36 comments

  • zmmmmm 1831 days ago
    One interesting question is how viable this can be if they continue their strategy of differentiation through privacy. Doing "services" for people intrinsically means knowing about them. What they watch, what they read, what they listen to, what they need, who they are. The more you know, the better you can "service" them. By pursuing this path they may quickly find themselves sucked into a slipperly slope that puts them into conflict with the primary identity they've tried to build up. You can see it already starting:

    > divide up the revenue between developers based on how much time users spend playing their games

    So they're going to spy on their users, huh? Of course, it's perfectly innocent, but they will quickly find that with deeper metrics they can better model what games to fund, etc etc. And before you know it they'll have a tab in their account page just like Google with a list as long as your arm of all the things they know about you.

    • blihp 1831 days ago
      Take the marketing pitch with a grain of salt. They've been keeping track of aggregate usage data pretty much from the beginning. Also, they already have to keep track of things like which apps/music/movies you have bought for accounting purposes at the very least. For subscriptions they most likely also have to track consumption (i.e. per access data) for royalty/revenue share payments.

      I remember a story from the tail end of the Jobs era when they were trying to get their ad network going that their sales force was using as a selling point to advertisers the fact that they had metrics such as how many minutes a day users spent using various apps etc. They just don't share this data outside of Apple and also (according to their public statements) don't access the private data that you create.

      • toufka 1831 days ago
        I think society is okay with some knowledge about individuals. And that information is valuable. But it's still unclear where the line gets drawn that becomes creepy and inverts its value. If you have the corporate structure and policies to be able to draw an arbitrary line, you're likely better suited to capture long-term value than if you have no line at all and willingly scrape all data just to have it (ie, Facebook/Google).

        So, Apple having aggregate data is interesting, because it's certainly a monetization, but if they're truly honest and statistically aggregate numbers, I think that might be a fantastic strategy.

        • blackflame7000 1831 days ago
          I think the line should be drawn at allowing 3rd parties to search user profiles. I’m content with my content being one of billions on their servers but i’m not ok with my content being indexible for any other reason than what is required for the service to work.

          Basically: Select * from AppleDB where userID=Me should never be allowed and failure to prevent such access should result in heavy fines

        • ATsch 1830 days ago
          I don't think there needs to be a universal line, decided by the company, on what's creepy. I appreciate how GDPR recognizes this. I believe it is up to the users to decide for themselves what they are and are not comfortable with. Just like with some other topics, informed and free consent is really the thing that matters for an act to be okay.
      • BillinghamJ 1831 days ago
        Aside from accounting purposes, most of these cases are achieved through differential privacy - https://www.apple.com/privacy/docs/Differential_Privacy_Over...
      • zmmmmm 1831 days ago
        > They just don't share this data outside of Apple

        Google doesn't either. It doesn't stop them getting heat for it.

    • GeekyBear 1831 days ago
      Back when iAd was a thing, there were articles about how upset advertisers were that Apple's iAd wouldn't let them plug directly into an Apple customer's music and video store purchase history.

      >Apple has a lot of knowledge regarding its users,but what it doesn’t do with that data is share it with advertisers very freely. That makes Madison Avenue very mad.

      >rather than offering a cookie-based ad-tracking and targeting mechanism, it essentially requires partners to tell it what kind of audience it needs to reach, and then trust that Apple will handle the rest, AdAge says. And it’s well worth noting that Apple prioritizes customer privacy here over a big potential upside in ad revenue.

      >what it doesn’t do is hand over the keys to all that data and let advertisers plug into it directly with their own data-mining and targeting software. That’s not standard for the ad industry and that’s likely the reason a few Madison Avenue feathers are ruffled over their approach.

      https://techcrunch.com/2014/02/18/advertisers-not-thrilled-w...

      I'm not sure why you think that Apple has had a change of heart since then, especially given their recent decision that these sort of privacy protecting policies provide Apple a competitive advantage.

      • zerocrates 1831 days ago
        I'm not extremely familiar with the ad industry, but isn't this setup (tell us who you want to target and we'll do it for you) the way that the other big platform holders work, like Google and Facebook? That's always been my impression, that the data is their "secret sauce" and they aren't interested in sharing.
        • lozenge 1831 days ago
          You can upload email addresses and phone numbers to Facebook to target and you can set cookies on your website for retargeting too.
        • ENGNR 1831 days ago
          I imagine that's only because FB/Google want to protect their distribution, and users run ads directly with them. Smaller publishers have no choice but to give it all up to the ad networks
    • api 1831 days ago
      This is the most powerful thing they could do. There are a ton of services that are almost impossible to deliver at scale without a lot of data. If only there were a company that was trustworthy...
    • millstone 1831 days ago
      Apple has sketched out their middle ground here: differential privacy. They're already using this for e.g. QuickType suggestions. However I still agree there is a significant risk here.
    • currymj 1831 days ago
      they have been quietly hiring a lot of experts in differential privacy. there are various schemes for doing machine learning on populations while hiding information about individuals. it seems likely that this is part of their strategy.
    • xbmcuser 1831 days ago
      They are taking a few Billion a year from Google for search placement after that any marketing they do about privacy is mostly bull.
      • millstone 1831 days ago
        This is way too dismissive. Siri and Apple Maps don't know who you are (except on-device) while Google Assistant and GMaps aggressively push you to log in and link your accounts. These real differences aren't erased by choice of search provider.
  • ksec 1831 days ago
    I continue to wonder why they don't have or push iPhone as a Services ( The iPhone Upgrade Programme ) and continue to rely on mostly Carriers for Financing.

    By offering iPhone up to a 4 years terms and bundled with AppleCare+ Thief and Loss and iCloud Backup. With Optional Apple Music, Apple News Magazine, Apple TV and Apple Game. All paid via an Apple Branded Credit Card within Apple Pay backed by Goldman Sachs.

    You could have the iPhone Services starting at ~$35/Month even for an iPhone XS Max. If you add up all the other "Services" pack. That is roughly $75/month for the Full Apple Experience.

