Apple does not trust its own customers to make decisions for themselves. That is why you can't side load apps on iOS. It is why apps can't do things in the background or with the screen off. It is why you can't put custom faces on an Apple Watch. It is why you cannot scan WiFi for nearby routers. It is why there is absolutely no adult content on any of Apple's services. Apple won't even add an option users can turn on to remove these restrictions. You are just not allowed to do it because Apple said so.
Now Apple is starting a TV network with carefully curated content. No controversial subjects will be allowed. Nothing that will really challenge our deeply held beliefs. Nothing that anyone anywhere will consider offensive. No real risk taking. We can expect some shows to pass Apple's muster at first but later be pulled when they accidentally trip over a subject that is suddenly controversial or Apple takes a dislike to. That is what Apple does on its App Store. God help the producers if any of their talent do anything to upset Apple's sensibilities at any point in the future.
Plain vanilla, white washed good time rock and roll BS. Speaking of BS, do you think that show would appear on Apple's TV+? I think not.
Nothing to challenge our "deeply held beliefs" in graphic sex, extreme gore and violence and profanity. LOL.
"Nothing that anyone, anywhere will consider offensive." "Nothing controversial." LOL. You must not have been paying attention to the shows like the one focused on immigrants, or the one focused on women trying to deal with a male dominated media industry. If anything, some of that content may turn off folks who get tired of a political bent being shoved into every aspect of their viewing.
Apple does not trust its own customers to make decisions for themselves. That is why you can't side load apps on iOS. It is why apps can't do things in the background or with the screen off. It is why you can't put custom faces on an Apple Watch. It is why you cannot scan WiFi for nearby routers. It is why there is absolutely no adult content on any of Apple's services. Apple won't even add an option users can turn on to remove these restrictions. You are just not allowed to do it because Apple said so.
Now Apple is starting a TV network with carefully curated content. No controversial subjects will be allowed. Nothing that will really challenge our deeply held beliefs. Nothing that anyone anywhere will consider offensive. No real risk taking. We can expect some shows to pass Apple's muster at first but later be pulled when they accidentally trip over a subject that is suddenly controversial or Apple takes a dislike to. That is what Apple does on its App Store. God help the producers if any of their talent do anything to upset Apple's sensibilities at any point in the future.
Plain vanilla, white washed good time rock and roll BS. Speaking of BS, do you think that show would appear on Apple's TV+? I think not.
Tim Cooks Ward Cleaver and Mr Rogers approach to TV is going to be a billion dollar bomb. If they cant make a wireless charging mat work with Qi already out there as an example of what to copy, and they cant make a working laptop keyboard, i’ve got to laugh at the arrogance that they think they still have the ability to disrupt anything. They are a big profitable corporation led by a guy with no vision and willing to take no risks. Stocks will be fine, but Apple is becoming like Yahoo...not the best at anything. As a stockholder i find this lack of focus on core products frustrating.
Probably have a valid point with the laptop keyboard but Apple are not in the business of releasing a wireless charging mat with multi-coils when that market is already saturated. They had a decent go but couldn't get the cooperative flux generator approach over the line that would have been a market differentiator.
If anything, some of that content may turn off folks who get tired of a political bent being shoved into every aspect of their viewing.
I can agree with that. I know that I will refuse to watch any "woke" content. I am 100% anti-woke.
Hopefully a few of the sci-fi themed series will turn out to be good. We shall see.
You can just see what Asimov’s Foundation will be reimagined as: a secret benevolent society that knows better than the unwashed, implementing its benevolent and caring will on Our Way to Holy Gaia. Maybe even The Mule can be a Trump allegory.
Apple learned their lesson with the iPhone announcement where they released to much information. It did not matter that the ideas and technologies were patented, the competition copied them anyway, leading to years of litigation. Apple will do well to keep it's critical plans and technologies to its self until they are deployed.
The Roku guy knows that once the AppleTV+ app goes on smart TVs, the Roku platform will be tossed aside by TV manufacturers unless it can run AppleTV+ AT&T's Warner and HBO will also be challenged by the AppleTV+ just like Netflix and Amazon will be challenged.
