in theaters before it is available only on Apple TV Plus). The point is that a lot is happening (or about to happen) in the Apple transmitter. For every failure (Planet of the Apps), Apple seems to have a success (Ted Lasso), and its supposed failures are more like expensive trials as the company navigates uncharted territories in the world of entertainment.

Slow burners

It's also worth remembering that it took years for Netflix and Amazon Prime Video to build up their respective numbers of subscribers and libraries of original content. The former launched as a streaming platform in XNUMX, but had also been operating as a DVD rental service for over a decade. It wasn't until XNUMX that Netflix truly showed leadership as the leading distributor of original content in the market, with the arrival of the now beloved shows Stranger Things and The Crown. The streamer spent around €XNUMX billion on original properties in XNUMX to make these projects, a huge sum considering its total revenue in XNUMX was €XNUMX billion, but the investment has been worth the grief. Netflix has over XNUMX million subscribers at the time of writing, and Stranger Things and The Crown continue to be huge draws. The coming months could mark a gold rush of related content for Apple, although it will take several years for the quality of that content to be reflected in the number of subscribers. Foundation, for example, may turn out to be Game of Thrones on Apple TV Plus.

(Image credit: Apple TV Plus) It's also important to remember the amount of below-average content on these top streamers. Consider for a moment the number of bad movies on Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. Apple TV Plus, on the other hand, hasn't even been around long enough to produce a library of bad movies and TV shows, and in addition to Star content, it only makes original Apple-branded content available to subscribers (in contrast to the party's third massive licenses of opposing streamers). In any case, then the average content quality score on Apple TV Plus (if such a number existed) is surely considerably higher than that of any competing streamer, given its slim but generally good feature list. This hypothetical quality metric is expected to strengthen in the coming months, and it will be interesting to see how long it takes for movies like Finch and shows like Foundation and Invasion to convert to Apple subscribers.

The same old apple

Furthermore, at least from a certain aesthetic point of view, Apple TV Plus is already among the best vaporizers, both in terms of user interface and the auxiliary information that accompanies the visible content. Like Amazon Prime Video, users get plenty of context for the movies and TV shows they watch. It may be new, but a quick scroll down reveals the names, likenesses, and profiles of the members of the range, which is respectful of the industry Apple has recently entered. The entire user experience is super refined, which is so typical of Apple's product philosophy, with the only real visual qualms coming from the aforementioned strangeness of its existing library.

(Image credit: Apple) For users of other Apple products, it's also quite difficult to object to the integration of Apple TV Plus into the brand's broader ecosystem. For example, your iPhone can easily calibrate the image settings and connecting 2 pairs of AirPods is a simple process. Sure, content is king when it comes to streamers, but it really helps when those streamers are a blast to navigate (take notes, Amazon).

Attention Netflix

So there's no doubt that things are looking good for Apple TV Plus. With the enormous amount of investment the company has poured into its still-young streamer, it's clear that at least certain movies and TV shows on the horizon will deliver on the promise of Apple's enormous ambition. It's going to take years for the tech giant to catch up with Netflix and its subscriber base; It may never happen, but for an original, content-focused streaming service approaching its second anniversary, Apple TV Plus is maturing faster than any entertainment. platform. has never seen.