Secretive Media Giant about to Awaken?
Although it’s been quietly hovering in the shadows since WWDC in May, Apple TV+ is about to explode onto the scene very soon, it would appear. As can be seen in the various teasers we’ve assembled here – big, nay, huge names and stars are onboard.
What’s not so well known, is that there are many, many productions already in the pipeline, presumably to be released over the next year. How many? Already outlined in available information are over 30 original series or features that are at various stages of production.
Here are just a few headline titles:
- Amazing Stories (Spielberg revisits classic series from his childhood)
- The Morning Show (see above, all star cast: Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston, Steve Carell and Billy Crudup)
- See (directed by Francis Lawrence (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Mockingjay Parts 1 & 2), production budget rumored at $15 million per episode)
- Little America (topical series of human stories that feature immigrants)
- Helpsters (An educational entertainment series aimed at pre-schoolers)
- Little Voice (J.J. Abrams executive produced comedy/drama series)
- Truth Be Told (10-episode series based on the bestselling book: Are You Sleeping: A Novel)
- Servant (produced by M. Night Shyamalan, 10 episode drama series)
- Dickinson (comedy series about the early life of Emily Dickinson)
The service will be available in over 100 countries world wide, and the production war chest is rumored to be upwards of Six Billion Dollars.
The size and scope of this “hobby” project, as Steve Job’s once called the Apple TV device, is far larger, from all indications, than the somewhat underwhelming reactions from the press would have one believe.
“There’s truth pumping through your veins and into the story that you’re telling”
– Jennifer Aniston
Although there has not been much noise or hoopla yet, there are many indications that this could be a sleeping giant. Not necessarily an overnight success, but a long grinding campaign that will eventually reach higher and further than anyone is imagining at present.
The Evolution of an Ecosystem, Decades in the Making
Sharing the “plus” with its smaller sister Apple News +, it looks like the plus designation will mark the first foundational bricks of a possible future media empire, while in hardware everything “pro” begins to emerge.
Current rumors indicate that a new “pro” model iPhone is imminent to go along with the already established iPad Pro, MacBook Pro, iMac Pro and newly updated Mac Pro.
It would stand to reason, therefore, that, in the very near future, the “gang of Pro” will meet up with the Plus sisters, and a new extended services based media, software expansion will unite with the upper echelon hardware empire, and, if successful, will reveal a truly balanced spectrum of offerings.
“A story should make you forget your surroundings, forget your agenda, your day and, hopefully, makes you forget yourself”
– Steven Spielberg
And for a company that invented desktop publishing, pushed digital music transmission and photography into the mainstream, not to mention, put the smart into smartphone, there is an unavoidable logic and symmetry that is emerging. As Apple increases its focus on service income, original entertainment and educational production a balance across all sectors begins to take shape.
Naturally, coming “late” on the heels of the extremely successful growth of Netflix Original productions, Amazon, HBO, Hulu and now Disney’s Streaming Service, many will say that Apple is behind the curve and not likely to dominate.
Now, it would be wrong to mention Nokia, Blackberry, or Steve Ballmer, and say that Apple is not a company that you’d be wise to underestimate, but, after all, coming “late” with a significantly better product is what Apple does best.
“Life often makes no sense. There is something about stories, that brings a sense of order and purpose to the world and allows us to live other lives than the life we’re living”
– J.J. Abrams
The hardware, software, media content production and distribution networks are, over a period of decades, evolving into the only ecosystem that has a benign, if not heroic purpose in it’s relationships with its user base as well as its professional partnerships.
Constant complaints that Apple earns too much money or somehow takes advantage of customers often have a hollow ring. When you look at the innovative accomplishments and world changing technology created, and compare that to empty, corrupt almost meaningless advertising empires such as FaceBook or Google, somehow it seems a different level of trust has been earned.
Yes, in a sense Apple is following the lead of other tech behemoths that have upended the Hollywood Power structure, but, at the same time, one gets the sense that the slow, deliberate moves can be traced all the way back to Steve Jobs, his days at Pixar and that, somehow, his superior vision guides the entire evolution, even the new “plus” wing, of the ecosystem to this very day.
In then end, the broad array of product and service offerings that Apple is building, now being expanded into the realm of not just entertainment and educational distribution (as iTunes has had in place since 2001), but also into the production and financing of original programming, marks the beginning of a more complete and potentially better functioning ecosystem.
Overall, this is extremely positive, not only for Apple’s financial health but, indeed, for the vast legion of Apple adherents around the globe.
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