The thing about Apple is that it tends to greatly improve it's products over time.
I wouldn’t be worried by the The Guardian’s disparaging comments. It’s articles on technology are usually wrong, as it’s much of its content, which is why it has a diminishing readership and income.
I’m just shocked that a moral brand like Apple, that aims for zero carbon, that monitors the working practices of suppliers, donates to charities etc, partners with a scumball company like Goldman Sachs! One of the 5 investment banks responsible for the global financial meltdown of 2008.
Tim Cooks Ward Cleaver and Mr Rogers approach to TV is going to be a billion dollar bomb.
No idea why people continue to say this. R-rated content does not actually sell better than PG-13 through G rated content. That's why network TV avoided R-rated material and why movie studios typically avoid R ratings for films they consider to have blockbuster potential.
Tim Cooks Ward Cleaver and Mr Rogers approach to TV is going to be a billion dollar bomb.
No idea why people continue to say this. R-rated content does not actually sell better than PG-13 through G rated content. That's why network TV avoided R-rated material and why movie studios typically avoid R ratings for films they consider to have blockbuster potential.
Breaking: I have received insider information on the show expected to be the most popular and most inoffensive on Apple TV.
larrya said: Breaking: I have received insider information on the show expected to be the most popular and most inoffensive on Apple TV.
You don't need insider information. It's common knowledge that R-rated material is not as commercially successful overall as PG-13 or lower. How many of Marvel's movies are rated R, for example? Is Star Wars an R-rated franchise?
larrya said: Breaking: I have received insider information on the show expected to be the most popular and most inoffensive on Apple TV.
You don't need insider information. It's common knowledge that R-rated material is not as commercially successful overall as PG-13 or lower. How many of Marvel's movies are rated R, for example? Is Star Wars an R-rated franchise?
That’s fairly specious reasoning. If Marvel only made R-rated movies, your contention is that it would not be as successful since they chose not to release many R-rated movies now. The fact is, the one R-rated movie series Marvel made, DEADPOOL, is the 10th highest ranked movie in the franchise, and the 6th highest in the last 5 years. DEADPOOL 2, is the 15th highest ranked movie. That’s out of 55 films released in the last 20 years. Given that it earned as much as many of the top Marvel PG-rated films, one could assume it’s not all adults only that are seeing the film, although using your reasoning, I suppose the audience for an R-rated DEADPOOL is entirely unique to that film, and otherwise do not watch PG-13 Marvel films? Either way, it is a very successful film series for Marvel, and its R-rating doesn’t appear to hamper its success in any way.
“Apple isn't interested in dominating any markets. They are interested in producing quality products and services that appeal to their customers.”
Both laughably wrong. Apple absolutely wants to dominate markets... maybe not market-share, per se.
Quality products like what? Their keyboards? Their Maps? Their productivity apps/services (Pages, Numbers, Keynote and Cloud)? Music?
The fact is Apple is failing on multiple fronts. And now in the past months, they’ve lost two of their top chip designers. This is the beginning of the end. Time will prove me right.
The iMac and iPhone shouldn’t be on that list. They were perceived as breakthroughs by many. I remember the reaction here to the iPod...definitely “meh.” The exact quote was “that’s it? It’s an MP3 player?” The iPad was considered a big iPod touch. A little more than “meh” but not game changing.
You're absolutely right. iOS was meh until the App Store came along a few years later. Third party developers saved iOS and turned it into a huge profit center for Apple that the people within Apple didn't originally anticipate.
Lmac, you seem hell bent on promoting a perpetually "negative perspective" of all things Apple. Do you work for a competitor? And, if you dislike them all that much, why are you here?
First, iOS didn't even exist until the iPhone came along in '07. The advent of the iPhone and iOS was anything but "meh". I remember it. I was there. It was pretty exciting stuff, actually. It's easy to take that time for granted and to forget what a groundbreaking platform iPhone and iOS was, even then.