    ~$40 to even $100 a month is affordable to a lot of people. And my guess this could be part of the reason why Apple has been pushing the prices of iPhone.

    There is another advantage to Apple, this strategy requires huge cash flow and can not be easily copied by its competitor. Apple would be effectively trading its immediate return of cash from selling product for long term customer lock in.

    • pmalynin 1831 days ago
      Huh, I dont know where you are, but here in the States I got my iPhone through 0% financing (amortized over 2 years) program that allows you to get a new phone every year and comes bundled with AppleCare+
      • ksec 1831 days ago
        The iPhone upgrade Programme which I presume is what you are referring to are not popular outside US, and Apple barely advertise about it. ( Which is why I said push in the original sentence ) And it is only available in selected countries and under some condition.
        • toyg 1831 days ago
          I evaluated it here in UK and it just didn't make sense for me. It was very expensive -- slightly less than buying a phone every year, but much more than doing it every two-three years.
          • BillinghamJ 1830 days ago
            The iPhone Upgrade Program is exactly the same price over the full course of the loan as just buying the phone with AppleCare. If you don't want the AppleCare, "iPhone Payments" is exactly the same price overall as just buying the iPhone. Both are 0% financing.
          • lotsofpulp 1831 days ago
            In the US, it’s the same price to buy at one time versus pay over 24 months, assuming you get AppleCare warranty.
    • derefr 1831 days ago
      Not only is Apple not doing this, but even much more services-focused companies aren't doing it, either. Why doesn't Amazon have a version of Kindle Unlimited where you get a free Kindle (with automatic replacement after depreciation, and required return if/when you unsubscribe)? (Maybe even bundle that into a higher tier of Amazon Prime.) Why doesn't Google's Stadia subscription come with free Chromecasts and a "Google Play Unlimited" access to games? Etc.
    • Sendotsh 1831 days ago
      That's exactly what they do on the Australian apple site:

      https://www.apple.com/au/iphone/

      > Get iPhone XR from A$849 when you trade in your iPhone 7 Plus.*

      > Now you can get 0% interest for 24 months on iPhone XR when you trade in your current iPhone at an Apple Retail Store. Monthly payments required.

      It's the first thing you see on the page, even on mobile, before you when see a picture or any details about the phones themselves. It's also pushed very heavily throughout the entire site as you browse.

    • nradov 1831 days ago
      They could even bundle in a MacBook, iPad, and watch at a higher price tier so that the hard core Apple fans could pay a single monthly subscription fee and always have the latest model of every device.
      • Tecuane 1831 days ago
        This sort of thing could not appeal to me any more, honestly. I've been trying to work out the most cost-efficient way of doing exactly this.

        Of course, I am aware that _the_ most cost-efficient way is to accept that having the brand new and shiny every year is - for the most part - utterly pointless, but hey.

      • stringgames 1831 days ago
        I wonder if a subscription fee for hardware would appeal to businesses.
        • shimms 1831 days ago
          If they have to buy a laptop anyway, spreading the cost over the life of the equipment turns a capital expense on the balance sheet into an operating expense on the P/L statement, and can have some pretty nice tax benefits (jurisdiction dependent of course).

          Often plant and equipment is financed this way - photocopier for example are seldom purchased outright, and come bundled with service, support and consumables.

        • ac29 1831 days ago
          Many major PC manufacturers already offer leasing, which could effectively be thought of as a subscription: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/learn/dell-business-lease
        • dillondoyle 1831 days ago
          I wonder what the depreciation tax differences would be? For us we buy hardware in the 'on' years (our business runs in 2 year cycles)
        • Bekwnn 1831 days ago
          I'd imagine so, given that's what hosting services like AWS are (along with the related software).
        • hiei 1831 days ago
          Doubt it - most businesses barely want to shell 5-10$/mo for a single user license of software.
          • yjftsjthsd-h 1831 days ago
            Yeah, but they're already paying for hardware.
        • megaremote 1831 days ago
          It does. We lease all our laptops.
    • kristianc 1831 days ago
      > Apple Music, Apple News Magazine, Apple TV and Apple Game

      This is where I get slightly lost with this strategy. There doesn't seem to be a discernable advantage to me as a consumer bundling all of these together versus the amount of lock in.

      Something like iMessage is unique to iOS and a big benefit - music, news, TV I can get at least as good elsewhere often for less.

      • ksec 1830 days ago
        >There doesn't seem to be a discernable advantage to me as a consumer bundling all of these together versus the amount of lock in.

        Branding. Spotify had a hard time getting people to streaming, and Apple Music helped pushed the world into Music Streaming Services. So together they have grown the Music Streaming Market by ~5 times since launch.

        People don't want the hassle and they want to have access to content. So instead of looking for 5 different package and doing comparison, they decide to let Apple do the job for them.

        Considering how much utter crap Apple Music was when launched and still getting some much needed improvement today, the quality of services might not weight as much as ease of access to majority of the iPhone user.

    • Shivetya 1831 days ago
      considering the fight to break Apple from the App store this would be a politicians dream state. the current political climate is to demagogue any large corporation which does not bend to their will or more politely, contribute properly to the interest of the politicians and their supporters.

      Any such program would instantly be set upon with demands for a low income version which in effect would be subsidized by those paying an elevate price. All the while the carriers and other phone makers would be off the hook and show no interest in following suit with similar programs

      • AsyncAwait 1831 days ago
        > the current political climate is to demagogue any large corporation which does not bend to their will or more politely, contribute properly to the interest of the politicians and their supporters.

        Corporations have been exercising massive influence over politics worldwide, orchestrating & supporting coups, stealing natural resources, bribing, doctoring data etc. for centuries, but now there's like 3 newly elected congress people not taking PAC money and talking about this a tiny bit and suddenly we should feel bad for the poor multinationals?

        Spare me.

    • onetimemanytime 1831 days ago
      AAPL has to report quarterly revenues, or 4 times a year. Time will come for what you said in due time. Apple is valued close to a $ trillion so growth must be in double digits or else.

