By Jessica E. Lessin June 9, 2017 7:01 AM PDT Of all the things that are a little odd about Apple’s new “Planet of the Apps” reality show, perhaps the strangest is that—unlike virtually every show on television—you won’t be able to download the series through iTunes. With the exception of the first episode, you’ll have to be an Apple Music subscriber to watch it.
Perhaps the move marks an attempt to turn Apple Music into a broader media bundle of the sort that continues to pique my interest. But history would suggest it is something different: evidence that Apple’s deep-seated identity as a music company has gone from asset to Achilles’ heel.
Apple can’t seem to resist the siren song of its music business, which still threatens to dominate the company’s future opportunities in apps and streaming video.
Steve Jobs loved music and his desire to reinvent the business led to the iPod, and eventually the iPhone. Those who joined his crusade, notably Senior Vice President Eddy Cue—who has overseen iTunes since the beginning—loved music too. And they hired people with the same DNA.
But I believe that DNA is—and has been—holding back the company by clouding its hiring, marketing and business judgment in multiple areas, but particularly media. Sure, music is a “killer app,” in the sense that listening to it is one of the things consumers do most with technology. But Apple could buy the entire music industry many times over with its cash alone. It is time for the company to think much bigger.
Paying a Price
To understand the special product place that music has held within Apple, it’s helpful to look at the history of the App Store.
Given iTunes’ scale, it was only natural for Apple to leverage the music service to launch apps when it did in 2008. So it housed the App Store under Cue and his team.
That meant that App Store engineers had to fight for resources with iTunes, which more often than not, won, people who worked at Apple at the time tell me. It also meant that the App Store hewed closely to iTunes in functionality and design. (Only this week did Apple debut a significantly updated App Store design.)
More recently, the App Store team was moved out of Cue’s purview and under marketing executive Phil Schiller. But some feel like it was too late and that resource constraints allowed Android to move ahead with some features Apple never built.
That’s just one example that shows where products reside affects how they get built. Imagine if the App Store had been led by the mail or messaging teams. Perhaps Apple would have built WeChat!
Too Dogmatic
The early days of video followed a similar pattern. While Apple was a leader in TV and movie downloads, internally, that business was always second fiddle to music.
When Apple was looking to make a big acquisition in media and content in 2014, it chose to pay $3 billion for headphone and streaming music company Beats. That sum, surprising at the time, seems even more expensive now given it scrapped much of the product and much of the original team has left. Apple has steadfastly declined to invest in original video shows, as Netflix and Amazon has, and is only dabbling now.
Imagine if the App Store had been led by the mail or messaging teams. Perhaps Apple would have built WeChat! As Tom reported, the company is sounding out Hollywood for advice on a programming chief. But with the exception of one or two executives like Peter Stern, a former Time Warner Cable executive, executives with close ties to the music business and iTunes—Jimmy Iovine, Robert Kondrk and Jeff Robbin—still call the shots.
And so it is no wonder that Apple’s first forays into original video content fall under Apple Music. It’s worth noting that the first series the company announced—“Carpool Karaoke” is literally about singing; “Planet of the Apps” features rapper Will.i.am as a judge.
Apple’s love of music is even shaping its creative judgment.
If the company doesn’t switch gears quickly, I think it could fall even further behind competitors in streaming. The future of video—who bundles it, who creates it—is one of the biggest business opportunities of our time. I think Apple is wrong not to invest more and should build a stand-alone streaming video service sooner rather than later. Sequestering that content in Apple Music, which limits its market opportunity and creative brief, is a mistake.
I don’t want to imply that Apple’s attachment to music is purely emotional. Surely, there is an excellent argument to be made around doubling down on what’s worked in the past.
But other companies have honored their past without letting it taint their future. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is as passionate about books as Jobs was about music, and Bezos is keen to defend that business to this day. Amazon is building bookstores, for goodness sake. Yet the bibliophile isn’t funding movies about Kindles.
Beyond music, I wonder if Apple is too dogmatic about what it is or isn’t.
I say “wonder” because four years as an entrepreneur will teach you that focus is paramount in any business.
But perhaps Apple has taken it too far. The company may eventually become the most valuable company in history, by market cap at least. It can afford to redefine its beachheads. In fact, to keep up with everyone else, it must. Jessica Lessin founded The Information in 2013 after reporting on Silicon Valley for eight years for the Wall Street Journal. She writes a weekly column about all things tech, media and the wild ride both industries are in for. She can be found on Twitter at @jessicalessin. Subscriber Comments
Alex Kruglov Co-founder and CEO - Smiletime PROMOTED Love this, Jessica. A very interesting take that I hadn't considered directly, but makes a lot of sense.