And when iTunes and the App Store fully came online to be the powerhouses they are today, it just added to the benefit of being immersed in that ecosystem. The total integration I enjoy across all parts of that ecosystem today are pretty much unrivaled. As I recall, adding that App Store was always part of the iOS plan. It was meant to have a similar model to the then-burgeoning "iTunes Music" store. Apple absolutely anticipated building a substantial profit-center from it. The simple fact they were so successful points to long-term and careful planning. You can't just snap your fingers and make a super-successful marketplace appear magically... over and over again... it takes a great deal of money, manpower, time and hard work to achieve those things. And consistently do it better than anyone else out there.
You are probably correct to a degree... I'm sure no-one anticipated how successful those efforts would end up being, or that Apple would go from narrowly escaping bankruptcy and total collapse to becoming the most valuable company in the world within +/-15 years. Quite an achievement.
Also, I might flip that argument of yours to say that Apple saved developers when they launched iOS and then the App Store. Because iOS gave Devs a robust new distribution platform, and led not only to great successes for them, but also encouraged and inspired a whole new generation of developers. What other platform has this robust and active a *profitable* developer base (profitable meaning devs actually make a decent income on the platform)?
Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither was iOS and the broad/deep ecosystem we enjoy today. But it was built carefully, thoroughly and considerately. Balancing corporate profit with their core missions. As Cook said at the opening of this keynote. Apple's customers are always first. It's really true in my experience, and one of the many many reasons I've stuck with them for the past 20+ years...
OK, but... my flipping the argument isn't any more correct than your original assertion. Because in fact Apple's entire approach to Devs via iOS was one of collaboration and support. "Let's grow a fantastic ecosystem together. We'll provide the platform and marketplace, you provide the creativity and apps, and together we'll build a global market"... it wasn't about Devs saving iOS, or Apple saving Devs. Apple created a spectacular and unique ecosystem where artists and developers could truly thrive, and positioned themselves as a driver and supporter for Dev efforts. It's called "Symbiosis", yo? In truth, neither could have succeeded as they did, without the other.
So perhaps the correct conclusion is, Apple built an ecosystem and invited participation, and everyone was raised up as a result. Win-win.
Again, you say 3rd party devs "saved iOS", but if Apple hadn't established iOS and the App Store to begin with, what would have become of those devs? Or the 10s of thousands of devs active in the space today? Sorry, I just don't buy that line...
Apple TV globally is going to be a money pit and a nightmare just trying to break exiting deals. The only way is new content which is expensive and can be hit and miss.
Is Apple spreading itself too thin, will other products / services suffer with the sheer magnitude and cost of competing in this space? Only time will tell. I just hope it’s not an embarrassing non starter. I hope it works, I hope Apple brings quality providers like the BBC to its service.
It's easy to forget that Apple already has a very well-established Movie/TV 'streaming service' and store in iTunes, and a well-established streaming "set top box" in the AppleTV hardware. That's critical infrastructure they already have, and it's well-established. The only thing missing from that picture is a 'packaged subscription' service offering original content, and *maybe* (but I think unlikely, at least at the start) aggregated/curated 3rd party content similar to the Netflix, Hulu, Prime models.
The more I look at it, the more I think AppleTV+ will probably appear as another "premium service" to add to your tvOS device (or iTunes) subscriptions. For example, I subscribe to Netflix and HBO via my AppleTV. I used to subscribe to FilmStruck before they closed down (Criterion Collection!). That was a very focused and specialized "curated" offering, which didn't offer general aggregate content. I expect "AppleTV+" will be more similar to that, and will simply be another addition to the list of available services, just like those? Not as a "standalone, aggregate streaming service" like Prime or Netflix, but as a primarily original content provider, letting the 3rd party content come from the other providers like Netflix.
