What They Say
Bloomberg’s Power On subscriber newsletter looked back at the development of the Apple TV box and although it can see why previous versions were developed and sold, it sees little point in the latest version which is much more expensive than competitors. Part of the reason is that there are few compelling apps other than the streaming video apps and they are mostly available on other streaming dongles and devices. The publisher quotes data from Strategy Analytics putting the market share of the Apple TV at just 2% in 2020.
Bloomberg said that Apple does appear to recognize this, and it’s developing a combined Apple TV, HomePod and FaceTime camera home hub device.
Separately, Bloomberg said that it expects a new consumer display from Apple as the Pro Display XDR is at the very high end of the market and there is an opportunity below that.
What We Think
I always liked the interface of the Apple TV (although not enough to buy one – as I’m not bought into the Apple empire), but as Steve Jobs said ‘it’s a kind of hobby’. Thinking of that reminds me that Jobs was quoted in his last year as saying that he had had an epiphany on how to create a TV that users would love. That sent a shudder of fear through other TV makers, but, as we suspected at the time, it may have just been Jobs enjoying provoking them as Apple hasn’t done anything in TV or shown any interest recently. It certainly seemed to be interested in TV at one point and the firm asked us to give it (yes, give, not sell!) our TV data on the European market. “IDC will give us data free”, I was told. I responded as I always did to that kind of comment, “They clearly understand the value of their data”.
I did have a presentation at the time that had 10 reasons why Apple would enter the TV business, but also had 10 reasons why it wouldn’t. Much of that presentation would still apply, although the move from broadcast to streaming is changing the world of video forever.
The firm lost interest in the mainstream monitor market many years ago. (BR)