      Apple will look to replace with its own version, whatever is making money in its App store. Like Google did and is doing by keeping clicks to ads or Google services.

      • DVassallo 1831 days ago
        Apple makes $60B net profit/year, with $120B in book value (assets - liabilities). It doesn’t need any growth to justify its $900B value. All it needs to do to keep that value is to not shrink too much.
  • necubi 1831 days ago
    To me, the clear indication that they're serious about this transition to services will be making them available on third-party devices. Android has ~55% market share in the US, and >80% globally. Roku has 35% of the smart TV market (through both their dedicated devices and TV integrations), Apple has ~15%.

    A video streaming service that's only available on iOS and Apple TV will be inevitably niche, and no real competition for Netflix. This also means they will likely have to pay a premium for content (and a _much_ larger amount per user) as creators will prefer to be on platforms where more people will see their work.

    But ultimately, supporting Android and 3rd party streaming devices goes against Apple's DNA. Apple still sees itself as a hardware company, and software and services exist to give people reasons to buy their hardware.

    • andor 1831 days ago
      "To me, the clear indication that they're serious about this transition to services will be making them available on third-party devices"

      This just happened:

      "Apple is putting iTunes on Samsung TVs" - https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/6/18170797/samsung-2019-tvs-...

      • chipotle_coyote 1831 days ago
        That's a big—and new—step for Apple, and I'm sure it's connected to the video service. They don't want it to be "Apple product exclusive," even if I'm sure they'd rather you use Apple products to watch it.

        But Apple hasn't ever been quite as exclusive as they're painted to be when it comes to peripherals and services. They've had iTunes on Windows for a very long time (yes, it's kind of a trash fire, but it's still there), and that was mostly to support the iPod. They have iCloud for Windows. Apple Music has an Android app, is supported by Sonos and Amazon Alexa, and even has a web-based API (no official "cloud player," but there's an open source one out there which Apple knows about and is apparently okay with as long as it doesn't use the word "Apple" in its name). And, of course, a lot of non-Apple products can receive AirPlay, and they appear to have gotten fairly aggressive in the last few months at moving AirPlay 2 into the third-party market.

        So, Apple Services have been on third-party devices for years; they've just historically been a lot less enthusiastic about it than companies like Spotify and Amazon have been. I would expect to see them be way more enthusiastic from here on.

        • AsyncAwait 1831 days ago
          I'd very much appreciate them making AirPlay an open protocol, enabling any app to freely stream to AirPlay 2 hardware. Are they really benefiting that much from the licensing deals vs the ecosystem it could spawn? They'd still be producing most of the AurPlay receiver hardware people'd buy, just not the transmitting end.
          • chipotle_coyote 1831 days ago
            Yeah, I think it would benefit them to make it open, also. It's really hard for me to think of a protocol that benefits from being proprietary, especially if you're trying to build an ecosystem around it.

            (I think there's probably a good case along those lines for an open "Internet of Things" protocol that would let any IoT device work with any voice assistant or other controller -- probably by "publishing" a set of control terms for it, like AppleScript dictionaries and whatever the ARexx equivalent was on the Amiga -- but so far I'm not sure anyone's even proposed that.)

      • CharlesW 1831 days ago
        > This just happened:

        Yep! Other examples include the Apple Music service and the AirPlay 2 protocol, both of which are available on multiple non-Apple platforms.

        • AsyncAwait 1831 days ago
          As far as I am aware AirPlay 2 is only licenseable for the receiver end of the protocol, not the transmitter part.
    • alwillis 1831 days ago
      Apple has sold over 2 billion iOS devices, so by definition, a service that runs on iOS is not niche.

      Sure, Android has more but Apple has the best 2 billion customers available.

    • graeme 1831 days ago
      I think the strategy is to make airplay 2 available on any smart tv or device that they can.

      Then, the streaming service will be available to anyone with any apple device: any iphone, ipad, mac.

      A large chunk of people have at least one idevice or mac in a household. For instance, many android users have ipads.

      All of these can get the service, and all will be able to put it on a screen with airplay 2.

      Don't know if it will compensate, but that appears to be the strategy for the dilemma you're describing. I think they may also make their exclusive content available on any apple hardware.

      • jedberg 1831 days ago
        I use my iPad to stream content for my mother in law to my TV using AirPlay. It's a huge pain in the ass. She can't do it for herself, I have to set it up because of the various steps involved. I don't see that as a viable workaround.
        • graeme 1831 days ago
          Thanks! I don’t know the difficulties involved; I have no TV, just a projector. What steps did you have to do?

          I agree that if most devices are cumbersome to stream to, then that’s too much friction for almost everyone.

          • jedberg 1831 days ago
            It's not complicated, it's just not intuitive.

            1) Open the app

            2) Make it start streaming

            3) Make it full screen

            4) Swipe up from the bottom of the screen (this is the part she never remembers)

            5) Activate AirPlay and select the right device (in my house they are Apple TVs so they have good names, but if it were in every TV, they would have strange names

            5b) If you've never streamed to this TV before, put in the auth code

            At this point it will play to the TV. However, since I have an older iPad, it plays a 16:9 image in a 4:3 box on a 16:9 TV, so it doesn't use the whole screen. So then you have to go to the TV and change it to "zoom" mode to use the whole screen, which of course isn't at full resolution at that point.

            • kalleboo 1831 days ago
              The iOS "Videos" app used for iTunes video purchases doesn't require fullscreening, has the airplay streaming button right there on the video (removing the swipe up step), and it streams the raw video instead of doing screen mirroring (avoiding the letterbox/zoom issue), so presumably an Apple streaming service would also be easier to use
    • tssva 1831 days ago
      Apple Music is available on Android, so I suspect any video service would be too.
      • petra 1831 days ago
        Is it popular on Android ? Because last I checked, maybe a year ago , their Android app sucked.
  • tyfon 1831 days ago
    > The company would collect these monthly fees, then divide up the revenue between developers based on how much time users spend playing their games

    Sounds terrible for short indie games and good for long grindy games.