I think that's why they focused almost entirely on the AppleTV+ 'original content' vision that was on display at the keynote. They want to launch a service that "tells great stories". Pretty straightforward. As for "bringing quality providers" like the BBC, that sounds more like a "cable package bundle" than a streaming service package? I would be surprised if BBC shows were available on AppleTV+, because I don't actually anticipate that kind of offering. But, if they do include that kind of 3rd party content, it will probably be done more like how Netflix delivers BBC content and shows, as just a part of their overall aggregate content offering, not as part of a cable-like 'premium channel bundle'.
Apple needs big brands like Disney and AT&T have, in order to compete. Either that, or they need to somehow become a true meta-service, by which I mean they are able to offer personalized payment schemes. Everyone else is going after personalizing the content - find exactly what you want by the Netflix algorithm, etc - but the payment systems are still either iTunes style (expensive but you get exactly what you want) or Netflix style (cheaper but the selection is limited). There are many other ways people might choose to pay.
People are already implementing a churn style - rotate thru all the services each month or so, hoover up just what you want, movie on - but that's inconvenient and silly, given that computers are designed to do rote tasks like this so much better. Apple could implement auto-churn ad charge $2/month above the average $10 or $12 it would cost to rotate thru Amazon, Netflix, CBSAA, Hulu, HBO, Disney, etc on our own. Obviously requires cooperation from the whole spectrum of services or it's not delivering what we want.
Stephenson's comment about customer data is prescient. He may not be correct that Apple will share data with him, but he's right in thinking that's the core thing - access and control of customer data, and the ability to keep it out of the hands of sort-of-allies/sort-of-competitors. I think this streaming fight will come down to a fight over data.
“Apple isn't interested in dominating any markets. They are interested in producing quality products and services that appeal to their customers.”
Both laughably wrong. Apple absolutely wants to dominate markets... maybe not market-share, per se.
Quality products like what? Their keyboards? Their Maps? Their productivity apps/services (Pages, Numbers, Keynote and Cloud)? Music?
The fact is Apple is failing on multiple fronts. And now in the past months, they’ve lost two of their top chip designers. This is the beginning of the end. Time will prove me right.
mmk? I'm 62. I probably won't live long enough for 'time to prove you right......'
I've heard all this before. It has basically been a constant thrumming, since right around 1997 when Jobs returned to helm the company... for the following 15 years+, as they approached becoming the most valuable global company in the world, almost daily there were reports of doom & gloom and the failures and imminent collapse of Apple... for over 15 years, continuously!
How is this any different? A company that has grown to over 160,000 employees by 2018 is going to collapse because two chip devs left? Because their Maps app isn't as good as Google's (yet)?
Saying Apple is "failing on multiple fronts" is ludicrous. For every so-called "failure", I can point to a hundred things they're doing well and right. Quite the opposite of "the beginning of the end".
It's funny that as I've read through this thread, I've seen people criticizing Apple for over-diversifying, then declaring them untenable because they basically aren't diverse enough. They diversify specifically to offset potential market weakness in other areas. It's a good thing for a company to do. Apple has always gone after things they think they can improve on. If they can't, they often drop it (like the AirPower Charger). The "thousand no's for every yes" thing at work...
Just one of your examples: they continue to improve Maps. No, it still isn't the best service on the planet. They came very late to that game. You don't build a "Google Maps" type platform overnight, and catching up is hard. Google Maps wasn't really all that wonderful either, the first few years it was out. But it had a 'novelty effect' that bought it lots of early forgiveness. Apple hasn't enjoyed that, nor should they. But Maps is super useful now, and can't be called a "failure" by any measure.
Especially considering it's used more than any other mapping service within the Apple ecosystem. And it works fine! Yes, needed improvements abound, but this, like all of Apple's products and services is constantly improving, incrementally, over time.That's just how they operate across the board. Laying a strong foundation, and building on it over time.
I look at their ecosystem today, compared to the one in place 10 years ago... and really, wow. To say they've been "failing" is again, pretty ludicrous. More projection than reality, I'm afraid.
You're absolutely right. iOS was meh until the App Store came along a few years later. Third party developers saved iOS and turned it into a huge profit center for Apple that the people within Apple didn't originally anticipate.