A quick note: looking at the updated designs for the App Store, my first reaction is that it looks just like the redesigned Apple Music. So perhaps the alignment continues :)
That said, clearly the App Store has been an unqualified success. Far bigger and more impressive than the totality of music efforts. So perhaps this bias is more relevant to overall media choices (in TV, movies, and of course the apparent lack of effort/interest in any non-traditional media) than the ecosystem in general. Like Reply Report almost 4 years ago 1
aaron wall Founder - SEObook
Yet the bibliophile isn’t funding movies about Kindles. <
And the day he does, it's clear the stock would be a short. :D
focus is paramount in any business. <
Consumers associate brands with topics. Close alignment with any given topic makes it harder to associate with other topics. There's a reason Facebook has multiple mobile brands / networks & Google didn't fold YouTube into Google Video.
I'm still surprised Apple hasn't done far more with search & think they should establish a number of branded destinations rather than having everything under iTunes.
As much as Yahoo was in terminal decline when it was sold for a song, I'd have rather bought it than Beats if I had a few billion to spare. :)
Perhaps Apple would have built WeChat <
The big issue for them is they view lock-in differentiation as being more valuable than creating cross-platform plays. It would probably be difficult for them to change that view so long as their current business model is as profitable as it is. Like Reply Report almost 4 years ago 1
Kevin Swint Samsung Electronics PROMOTED This is a smart insight that definitely has merit, Jessica. However, it's possible that Apple's behavior around music has more to do with the company's overall tendency to stick with its past successes a bit too long rather than music really being a core part of its DNA. There are examples of this in several areas of Apple's arguably slow reaction to shifting technology, consumer behavior, and business models: the shift from downloading and owning premium digital content to subscription streaming, from device-based hub-and-spoke ecosystems to cloud services, from curated voice commands to voice-enabled assistants, from absolute data privacy to trusting services to use machine learning for better experiences, etc.
No doubt that Apple's unique culture and org structure play a part in this. But in all fairness, when a company's successes have been as world-changing and historical as Apple's have been over the past 15 years, it's understandable to become a bit blinded by them. Being captured by such defining successes is the norm, and it's what gives competitors the opportunity to innovate and disrupt.
Steve Jobs famously told the Mac team that "it's better to be a pirate than join the navy". Perhaps having become history's most valuable navy, Apple needs to encourage and listen to a few more internal pirates. Like Reply Report almost 4 years ago 10
Alex Kruglov Co-founder and CEO - Smiletime @Kevin love this. Spot on! Like Reply Report almost 4 years ago 1
Ryan Sommer Director - MaintainPR I believe Apple loves music as much as the early settlers of this country loved the Native Americans. A few comments:
1) Apple loves the mass consumerization of music and screwing over both listeners and what is left of the industry with their monopoly via iTunes.
2) It's true that Jobs only listened to vinyl (hilarious when you stop to think about it) but he hated musicians and probably had terrible taste. See source via the book Becoming Steve Jobs whereby Jobs rudely snubbed Neil Young (a multiple Grammy winner who went on a crusade to get the music industry back where people cared about sound fidelity and artists) after a peace offering. Quote "“Fuck Neil Young,” he snapped, “and fuck his records. You keep them.”
3) Apple doesn't innovate. They market the shit out of things and plan brilliantly on how to capitalize off of undereducated consumers. The iPod was a terrible MP3 player compared to the Creative Nomad Jukebox (and several other great options that offered better control and DRM for consumers as well as more streamlined software) - and iTunes is and has always been one of the worst designed pieces of bloatware I've ever seen as far as a software offering. Apple IS responsible for the fact that everyone in our day and age listens to compressed and inferior sound via their smartphone as well as the fact that they have no idea what the concept of an artist's true offering via a completed album is.
4) The purchase of Beats only furthers the marketing over innovation argument. Those headphones are garbage. Designed for idiots that want high decibel levels and understand nothing about sonic fidelity or compression formats -- but brilliantly marketed by Dre/Iovine...etc.
You can read more about how Apple continues to this day (AAC encoding over PCM) to snub the listener and the industry in the second paragraph of this interview with legendary mastering engineer BoB Katz http://tapeop.com/interviews/116/bob-katz-bonus/
To conclude. Apple DOES NOT love music. Like Reply Report almost 4 years ago
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