[necubi]

To me, the clear indication that they're serious about this transition to services will be making them available on third-party devices. Android has ~55% market share in the US, and >80% globally. Roku has 35% of the smart TV market (through both their dedicated devices and TV integrations), Apple has ~15%.

A video streaming service that's only available on iOS and Apple TV will be inevitably niche, and no real competition for Netflix. This also means they will likely have to pay a premium for content (and a _much_ larger amount per user) as creators will prefer to be on platforms where more people will see their work.

But ultimately, supporting Android and 3rd party streaming devices goes against Apple's DNA. Apple still sees itself as a hardware company, and software and services exist to give people reasons to buy their hardware.

[andor]

"To me, the clear indication that they're serious about this transition to services will be making them available on third-party devices"

This just happened:

"Apple is putting iTunes on Samsung TVs" - https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/6/18170797/samsung-2019-tvs-...

[chipotle_coyote]

That's a big—and new—step for Apple, and I'm sure it's connected to the video service. They don't want it to be "Apple product exclusive," even if I'm sure they'd rather you use Apple products to watch it.

But Apple hasn't ever been quite as exclusive as they're painted to be when it comes to peripherals and services. They've had iTunes on Windows for a very long time (yes, it's kind of a trash fire, but it's still there), and that was mostly to support the iPod. They have iCloud for Windows. Apple Music has an Android app, is supported by Sonos and Amazon Alexa, and even has a web-based API (no official "cloud player," but there's an open source one out there which Apple knows about and is apparently okay with as long as it doesn't use the word "Apple" in its name). And, of course, a lot of non-Apple products can receive AirPlay, and they appear to have gotten fairly aggressive in the last few months at moving AirPlay 2 into the third-party market.

So, Apple Services have been on third-party devices for years; they've just historically been a lot less enthusiastic about it than companies like Spotify and Amazon have been. I would expect to see them be way more enthusiastic from here on.

[AsyncAwait]

I'd very much appreciate them making AirPlay an open protocol, enabling any app to freely stream to AirPlay 2 hardware. Are they really benefiting that much from the licensing deals vs the ecosystem it could spawn? They'd still be producing most of the AurPlay receiver hardware people'd buy, just not the transmitting end.

[chipotle_coyote]

Yeah, I think it would benefit them to make it open, also. It's really hard for me to think of a protocol that benefits from being proprietary, especially if you're trying to build an ecosystem around it.

(I think there's probably a good case along those lines for an open "Internet of Things" protocol that would let any IoT device work with any voice assistant or other controller -- probably by "publishing" a set of control terms for it, like AppleScript dictionaries and whatever the ARexx equivalent was on the Amiga -- but so far I'm not sure anyone's even proposed that.)

[CharlesW]

> This just happened:

Yep! Other examples include the Apple Music service and the AirPlay 2 protocol, both of which are available on multiple non-Apple platforms.

[AsyncAwait]

As far as I am aware AirPlay 2 is only licenseable for the receiver end of the protocol, not the transmitter part.

[alwillis]

Apple has sold over 2 billion iOS devices, so by definition, a service that runs on iOS is not niche.

Sure, Android has more but Apple has the best 2 billion customers available.

[graeme]

I think the strategy is to make airplay 2 available on any smart tv or device that they can.

Then, the streaming service will be available to anyone with any apple device: any iphone, ipad, mac.

A large chunk of people have at least one idevice or mac in a household. For instance, many android users have ipads.

All of these can get the service, and all will be able to put it on a screen with airplay 2.

Don't know if it will compensate, but that appears to be the strategy for the dilemma you're describing. I think they may also make their exclusive content available on any apple hardware.

[jedberg]

I use my iPad to stream content for my mother in law to my TV using AirPlay. It's a huge pain in the ass. She can't do it for herself, I have to set it up because of the various steps involved. I don't see that as a viable workaround.

[graeme]

Thanks! I don’t know the difficulties involved; I have no TV, just a projector. What steps did you have to do?

I agree that if most devices are cumbersome to stream to, then that’s too much friction for almost everyone.

[jedberg]

It's not complicated, it's just not intuitive.

1) Open the app

2) Make it start streaming

3) Make it full screen

4) Swipe up from the bottom of the screen (this is the part she never remembers)

5) Activate AirPlay and select the right device (in my house they are Apple TVs so they have good names, but if it were in every TV, they would have strange names

5b) If you've never streamed to this TV before, put in the auth code

At this point it will play to the TV. However, since I have an older iPad, it plays a 16:9 image in a 4:3 box on a 16:9 TV, so it doesn't use the whole screen. So then you have to go to the TV and change it to "zoom" mode to use the whole screen, which of course isn't at full resolution at that point.

[kalleboo]

The iOS "Videos" app used for iTunes video purchases doesn't require fullscreening, has the airplay streaming button right there on the video (removing the swipe up step), and it streams the raw video instead of doing screen mirroring (avoiding the letterbox/zoom issue), so presumably an Apple streaming service would also be easier to use

[tssva]

Apple Music is available on Android, so I suspect any video service would be too.

[petra]

Is it popular on Android ? Because last I checked, maybe a year ago , their Android app sucked.