Apple held this afternoon at the Steve Jobs Theater the most important services-focused conference in its history, confirming what some of the media had advanced such as “Apple’s reinvention of a service company”.
With an installed base of hundreds of millions of devices; With the most profitable application store on the planet and the need to compensate for the stagnation of revenue from the sale of hardware, we can understand the total bet for a division that includes App Store, iCloud, Apple Music or Apple TV and moves by itself fabulous figures (more than 37,000 million dollars in the last fiscal year), in addition to serving as feedback for the hardware departments.
The new services of Apple bet by the consumption of contents (video, television, games, news …) and by the unstoppable phenomenon of the services on demand and the streaming like the great distributors of the same ones. In addition, and no less important for the future, the company also enters with strength in Fintech with its own credit card and physical and virtual financial services.
We review what the event has given of itself, the most important in the history of Apple for services and “the largest strategic move since the iPhone was introduced in 2007,” as some analysts cite.
Apple TV + and Apple TV Channels
Apple TV + is Apple’s new television and video service. A subscription service where all the exclusive multimedia contents of the Cupertino giant will be grouped. It will offer series and films of own production for which Apple has invested more than 1,000 million dollars in 2018. It will offer original productions by artists of the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Octavia Spencer, JJ Abrams, Jason Momoa, M. Night Shyamalan and Jon M. Chu, among others.
The content will be served à la carte, without ads and directly from the Apple TV app, a new application that brings together the different ways of seeing and discovering movies, series, sports, news and more content in a single app for iPhone, iPad, Apple TV , Mac, smart TVs and streaming devices.
In addition, from the Apple TV app you can buy or rent movies and series by choosing from the hundreds of thousands that are currently available in the iTunes Store. In addition to their own content, customers can subscribe to the Apple TV channels they want and see them directly on the Apple TV app, without the need for additional apps or accounts or passwords.
In addition to the content of popular services such as HBO, Starz, SHOWTIME, CBS All Access, Smithsonian Channel, EPIX, Tastemade or Noggin, Apple TV channels will include new services such as MTV Hits and others that will be incorporated throughout the world.
The new Apple TV app comes to the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV in May for customers in more than 100 countries as a free software update, and to the Mac this fall. The prices and availability of the Apple TV + subscription video service will be announced this fall.
Apple Arcade
It is Apple’s first service of subscription games for mobile devices, computers and televisions. It will offer more than 100 new and exclusive titles from independent developers, large studios such as Konami, LEGO and SEGA and renowned geniuses such as Hironobu Sakaguchi, Ken Wong, Will Wright and others. Customers can try any of the games in the catalog without limits, without ads, without advertising tracking and without additional purchases, and “with the peace of mind that their data is safe,” Apple promises. The service will complement the popular catalog of free games from the App Store.
Apple Arcade will offer a new way to access a catalog of unpublished games that will not be available on any other platform or subscription service. Instead of paying in advance for each game, the subscription to Apple Arcade allows the user to try the ones he wants from the available collection. Each game gives access to all the features, content and updates without needing to buy anything else.
It will also allow you to play offline and many titles will be compatible with video game controls. As subscribers can enjoy Apple Arcade games on the iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple TV, they will have the option of retaking their games from the device they want. And new games will be added periodically to the platform. Apple has not reported prices or availability. The service will reach 150 countries.
Apple News +
Another of the novelties of the event has been the important renewal of Apple’s news service. For this, he has selected some of the best press and magazine media in different categories and has integrated them into a single service. There is everything and everyone, and in addition, Apple has decided to complete it with the integration of subscriptions to means of payment, including Los Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal.
In total, the offer that Tim Cook’s firm offers includes more than 300 magazines and newspapers, in addition to the subscriptions to means of payment that we have indicated above, but this service is not limited to offering a first class content, but also highlights for carrying out a totally personalized staging.
All the content they offer has been filtered by experts and we also have an interface that has been fully adapted to offer a good user experience on any device. Indeed, it does not matter if you use Apple News + from your iPhone or from an iPad, the interface will adapt perfectly at all times so you can enjoy a comfortable and well-adjusted reading at all times.
The Apple News + service is available today in the United States and Canada with a price of $ 9.99 per month. The launch in Spain has not been detailed, although before it will reach the United Kingdom or Australia. The service is based on a system of intelligent recommendations and will offer articles related to each country where it is enabled. The current Apple News will continue to work as before and will be free.
Apple Card
Another section that was rumored between the new Apple services have also been submitted and confirms the entry of the company in the Fintech. Apple Card is a service similar to what we would get with a debit card, which means it allows you to make payments and offers full integration with Apple Pay and Wallet.
Apple Card is a service that in addition to making payments, allows you to manage them in an orderly manner. During the presentation event the apple company has confirmed such interesting functions as the possibility of making a breakdown of the payments we have made and also associate them with the products and services we have purchased with them. Thanks to the integration with Apple Maps we can also see the places where we have made each expense.
Apple has confirmed that Apple Card not only carries no cost to the user, but also will recover some of the money we spend daily depending on the use we make of this service, up to 3% of purchases. The Cupertino company has also confirmed that it will offer a physical version of this service, that is, a card finished in platinum color that will not have any type of numbering or identification, only the name of the user. To access the rest of the data, you will use the Wallet application.
Apple Card will be managed in partnership with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and will be available next summer in the United States. It is not known when it will arrive in other countries.