What are you talking about? The App store came 1 year after the original iPhone (with the iPhone 3G). iOS never needed saving.
Apple needs big brands like Disney and AT&T have, in order to compete. Either that, or they need to somehow become a true meta-service, by which I mean they are able to offer personalized payment schemes. Everyone else is going after personalizing the content - find exactly what you want by the Netflix algorithm, etc - but the payment systems are still either iTunes style (expensive but you get exactly what you want) or Netflix style (cheaper but the selection is limited). There are many other ways people might choose to pay.
People are already implementing a churn style - rotate thru all the services each month or so, hoover up just what you want, movie on - but that's inconvenient and silly, given that computers are designed to do rote tasks like this so much better. Apple could implement auto-churn ad charge $2/month above the average $10 or $12 it would cost to rotate thru Amazon, Netflix, CBSAA, Hulu, HBO, Disney, etc on our own. Obviously requires cooperation from the whole spectrum of services or it's not delivering what we want.
Stephenson's comment about customer data is prescient. He may not be correct that Apple will share data with him, but he's right in thinking that's the core thing - access and control of customer data, and the ability to keep it out of the hands of sort-of-allies/sort-of-competitors. I think this streaming fight will come down to a fight over data.
There are companies Apple could buy without the super big brands. Lions gate, Viacom, CBS, maybe even Sony ...
But the data is the key. The anonymous user data is all Apple has to bargain with. It’s the thing that made ATT roll the dice and acquire Time Warner. The directive now, is make shows like the ones customers watch on their streaming and satellite services. If Apple wants HBO, they’ll likely provide the anonymous programming data. Otherwise, ATT will have exclusive offering of it via their own streaming services. Right now Apple needs HBO a lot more than ATT needs Apple TV customers to subscribe through Apple to get it. Besides there’s already an app on the platform which ATT gets all the data they want. Then again, ATT may want their new service front and center on the Apple TV app when it launches. Only time will tell whether everybody goes off on their own, or eventually all normalize to certain standards of access. What’s certain is not everyone will make it ...
The appearance of Oprah was the most interesting part of the event. I'm not a follower but I recognize that Oprah is extremely well known with a huge fan base. Until recently the way she reached that fan base was through a TV program. Now it seems she is considering a new way involving iOS. It is a recognition that the world has changed. I got a similar impression from the appearance of Spielberg and Abrams. This event was more about Apple proclaiming the start of something new rather than a detailing of the specifications of some new product.
I have no idea about the gaming venture. I'm not a consumer of games at all.
I've said it elsewhere that this sounds like Apple weaving fibers into a powerful rope. No single fiber is that strong but weave together a large number and you have something incredibly strong.
Comments
Nothing to challenge our "deeply held beliefs" in graphic sex, extreme gore and violence and profanity. LOL.
"Nothing that anyone, anywhere will consider offensive." "Nothing controversial." LOL. You must not have been paying attention to the shows like the one focused on immigrants, or the one focused on women trying to deal with a male dominated media industry. If anything, some of that content may turn off folks who get tired of a political bent being shoved into every aspect of their viewing.
Hopefully a few of the sci-fi themed series will turn out to be good. We shall see.
Maybe even The Mule can be a Trump allegory.
It did not matter that the ideas and technologies were patented, the competition copied them anyway, leading to years of litigation.
Apple will do well to keep it's critical plans and technologies to its self until they are deployed.
The Roku guy knows that once the AppleTV+ app goes on smart TVs, the Roku platform will be tossed aside by TV manufacturers unless it can run AppleTV+
AT&T's Warner and HBO will also be challenged by the AppleTV+ just like Netflix and Amazon will be challenged.
The thing about Apple is that it tends to greatly improve it's products over time.
Time will tell.
I’m just shocked that a moral brand like Apple, that aims for zero carbon, that monitors the working practices of suppliers, donates to charities etc, partners with a scumball company like Goldman Sachs! One of the 5 investment banks responsible for the global financial meltdown of 2008.
