To get you to sign up for the new Apple TV+ service, launching November 1st, Apple is basically giving away the store.
Buy a new Apple hardware product – starting with the $199 iPod Touch, and continuing with the iPhone, iPad, Apple TV streaming box or Mac computer – and you get one year of service free. Historically, Apple sells more than 250 million of these devices a year, so this will clearly give Apple a massive head start in the “Streaming Wars,” where it will compete with Netflix (150 million subscribers), Amazon Prime Video (more than 100 million subscribers) and Hulu (28 million subscribers.)
To take on Netflix and Disney, which is set to launch its own new service, Disney Plus, on Nov. 12, Apple opened up its checkbook. It hired two former executives from Sony Pictures and began bankrolling new series.
“It’s not about whether Netflix wins and we lose, or if we win and they lose,” CEO Tim Cook told the German publication Stern recently. “Many people use multiple services, and we are now trying to become one of them.”
MacDailyNews Take: Just four days to go!
Apple TV+ will be a massive success and, at $4.99/month, if Apple just leaves the price alone for three years, the company will have 100+ million paying subscribers with 36 months from launch. — MacDailyNews, October 23, 2019
I’m probably going against the majority here, but I’m just going to wait until I buy a device that gives me Apple TV+ free for 12 months. I currently have an iPhone 7 and I’ll be replacing it at some point next year.
The free year offer may not last that long.
But the price per hour of content is so poor with this offering, I would take that chance rather than pay up now.
Apple and ATT have both jumped the media shark. In Apple’s case, the reviews are now streaming in on its $300MM flagship, and they are not good. Really. Not. Good. This what happens when CEOs try to be bold, don’t have the chops to pull it off, but move forward anyway.