Ever since Apple first unveiled its TV streaming service back in 2019, analysts (and competitors) have wondered why Apple TV+ truly exists. But now, in a new interview, CEO Tim Cook and other Apple execs have shared fresh insight into the streamer’s origins, and why Apple TV+ is just now hitting its stride.
Tim Cook and Eddy Cue detail the origins of Apple TV+
Apple is about to premiere its biggest movie ever with F1: The Movie. To mark the occasion, Tim Cook and other executives sat down with Cynthia Littleton at Variety for a discussion not only of F1, but also Apple’s film and TV ambitions more broadly.
Their conversation includes a host of interesting quotes regarding how Apple’s top leaders view Apple TV+.
On the matter of Apple getting into the streaming game in the first place, here’s Cook:
“We studied it for years before we decided to do [Apple TV+]. I know there’s a lot of different views out there about why we’re into it. We’re into it to tell great stories, and we want it to be a great business as well. That’s why we’re into it, just plain and simple.”
Cook fleshes this out a little more:
Cook explains that Apple is at heart “a toolmaker,” delivering computers and other devices that enable creativity in users…“We’re a toolmaker,” Cook says again. “We make tools for creative people to empower them to do things they couldn’t do before. So we were doing lots of business with Hollywood well before we were in the TV business.”
Services head Eddy Cue echoes these comments and adds a little more flavor.
“We’ve always thought that art was a big piece of the DNA of who we are,” he says. “But we never expected to be creating movies or TV shows.” Yet as streaming platforms proliferated, “we saw that the world was changing, and it seemed like everybody was going after quantity. We thought there was an opening for us, if we really focused on high quality,” he says.
From this standpoint, Apple TV+ was created not simply because streaming seemed like a rich market, but because Apple saw an opportunity to do something unique from its competition.
Does Apple TV+ exist to sell more iPhones?
When discussing Apple TV+, many have speculated that Apple sees the streamer as part of a larger marketing scheme, such that hit TV shows will translate to more iPhone sales over time.
Cook appears to wholeheartedly reject that idea:
“I don’t have it in my mind that I’m going to sell more iPhones because of it,” Cook says. “I don’t think about that at all. I think about it as a business. And just like we leverage the best of Apple across iPhones and across our services, we try to leverage the best of Apple TV+.”
Lack of a back catalog of TV shows and movies
When Apple TV+ launched, it did so with no back catalog of TV shows and movies. Famously the streamer contained only original content.
Aside from some synergistic licensing one-offs, that’s still true to this day.
Tim Cook explains why:
“We elected not to go out and procure a catalog. I know that’s a faster way into the business, but it didn’t feel like Apple at the end of the day,” Cook says. “Apple should have something that we pour our passion into, and that’s exactly what we’re doing with the shows. And now you can see us hitting a stride. It feels wonderful.”
That “stride,” it seems, has taken longer to materialize than Apple initially expected due to two major extenuating circumstances.
On Apple TV+ hitting a new stride
Top comment by SubZero
IMHO... I think Apple TV+ has a lot of great stuff! Sure, their catalog is not as big as the main players, but pound for pound, no other service offers the quality that Apple TV+ does... again IMHO.
Littleton notes that Apple’s top leaders stress how 2025 represents a unique moment for Apple TV+.
Yes, the streamer is achieving more success than ever before, but it’s also not an accident.
Cue and Cook both observe that 2025 marks the first time in the service’s history that it will roll out a carefully planned full-year slate without the extra burden of managing around a global pandemic or the two strikes in 2023 that blew a six-month hole in production pipelines. “I finally feel like we’re at the point where our slate hasn’t been impacted by the strikes or by COVID,” Cue says.
Similar comments are made by Jamie Erlicht, one of Apple’s heads of programming:
“Now we’ve got this rhythm,” Erlicht says. “We can put new things out every single week. We have a couple thousand hours of originals and over 300 titles that you can engage with. We have more returning series that we’ve ever had. We have sequels to movies that were big successes for us. So we’ve never felt better.”
Apple TV+ is available for $9.99 per month and features hit TV shows and movies like Ted Lasso, Severance, The Morning Show, Silo, and Shrinking.
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