    That's not a future I want for my gaming. Not that I am an apple customer in the first place but hopefully this won't affect what is delivered on the other platforms.

    • seanwilson 1831 days ago
      > Sounds terrible for short indie games and good for long grindy games.

      What would be a good system to determine a fair amount between games when a user is paying a fixed amount per month for all games?

      You could ask for ratings (e.g. overall, originality) but these will be a lot more nuanced than time spent. You could ask users what split between games they think is fair (feels like a lot to ask especially if you're playing a lot of games).

      • deltron3030 1831 days ago
        >What would be a good system to determine a fair amount between games when a user is paying a fixed amount per month for all games?

        It could be made relative to the time that needs to be spent to complete the game, and maybe a different category for open ended and multiplayer games.

        Treating all games equal would be bad design, because "game" is often only the most generic category they share, they're digital experiences and should be treated as such.

      • derefr 1831 days ago
        > You could ask users what split between games they think is fair (feels like a lot to ask especially if you're playing a lot of games).

        Generate a pie chart based on playtimes, and then let the user adjust it to match their subjective experience. Pre-bias the pie slices by multiplying the default percentage cut by their rating of the game if they've given one.

        • duncanawoods 1831 days ago
          I think it could create some fascinating effects - probably not ones they would want! E.g. players might punish someone like EA despite playing their games or they might reward "aspirational" games they barely touch.
      • duncanawoods 1831 days ago
        > What would be a good system to determine a fair amount

        Maybe something more like other content services - ensure there are multiple competitive fixed-rate game services that take risks and auction/bid on getting a specific game for a season at a time. It could include both an upfront payment and a performance payment.

        • tyfon 1831 days ago
          That could work, although most services (gamepass, ps now) just buys the game for a period with upfront cash. A performance element would most likely reduce the former.
      • Felz 1831 days ago
        A bit of a wild idea:

        Deduce how important a game is to people by introducing small amounts of artificial delay when playing it. This could be input delay, or maybe the game freezes up for a second every minute, or it takes a bit longer to launch or something.

        Measure the dropoff rate. People should be really willing to keep playing great games even when inconvenient, and drop marginally-fun grindy games faster. With a large enough install base, you shouldn't need to degrade anyone's experience very much to get enough data.

        • techdragon 1831 days ago
          Not a wild idea at all.

          This is pretty much how people A/B test for maximum revenue in “free” to play games monetised using micro transactions and other in app purchases.

          It’s turned into pure evil there and it’s probably just as likely to spawn pure evil somewhere else.

    • jayd16 1831 days ago
      Seems to be focused on iPhone games which is already dominated by the freemium model. Maybe they'll offer some kind of "season pass" that gives you some daily amount of MTX currency for every game that supports it.

      I agree, it doesn't seem feasible for narrative driven games.

    • drivingmenuts 1831 days ago
      Most of the long, grindy AAA games are on Windows only, so really, not much worries there.

      I have yet to see a game listed in the App Store that wasn't also on Steam, so I'm not worried about that either.

      Apple may be good at many things, but games is not one of them. There's not enough bang for your buck on the Mac platform when it comes to gaming and you can't easily and cheaply mix-n-match your hardware like you can with Windows.

      I love Mac for everything else, but if I going to seriously game, I will buy a Windows box and use it for that only (well, and running Linux in a VM - for reasons).

      • tyfon 1831 days ago
        I'm doing my PC gaming exclusively in linux now a days with steam+proton helping out a lot.

        Just bought sekiro on friday and it runs like a dream without me having to configure a thing.

        • AsyncAwait 1831 days ago
          Yeah, Linux gaming is in a good shape & projects like https://lutris.net make it seriously accessible for anyone without further configuration on their part.
      • drivingmenuts 1829 days ago
        My needs are based on only occasionally needing to run a Linux VM but running games more often. More like an XBox that isn’t locked down. I’d be paying way more for hardware and the cost of buying Win 10 isn’t that expensive anymore.
    • lordnacho 1831 days ago
      > Sounds terrible for short indie games and good for long grindy games.

      Short and long are terms that make sense for games that have a natural start and end. Not every game has that story-likeness, so even a simple game that can keep people's attention (or get a lot of little slices) could do well.

      • tyfon 1831 days ago
        Yeah, so the market will be filled with never-ending grindy games. Not my kind of thing.

        The only one I've gotten into of that nature is the binding of isaac which would undoubtedly do well under this scheme. But we need the story driven games too and they are going to have a hard time under these conditions.

    • usaphp 1831 days ago
      Well technically it takes less time and tesources to develop a short indie game vs a long game, so it’s reasonable that they will get more money. Also If a long game is boring nobody will play it longer than it’s worth
      • zrm 1831 days ago
        That's not true. It's trivial to create a game that will take arbitrarily long to win by just increasing the number of times the user has to perform the same task in order to advance.

        That is a trade off against being boring, but having developers optimize games to explicitly be as time consuming as possible and just not-boring enough that you don't quit them in disgust is not really a helpful incentive.

      • badsectoracula 1831 days ago
        I see you do not know about JRPGs :-P.
    • l24ztj 1831 days ago
      Grinding is perceived as a negative; if a grindy game is good enough to keep you grinding, why shouldn't it deserve to make more money?
    • Chris_Chambers 1831 days ago
      This also makes it incredibly easy for Apple to secretly pocket a larger percentage of the profit.
  • torstenvl 1831 days ago
    Apple has almost always been a services company. It's deeply sad that its current leadership doesn't understand that. The only difference is that the service Apple used to provide was a friction-free experience on its platform.

    It feels like the current Apple doesn't think of product experience as a service, with amortized costs built into the purchase price. In their eyes, at least insofar as it seems from my perspective, the relationship stops as soon as you decide to buy the product. Maybe a limited relationship exists afterward, if you buy AppleCare. But they don't seem to care one whit if the experience on their product sucks. Increasingly, Apple software argues with you instead of adopting the philosophy of "it just works."

    I'm extremely unlikely to pay Apple for a content service, given its current track record of user-hostility.