Both laughably wrong. Apple absolutely wants to dominate markets... maybe not market-share, per se. Quality products like what? Their keyboards? Their Maps? Their productivity apps/services (Pages, Numbers, Keynote and Cloud)? Music?
The fact is Apple is failing on multiple fronts. And now in the past months, they’ve lost two of their top chip designers. This is the beginning of the end. Time will prove me right.
First, iOS didn't even exist until the iPhone came along in '07. The advent of the iPhone and iOS was anything but "meh". I remember it. I was there. It was pretty exciting stuff, actually. It's easy to take that time for granted and to forget what a groundbreaking platform iPhone and iOS was, even then.
And when iTunes and the App Store fully came online to be the powerhouses they are today, it just added to the benefit of being immersed in that ecosystem. The total integration I enjoy across all parts of that ecosystem today are pretty much unrivaled. As I recall, adding that App Store was always part of the iOS plan. It was meant to have a similar model to the then-burgeoning "iTunes Music" store. Apple absolutely anticipated building a substantial profit-center from it. The simple fact they were so successful points to long-term and careful planning. You can't just snap your fingers and make a super-successful marketplace appear magically... over and over again... it takes a great deal of money, manpower, time and hard work to achieve those things. And consistently do it better than anyone else out there.
You are probably correct to a degree... I'm sure no-one anticipated how successful those efforts would end up being, or that Apple would go from narrowly escaping bankruptcy and total collapse to becoming the most valuable company in the world within +/-15 years. Quite an achievement.
Also, I might flip that argument of yours to say that Apple saved developers when they launched iOS and then the App Store. Because iOS gave Devs a robust new distribution platform, and led not only to great successes for them, but also encouraged and inspired a whole new generation of developers. What other platform has this robust and active a *profitable* developer base (profitable meaning devs actually make a decent income on the platform)?
Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither was iOS and the broad/deep ecosystem we enjoy today. But it was built carefully, thoroughly and considerately. Balancing corporate profit with their core missions. As Cook said at the opening of this keynote. Apple's customers are always first. It's really true in my experience, and one of the many many reasons I've stuck with them for the past 20+ years...
OK, but... my flipping the argument isn't any more correct than your original assertion. Because in fact Apple's entire approach to Devs via iOS was one of collaboration and support. "Let's grow a fantastic ecosystem together. We'll provide the platform and marketplace, you provide the creativity and apps, and together we'll build a global market"... it wasn't about Devs saving iOS, or Apple saving Devs. Apple created a spectacular and unique ecosystem where artists and developers could truly thrive, and positioned themselves as a driver and supporter for Dev efforts. It's called "Symbiosis", yo? In truth, neither could have succeeded as they did, without the other.
So perhaps the correct conclusion is, Apple built an ecosystem and invited participation, and everyone was raised up as a result. Win-win.
Again, you say 3rd party devs "saved iOS", but if Apple hadn't established iOS and the App Store to begin with, what would have become of those devs? Or the 10s of thousands of devs active in the space today? Sorry, I just don't buy that line...
It's easy to forget that Apple already has a very well-established Movie/TV 'streaming service' and store in iTunes, and a well-established streaming "set top box" in the AppleTV hardware. That's critical infrastructure they already have, and it's well-established. The only thing missing from that picture is a 'packaged subscription' service offering original content, and *maybe* (but I think unlikely, at least at the start) aggregated/curated 3rd party content similar to the Netflix, Hulu, Prime models.
The more I look at it, the more I think AppleTV+ will probably appear as another "premium service" to add to your tvOS device (or iTunes) subscriptions. For example, I subscribe to Netflix and HBO via my AppleTV. I used to subscribe to FilmStruck before they closed down (Criterion Collection!). That was a very focused and specialized "curated" offering, which didn't offer general aggregate content. I expect "AppleTV+" will be more similar to that, and will simply be another addition to the list of available services, just like those? Not as a "standalone, aggregate streaming service" like Prime or Netflix, but as a primarily original content provider, letting the 3rd party content come from the other providers like Netflix.
