Apple’s missed opportunity with Apple TV+
Apple could have done something that would truly set it apart in the streaming TV market. Instead it did its best to fit in.
Don’t read the subtitle and get me wrong, I generally really enjoy my Apple TV+ subscription. In fact, Apple TV+ might well have been my most-watched streaming service in 2021. On the whole I think they’ve been really smart with how they’ve picked the shows they buy. They’re clearly trying to out-HBO the real HBO in terms of being known for high quality original content. Whereas Netflix is a clearinghouse for back catalog content and more original content than you can count, Apple has chosen to focus on quality over quantity thus far. But they’ve missed an opportunity they could have grabbed (and that many people were convinced they would grab): family-friendly content.
It’s true that Apple does have content aimed at kids that, at least from what I have sampled, seems genuinely kid-appropriate. But none of the dramas I’ve watched on Apple TV+ have been family friendly. In the year or two leading up to Apple’s official announcement that it was launching a streaming TV service, it was an open secret that they intended to do so. It was something they couldn’t really hide given that they had to establish office real estate in Southern California, hire TV executives, and make deals with content creators. And during that time one of the prevailing rumors was that Apple was going to insist that all of their original content be family friendly. They were lambasted in the press for their alleged prudishness before they had even announced Apple TV+ to the world.
The reality of what we got is far from that imagined reality. Apple’s original content is every bit as hard-R as anything from any major streaming service. In the days of network television, the content of shows had to be vetted by the network’s standards and practices department to ensure that it avoided graphic language and depictions of sex and violence, else they could be subject to punitive action from the FCC. Those regulations don’t apply to streaming services, so anything goes. And save for Disney+, all of the major streaming services tend to go straight for hard-R content. Unfortunately Apple’s service is no exception.
Now what I’m not saying is that the FCC should regulate the content of streaming services or that it’s never ok for streaming companies to produce R-rated content. I’m saying that there’s a market for shows that the entire family could watch and enjoy together, and it seems like the only major company willing to serve that market is Disney. Apple could have stood out from the pack by leaning into the same family friendly differentiator that it employs with the App Store.
John Gruber recently responded to criticism from a former Tumblr engineer regarding Apple’s censorship of pornographic content in the App Store thusly:
But the obvious grounds for these policies is brand. Apple’s brand is firmly distant from porn. You might think that’s prudish or outdated, but it’s not your brand. Among major cruise lines, all but one have casinos on each ship. The exception: Disney. It’s perfectly legal; Disney just doesn’t want their brand associated with gambling. For similar reasons, Apple is going to err on the side of overzealousness with porn in the App Store. You can get all the porno you want on the web on iOS devices.
Gruber makes a great case for how Apple differentiates its brand by banning so-called “adult content” from the App Store, and I salute Apple for this. Unfortunately Apple doesn’t extend this brand differentiation to Apple TV+. Physical, it’s original show about the fitness industry in the 80’s, has content that is arguably pornographic. See, it’s genre show about a future in which the majority of the population is blind, is full of extremely graphic violence. I think every show I’ve watched that wasn’t explicitly aimed at kids on the service is full of R-rated language. I genuinely wish Apple was making the kind of content the whole family could sit around and watch without fear that kids will be exposed to content they shouldn’t see. There really is very little out there that fills that void that’s not made by Disney.
I always hate it when people say, “Steve Jobs would never have done [X thing],” but I can’t help but wonder if Apple TV+ would have been more family friendly had it come under Steve’s watch. He was, after all, the CEO of Pixar in addition to CEO of Apple, and it was under his watch that the no-adult-content-on-the-App-Store rule was born. The reality is we’ll never know.