  • liquidify 1831 days ago
    Their products are stagnating because they are less robust and more expensive. The value just isn't there compared to some of golden era hardware. Obviously services can help them grow, but as user of apple laptops, I've felt abandoned for quite a while now. Their growth in those fields are stagnating because their price / quality ratio has reduced significantly.
  • whatshisface 1831 days ago
    >This service will combine stories from newspapers, websites, and magazines into a new tab in the Apple News app on iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

    >Apple plans to charge about $10 a month.

    Is it just me, or is there no way this could possibly be worth it? Hacker News and Reddit already combine stories from newspapers and websites, and they do it for free. I have a hard time believing that a managed source selected from a few business partners could possibly be as valuable as a crowd-driven scan across the entire internet.

    • Despegar 1831 days ago
      Hacker News and Reddit don't license content from the WSJ, which is why every story has some guy in the comments with a link to outline.com that pirates the article.
    • mark_l_watson 1831 days ago
      Cal Newport’s new book ‘Digital Minimalism’ offers a good viewpoint on why this is useful: how much time to you lose mindlessly clicking around on HN and Reddit each week? (Unfortunately, I keep track of this and it is disturbing.) With a quality news feed the hope would be that you would get information you need with spending less of your time.

      I am taking a different track towards digital minimalism: I don’t count time spend reading eBooks and listening to audio books. But I am monitoring and reducing empty non-productive time on my devices.

      • meruru 1831 days ago
        What do you use to keep track? I should probably start doing too.
        • karmelapple 1831 days ago
          RescueTime is very powerful and can do this.
          • techdragon 1831 days ago
            I wish it was more powerful on my phone and tablet. I love RescueTime
            • karmelapple 1828 days ago
              It now works pretty well on iOS devices!
    • __ralston3 1831 days ago
      If you're a uMatrix fan, just open up the tool in your favorite browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc) and see what cost you pay for that Reddit service. Hint - it ain't free. You pay in data. Reddit has a horde of remote JS embedded just waiting to read every single little thing you do on the platform

      (Not saying Apple also isn't collecting various metrics, but certainly saying that Apple isn't trying to collect every little data point and sell to advertisers, like Reddit. Disclaimer - I <3 reddit)

      • meruru 1831 days ago
        I lurk Reddit with JS disabled. It used to work perfectly, but recent changes made it so that you have to enable first-party scripts to see all the comments in threads with lots of comments.
    • Waterluvian 1831 days ago
      Don't forget that most people aren't on HN and Reddit.

      Pricetags aren't for do-able vs. not. They're for convenience.

      Many people can't and won't learn to use Reddit and dig into the comments section on their iPad (their only daily conduit to the internet).

    • bilbo0s 1831 days ago
      I'm not sanguine on their future, but I'll wish them luck.

      Text based media is not like movies, music, or video games. Especially when that text is at once fungible and quickly expiring.

    • mrweasel 1831 days ago
      It could be, $10 a month for news, from a variety of source is a great deal. Back in the real world: There simply isn't going to be sufficient demand. People who will pay $10 per month already pay more for a source they picked.

      What possible content can they put in there to attract people that already have newspaper subscriptions?

    • closeparen 1831 days ago
      IIRC It includes access to paywalled articles, at a substantial discount to buying a subscription to each paywall separately.
      • empath75 1831 days ago
        It does but not the post or the times so pretty bad deal for us news.
        • 52-6F-62 1831 days ago
          I've been using the app a bit since the beta came out. Much of the front page of WaPo and NYT are available without a subscription.
        • toasterlovin 1831 days ago
          Assuming people actually care that their news comes from NYT and WaPo. I’m not sure that’s the case outside of the chattering classes.
        • luckydata 1831 days ago
          Looking at the lineup they will be killing it in the Fox news demographics which is also heavily skewed towards apple devices anyways.
    • tinus_hn 1831 days ago
      But for how long? More and more people are blocking ads and more and more sites are putting up paywalls.
  • bsaul 1831 days ago
    Funny how an announcement looks different depending on the slope of your income. Apple reaching new markets vs apple « reinventing itself » is a complete different story. Apple makes great devices and can leverage that to conquer service subscription, but I don’t think anyone has been impressed by apple online services or technologies on their own merits...
    • TheSoftwareGuy 1831 days ago
      >I don’t think anyone has been impressed by apple online services or technologies on their own merits...

      I disagree with that. iMessage is perhaps the best IM service out there. iCloud works seeessly across devices, in a way im not sure any other cloud storage solution does

      • adamson 1831 days ago
        I imagine it’s a lot easier to integrate your storage service with devices when you have the freedom to change the storage APIs on said devices as you see fit
        • yjftsjthsd-h 1831 days ago
          Never let it be said that vertical integration is without significant benefits :-)
      • bsaul 1831 days ago
        iMessage is the only IM platform where i’m never sure if the person has actually received my message, if he’ll be able to respond to me, and where group conversation fork half the time into split conversations between members of the group.

        All this because they tried to transparently merge phone number and icloud account as well as SMS and internet messages. Between people that may or may not be using iOS , icloud, or imessage ( or any combination of the above).

        As for icloud, i suppose you’ve never ran out of space as a user, nor as a developer have you tried syncing a core data db or keychain custom data over that service. I’ve been developping on iOS since iOS 3 and i still can’t give you a good forecast on how syncing will work in practice.

  • jedberg 1831 days ago
    They're gonna need a huge internal cultural shift if this is going to work. Their entire company is built around hardware. Services are "just good enough". No one buys an iPhone because of the services offered -- you buy the services because you already have the iPhone and it works better than the third party services. But I don't know anyone who adores the Apple services.

    Or to put it another way, even if they offered the Apple services on non-apple devices, I doubt many people who don't already have an Apple device would sign up.

    Their services make money in spite of how they work, not because of it. If they want to compete on services, they actually have to make good services and prioritize them internally.

    • hug 1831 days ago
      On the other hand, if all of the services are “good enough” that they become the default option for every iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV, that’s a very healthy user base from which to progress.