I think that's why they focused almost entirely on the AppleTV+ 'original content' vision that was on display at the keynote. They want to launch a service that "tells great stories". Pretty straightforward. As for "bringing quality providers" like the BBC, that sounds more like a "cable package bundle" than a streaming service package? I would be surprised if BBC shows were available on AppleTV+, because I don't actually anticipate that kind of offering. But, if they do include that kind of 3rd party content, it will probably be done more like how Netflix delivers BBC content and shows, as just a part of their overall aggregate content offering, not as part of a cable-like 'premium channel bundle'.
People are already implementing a churn style - rotate thru all the services each month or so, hoover up just what you want, movie on - but that's inconvenient and silly, given that computers are designed to do rote tasks like this so much better. Apple could implement auto-churn ad charge $2/month above the average $10 or $12 it would cost to rotate thru Amazon, Netflix, CBSAA, Hulu, HBO, Disney, etc on our own. Obviously requires cooperation from the whole spectrum of services or it's not delivering what we want.
Stephenson's comment about customer data is prescient. He may not be correct that Apple will share data with him, but he's right in thinking that's the core thing - access and control of customer data, and the ability to keep it out of the hands of sort-of-allies/sort-of-competitors. I think this streaming fight will come down to a fight over data.
I've heard all this before. It has basically been a constant thrumming, since right around 1997 when Jobs returned to helm the company... for the following 15 years+, as they approached becoming the most valuable global company in the world, almost daily there were reports of doom & gloom and the failures and imminent collapse of Apple... for over 15 years, continuously!
How is this any different? A company that has grown to over 160,000 employees by 2018 is going to collapse because two chip devs left? Because their Maps app isn't as good as Google's (yet)?
Saying Apple is "failing on multiple fronts" is ludicrous. For every so-called "failure", I can point to a hundred things they're doing well and right. Quite the opposite of "the beginning of the end".
It's funny that as I've read through this thread, I've seen people criticizing Apple for over-diversifying, then declaring them untenable because they basically aren't diverse enough. They diversify specifically to offset potential market weakness in other areas. It's a good thing for a company to do. Apple has always gone after things they think they can improve on. If they can't, they often drop it (like the AirPower Charger). The "thousand no's for every yes" thing at work...
Just one of your examples: they continue to improve Maps. No, it still isn't the best service on the planet. They came very late to that game. You don't build a "Google Maps" type platform overnight, and catching up is hard. Google Maps wasn't really all that wonderful either, the first few years it was out. But it had a 'novelty effect' that bought it lots of early forgiveness. Apple hasn't enjoyed that, nor should they. But Maps is super useful now, and can't be called a "failure" by any measure.
Especially considering it's used more than any other mapping service within the Apple ecosystem. And it works fine! Yes, needed improvements abound, but this, like all of Apple's products and services is constantly improving, incrementally, over time.That's just how they operate across the board. Laying a strong foundation, and building on it over time.
I look at their ecosystem today, compared to the one in place 10 years ago... and really, wow. To say they've been "failing" is again, pretty ludicrous. More projection than reality, I'm afraid.
Just one opinion.
Peace.
But the data is the key. The anonymous user data is all Apple has to bargain with. It’s the thing that made ATT roll the dice and acquire Time Warner. The directive now, is make shows like the ones customers watch on their streaming and satellite services. If Apple wants HBO, they’ll likely provide the anonymous programming data. Otherwise, ATT will have exclusive offering of it via their own streaming services. Right now Apple needs HBO a lot more than ATT needs Apple TV customers to subscribe through Apple to get it. Besides there’s already an app on the platform which ATT gets all the data they want. Then again, ATT may want their new service front and center on the Apple TV app when it launches. Only time will tell whether everybody goes off on their own, or eventually all normalize to certain standards of access. What’s certain is not everyone will make it ...
I have no idea about the gaming venture. I'm not a consumer of games at all.
I've said it elsewhere that this sounds like Apple weaving fibers into a powerful rope. No single fiber is that strong but weave together a large number and you have something incredibly strong.