After years of anticipation, Apple will soon announce their plans for their own streaming service today. At least, that’s what people are expecting. The Apple Special Event today will reportedly be all about the company’s upcoming streaming service since most of their hardwar updates were already announced last week. So, what does Apple have in store for us?
As per numoros leaks, the Apple streaming service will probably be exclusive to, you guessed it, the Apple devices. This makes sense considering the company’s infamous stance on exclusivity and its ecosystem. Ask any iPhone owner why they own a Mac or an iPad, and the answer will probably be - “It’s the ecosystem.” And it is true - Apple’s system wide infrastructure complements each other every well, so much so that it stops people from leaving it. And perhaps that’s why its new video streaming service will probably be exclusive to its devices.
Now, the exclusivity doesn’t come due to software or hardware limitations, but rather the brand that Apple has build over the years. I won’t go too much into the details, but this video from TechAltar explains it pretty elaborately:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bFFgrLSEXA
Now let’s imagine for a moment that the Apple streaming service won’t be exclusive to Apple devices. What kind of a business model will it follow? Based on current prices for other streaming services (Netflix, Amazon Prime Video), the average price seems to be around $10/month. But we all know Apple to charge an extra premium. So expect a higher price point than average.
The company has previously tried to acquire other studios and services and is currently presumed to have made exclusive deals for content creation. We don’t know what content this will be since most of the big franchises are on other services like Disney+. This leaves Apple to turn to original content for boosting its OTT service’s day-one subscriptions.
In any case, tonight’s Apple event is looking to be pretty interesting. We’ll keep you updated on this story as it develops.