      That said, Apple service excel in certain ways: Apple Music with Sound Check, for example, is easily the best sounding mobile music streaming. iCloud Drive is the most seamless internet storage account for mobile devices.

    • tootie 1831 days ago
      Do they have any iconic software that wasn't appropriated from NeXT? Keynote is pretty good. Everything else is either awful or basic.
      • verisimilidude 1831 days ago
        Pages was excellent during the 00s.

        Then it wasn't.

        They removed much of its power in one of the annual updates. I think it happened in concert with the launch of their iOS version of Pages. Fortunately many of those discarded concepts found their way into LibreOffice.

        I know a lot of people feel the same way about Final Cut.

      • jedberg 1831 days ago
        Keynote is fantastic. But it’s not an internet service.
  • gjvc 1831 days ago
    Alan Kay once remarked “I don't know what Silicon Valley will do when it runs out of Doug's ideas."
    • projectileboy 1831 days ago
      +1 - feels like a once great product company is now taking its strategy cues from market analysts.
      • pavs 1830 days ago
        Last I checked, Apple is still the biggest company in the world in market cap. They are also on the very top in terms of revenue and profit.
        • wayneftw 1829 days ago
          Both things can be true. Fortunes do rise and fall. Microsoft used to be the 800 pound Gorilla and now they're not.

          Personally, I hope they waste a huge amount of money on this push and fail miserably.

          I also hope they lose their anti-trust case and get forced to play fair because you certainly cannot hope to make any money in the smartphone app market while ignoring Apple/iOS. They do have a monopoly on paying customers as someone else in this thread pointed out.

  • yuchi 1831 days ago
    I had the hardest time parsing the title. For a moment I thought it was talking about a new company, from apple, specialized in digital transformation or similar (“Reinvention as a Service”)
    • joegahona 1831 days ago
      Which is why journalists and copy editors shouldn't remove "on" before every occurrence of a weekday.
    • mclightning 1831 days ago
      I felt the same thing, I thought Real Monday was like a service they are starting lol
  • minimaxir 1831 days ago
    Of all the potential announcements, the gaming service is the most curious. Like the just-announced Google Stadia, this 100% depends on the games offered, and the cost of the service itself. $10/month for $5 premium iOS games (which go on sale very frequently) is a hard value proposition to other services like Xbox Game Pass which have $60 games for the same monthly price.

    If they do bundle it with News/Music, now that would be interesting.

  • mark_l_watson 1831 days ago
    I am reading a different Bloomberg article right now on this subject https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-03-22/apple-...

    I am 100% sure (infinitely sure!) that I will sign up for Apple’s service to try it out and I am ‘almost sure’ that Apple will face a lot of regulatory and legal challenges.

    By personal preference I would like to see more open platforms and, off topic for this conversation, a more distributed web.

    I don’t think we will get there though. Years ago author William Gibson probably ‘got it right’ in predicting what the future will be like: corporations become all-powerful, governments become a joke if they exist at all, and talented people align themself with a corporation as we self identify now as the citizen of a country.

  • joegahona 1831 days ago
    > Apple News: This service will combine stories from newspapers, websites, and magazines into a new tab in the Apple News app on iPhones, iPads, and Macs.

    I still don’t understand how this is any different from what’s happening in the Apple News app right now, other than it will cost $10 per month starting on Monday and is now free. Also, the Texture app requires that you _download_ issues of magazines, whereas magazines on Apple News are currently instantaneous.

    • intopieces 1831 days ago
      Access to paywalled content for a single fee.
      • joegahona 1831 days ago
        Maybe... one other possibility here: https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/14/how-much-can-apple-charge...

        > But there’s always the possibility that Apple starts with an “all you can eat monthly magazines” tier, then adds a pricier “all you can eat monthly magazines plus daily paywalled news” tier. This could give newspapers a way to make more money from the service — a reported sticking point to participation from the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post.

  • msoad 1831 days ago
    if Apple combines Music, News and TV subscriptions into one payment that's competitive with sum of those subscriptions it's huge! I would probably drop Spotify and get Apple Music if I can save me money and give me more access to content. Uh, if it works with their Family Sharing plans it would be golden!
    • joegahona 1831 days ago
      I think that’s the key to this thing’s success. There’s no way enough people are going to pay $120 per year for newspaper/magazine articles to make it worthwhile for publishers or for users.
      • 52-6F-62 1831 days ago
        AFAIK Texture was doing quite well.
        • joegahona 1831 days ago
          I’d be curious where you got that information. Everything I’ve read has sounded simliar to this: https://adage.com/article/digital/greedy-apple-half-publishi...

          > The skeptical publishers point to the original Texture—it didn't work--as proof the concept is shaky. The publishers say the revenue was meager, and the app itself sputtered through several incarnations before being sold off to Apple.

          • 52-6F-62 1831 days ago
            Which publishers? Texture was owned by publishers.

            In 2016 it was doing quite well (remember this is publishing money and not tech VC money. Success in publishing does not look the same in dollars as success does in SV tech): https://nypost.com/2016/06/21/the-netflix-of-magazines-is-ab...

            Apple bought Texture this time last year and then it spread they had planned their own news platform. It's no surprise they were scaling back Texture as a company.

  • Apocryphon 1831 days ago
    > The service will focus on original content, including TV shows and movies from producers such as Damien Chazelle, M. Night Shyamalan, and Oprah.

    Makes one wonder if they will show a teaser for the Asimov's Foundation show.

  • GeekyBear 1831 days ago
    Apple has long provided free services to the people who buy Apple hardware while selling the content that they have to pay to license from other content owners (while taking a cut of the sale).

    So far, I'm not seeing a change in their business model so much as im seeing a change in how much focus is placed on the profitability of the latter.

    If the rumors prove true and the streaming video content they produce in house will be free to those with Apple devices, but content they license from others costs money (with Apple taking a cut), this will definitely be Apple remaining true to form.

  • FailMore 1831 days ago
    I think Apple should have been bolder a long time ago. It should be the case that with Apple you get (near) global 4G/5G coverage on all their devices. So you take your laptop out in Spain and snap you’re online. Apples hardware is their bread and butter. I think they need to view it as their amazon prime... as in make a services ecosystem which means you want to stay using their hardware instead of just adding paid subscription services to their existing offering.
  • anongraddebt 1831 days ago
    Perhaps I'm overly critical, but I find most paywalled journalism (let alone non-paywalled) to be low-quality. I had a subscription to The Information, and while I initially found their journalism to be high-quality, I eventually realized this perception was strongly shaped by my experience of pervasive low-quality journalism elsewhere. I cancelled my subscription because while The Information was better than pretty much anything else, it still didn't seem high-quality (more moderate-quality).

    Is there anything that surpasses the quality of The Economist in this environment?*

    *(not that The Economist is clearly non-relatively high-quality)

    • pembrook 1831 days ago
      Yea the information is probably the highest quality tech news out there (that publishes with volume), but I agree it often falls into regurgitating the same narratives everybody else is talking about with zero added value.

      I’ve come to realize the only journalism worth paying for comes from exceptional individual writers who are allowed to write about whatever they find interesting (and have something unique to say). Ben Thompson’s Stratechery fits into this category and is often the only person writing about tech who brings unique thinking and new perspective to whatever the topic of the day is.

    • bnastic 1831 days ago
      I pay for The Times and find them quite good. I agree and disagree with their columnists in equal measure, but I see them as honest(ly trying). The Economist, on the other hand, I’ve ditched after many years. Not worth it anymore.

      Tech news I don’t pay for and don’t expect I ever will (LWN excluded, I’ve been a paying member for years). Majority have no idea what they are talking about anymore and are just holding on for dear life in this ever changing landscape (like most Apple bloggers, for example).

  • amelius 1831 days ago
    It would be fun if the EU enforced something like the browser ballot screen, giving users choice of content provider on Apple devices.

    It also makes sense from an environmental perspective: why have two different devices when you can view all content on one.

  • dfee 1831 days ago
    I might replace my FT sub with this. Only one datapoint though. But I’ll sub day 1.
    • mrweasel 1831 days ago
      On the other hand there no way that I'd cancel my subscription to The Economists paper edition for a digital only solution.

      I suppose I'm not the target audience for Apple. Reading the news is something I do away from digital device. It helps me practise focusing and it helps me to relax.

  • patrickg_zill 1831 days ago
    They certainly haven't been focused on designing Macintosh hardware... Isn't the Pro level version of their desktop offering, essentially unchanged for the past 5 years?
  • bitxbit 1831 days ago
    This is basically the cable TV model for the modern age, no?
  • hartator 1831 days ago
    Still hoping for the ARM Macbook insteal of Netflix made by Apple.
  • onetimemanytime 1831 days ago
    Brilliant and the only thing left, short of another iPhone reinvention miracle (not likely for a while.) Many of us have 10 year old PCs that do 100% of the things we need, smartphones are going that way too. So milk the ecosystem.
    • gisely 1831 days ago
      So rent seeking is brilliant?
      • merpnderp 1831 days ago
        There’s no lockin, regulatory or otherwise. This is just plane old offering something people want in exchange for money.
      • onetimemanytime 1831 days ago
        So selling a phone that costs $200 for $800 is brilliant?

        --Yeah. Brilliant in the money making way. (Ethics we can debate tomorrow, until the cows come home.)

  • gjvc 1831 days ago
    From the article "The company has only used the Steve Jobs Theater at its new headquarters twice since it opened two years ago."

    Something is in decline at Apple.

    • spiralganglion 1831 days ago
      They use it for internal events all the time.
  • Stratoscope 1831 days ago
    iPaas.
  • tyingq 1831 days ago
    Article is paywalled for me. Are these streaming services going to be usable with non-Apple devices?
  • golemotron 1831 days ago
    Great. We are the product now.
  • ilovecaching 1831 days ago
    I wonder if now is a good time to short some Netflix stock.
    • kbenson 1831 days ago
      That depends on whether you think Netflix has successfully transitioned into a network. They release a huge amount of original content now. If I had any apple devices, I would be more likely to drop HBONOW or Hulu than Netflix, and since I pay for all three I'm sort of the target audience (except for the whole no iPhone/iPad thing, which is also probably something they should think about).
      • awad 1831 days ago
        Anecdote of one: I have all three as well. As the days go by, I find myself questioning if Netflix is still worth it as I'm not necessarily a big fan of a lot of their original content and think HBO seems to do a better job in licensing the movies I'm interested in (to say nothing of their amazing original content). I think at this point I only keep Netflix around out of habit as it's something I share with family and will myself occasionally indulge in some older licensed TV programs not on Hulu.
        • kbenson 1831 days ago
          HBO has some big-ticket items, but Netflix is more consistent in dropping new series for me to try. It's still my go-to place for content since there's more than I have time to watch. I just looked up their list of original content[1] for refresh my mind, and quite a few were extremely good in my opinion.

          - House of Cards: I only got a little into the second season before I got busy, but what I saw was high quality and interesting.

          - Orange is the new Black: My wife still loves this series

          - Stranger Things: An honest to god phenomenon. The second season was weaker IMO, but I'm not sure how it could be as good as the first. That's a high bar to hit.

          - The Crown: I caught a lot of it as my wife watched. Pretty good, even if a blond Doctor Who was somewhat distracting.

          - A Series of Unfortunate Events: The kids liked this, as some of them are going through the books.

          - Altered Carbon: Refreshingly good science fiction. Main character casting a little odd, since it's more obvious now than it was when I was younger how odd and slightly off-putting it is to cast someone with the physique of Arnold Schwarzenegger as a science fiction lead. At the same time, it's now fitting (or a trope) because of all the science fiction he helmed in the 1990's.

          - Lost in Space: Interesting, but ultimately spoiled slightly by the contrived plot. Better writing and this would have been extremely good rather than worth watching, but slightly disappointing.

          - The Haunting: A nice interweaving of stories, and creepy series. I liked the ending. I have friends who didn't.

          That's just from the drama section of the list. There's plenty in the other sections too, such as Maniac and Russian Dolls which I watched recently that were good, and documentary section has a bunch of good things I've seen as well. Some of he Marvel series' were pretty good too (season one of Jessica Jones was excellent on so many levels).

          That's a small fraction of what they released. Looking at the list now, there's no way I would cancel Netflix before Hulu, and probably HBO also. There's things I want to watch on those (for different reasons), but now that I examine it, it's clear that I use and value what Netflix is giving me way more than the other two.

          1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...

          • rhino369 1831 days ago
            Netflix is much more bang for your buck. But I think HBO has a much better signal to noise ratio. Also HBO has some all time classics, which netflix lacks. I think Netflix has a lot of B+/A-, but it's missing an A or A+.

            A lot of Netlix's new content is downright bad.

      • ilovecaching 1831 days ago
        A lot of my friends and family are ready to give up their Netflix subs. We've seen most of what interests us. Apple on the other hand has unlimited supplies of money and more power to make deals with content providers.
        • kbenson 1831 days ago
          > We've seen most of what interests us.

          What about all the original content?

          • ilovecaching 1831 days ago
            TBH a lot of it isn't that good. We also like watching a lot of reruns or series that we already care about.
    • Despegar 1831 days ago
      No you should short the companies that can't hack it in a DTC world. Netflix isn't a good a target for that. Both Netflix and Apple's service will grow for a long time to come.
    • chx 1831 days ago
      Dangerous. OTOH if someone did the "buy the day after the dip" and "sell the day after the next peak" then they'd bought Netflix stock on Dec 27, 2018 at 250.11 and sold at Jan 09, 2019 at 317.71 -- it's 25% in two weeks...
      • prewett 1831 days ago
        How would someone actually do that? The only way to identify the dips and peaks is N days afterwards, where larger N increase the confidence of that it really was the max/min.
    • elektor 1831 days ago
      Yes, both Netflix and Spotify are in a tough position where their rivals (Apple and Amazon) have a much larger war chest to chip away at the market leaders of both movies and music streaming.
      • scarface74 1831 days ago
        Spotify is in a much worse competitive position than Netflix. Nothing separates Spotify from Apple Music. Any competitor can license music from all of the music providers. There is no reason for most people to keep both Spotify and Apple Music.

        Netflix has spent years negotiating TV rights to third party content and releasing its own. Apple has a long way to go.

        • com2kid 1831 days ago
          > Any competitor can license music from all of the music providers. There is no reason for most people to keep both Spotify and Apple Music.

          Android is 81% of the US market.

          Unless Apple Music comes to android, I don't see Spotify being threatened.

        • joegahona 1831 days ago
          > _Nothing separates Spotify from Apple Music._

          Does Apple Music have something similar (or as good as) Spotify Discover? That's a differentiator for sure.

          • chipotle_coyote 1831 days ago
            I think Apple Music is good for discovery. Probably not as good, but for many of us it hits the "good enough" mark. I confess I'm an Apple Music subscriber mostly because I'm just in that ecosystem, and it's relatively low effort; I'm also a Tidal subscriber because it was the only service integrated with Roon (a music server package I use), although I'm still debating that one.
          • scarface74 1831 days ago
            Something similar. Yes. I’ve heard that it wasn’t as good. But is that something you would want to base your company on?

            It’s just like Facebook stopped the growth of Snapchat just by introducing Stories.

            There are literally almost two decades of failures in the streaming subscription music space. Like Jobs said about DropBox. Streaming music is becoming a feature not a product.

  • tanilama 1831 days ago
    But if I am not an iOS device owner, what incentive do I have to use Apple's services? Currently I see none.
  • gonyea 1831 days ago
    Apple has completely lost its way under Cook that it’s now just rent seeking. They’re just scrambling to fill a $$$ hole for their investors at this point.

    Apple is incredibly bad at building services and has been for their entire existence. They cannot multi-task and things will languish for 2-3 years at a time.

    • gonyea 1831 days ago
      Lmao at every critical Apple comment getting downvotes. What Apple service routinely gets feature enhancements every year?

      Apple cannot walk and chew gum at the same time.

  • true_tuna 1831 days ago
    Service from a company that presents two options “yes” and “[nag] me again later” Fuck Apple. Any company that takes its users ability to say “no” is not worth our attention.
  • jordache 1831 days ago
    haha stupid ass Apple's 2 factor authentication, provides the pin number on the same machine that I'm authenticating on. These people do not know services.
  • subdane 1831 days ago
    If Apple's going to be a services company now, wouldn't it be great if they kept themselves honest (and their products great) by honoring a level playing field for the services they compete with e.g. Spotify? Imagine if services like iCloud, Pages and Mail were comparable to or better than the existing product landscape? Apple's been holding themselves to too low a standard for too long. Maps was a wakeup call for them, it'd be cool if they lit a fire like that across the board for their products.
    • on_and_off 1831 days ago
      They have no incentive to keep themselves honest.

      I have worked on a music streaming service for a while and our iOS app was a big pain. We often had months long gaps where we were unable to get an update published.

      The good thing about Google being this unfocused is that they are unable to do even think about doing the same and favor Play Music or whatever they are calling it now .. again, they are not strong on focus.

      I kinda hope that at some point publishing an app will be considered an utility so it can't be so easily gamed by the platform owner.

    • jelling 1831 days ago
      They should, they won't, and either they won't be successful with services, or they will, and it will lead to an anti-trust lawsuit. But the company is just too big to move the needle any other way.
    • stcredzero 1831 days ago
      If Apple's going to be a services company now, wouldn't it be great if they kept themselves honest (and their products great) by honoring a level playing field for the services they compete with e.g. Spotify?

      I think this sentence speaks for itself. Apple's record on whether they will discourage competitors on their own turf speaks for itself.

      Maps was a wakeup call for them, it'd be cool if they lit a fire like that across the board for their products.

      True, but the tendency is for people and companies to push it out of their minds as an "aberration" and refuse to learn a thing.