Apple’s TELEVISION Plus placed on a hell of a program. It simply wasn’t for us

This story becomes part of Apple Event, our complete protection of the current news from Apple head office.

Walking up the blustery course to Apple’s huge occasion Monday, I had a great deal of concerns about the gizmo giant’s big-league streaming TELEVISION aspirations. But I left the Steve Jobs Theater with couple of responses.

Apple stopped placing on a program for me, a tech press reporter at her very first Apple occasion, the minute the lights increased to expose Steven Spielberg to a standing ovation. And it wasn’t placing on a program for you — the consumer and potential customer — any longer either. If it had actually been, Apple may have informed us just how much the streaming service will cost, whether its programs’ episodes will drop simultaneously or the number of programs will be readily available at launch.

Instead, from Spielberg to Oprah Winfrey and all the stars in between, Apple brought its Hollywood talent to Cupertino, California, to publicly worship them and their craft.

Don’t believe me? Apple literally put them on pedestals.

“It appeared to be an advertisement to the industry that they’re able to attract high-quality talent and they’re willing to spend,” BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk said in an interview Thursday. “They weren’t selling this to end users.” 

The stars and filmmakers on display Monday served as a reminder that Apple loves the creative community — and the feeling is mutual. Not only did it get Hollywood icons and up-and-comers to praise Apple, Monday’s presentation showed Apple itself has enough star power to get Oprah– and Spielberg-level wattage to show up and effuse about their excitement to work with the company.

Despite my hopes, Apple’s event didn’t set its talent loose to start gabbing about their projects publicly. Apple’s event lifted the veil of secrecy over its programming — but quickly dropped it back down. I contacted representatives for more than 30 actors, actresses and filmmakers present in the Steve Jobs Theater that day. None would share reactions to the event on the record.

But it did mean the assembled celebrities could litter their social feeds with warm fuzzies for Apple. 

The result is a hard reset on the perception of Apple’s relationship with its talent.

Reporting leading up to this week often depicted Apple as a clueless meddler in the high-octane shows it’s booked. Carpool Karaoke, one of Apple’s first stabs at original programming on its Apple Music subscription service, was sent back to creators to remove “foul language and references to vaginal hygiene,” according to Bloomberg. Apple executives allegedly were “intrusive” about how its programs depict technology, with one of Tim Cook’s frequent notes to one producer reportedly being, “don’t be so mean!”

Apple didn’t respond to a message seeking comment for this article.

Putting all those stars on stage meant “it sounds like [Apple’s] excellent to deal with,” Laura Martin, senior web and media expert at Needham and Co., stated Thursday. “You can’t buy Steven Spielberg… You’re not going to get Oprah to work with you unless you’re great to work with.”

But Apple does not deal with much of a fight getting Hollywood skill on board.

For one, it’s paying leading dollar. Even Netflix, a business that continuously puts much of conventional Hollywood on edge, still has skill gathering to its huge spending plans and big base of audiences. Even amongst the Apple stars put together at Cupertino today, numerous are Netflix skill too.

Michelle Dockery, best called Lady Mary on Downton Abbey, will star in Apple’s Defending Jacob, after she was chosen for an Emmy for Netflix’s Godless. Days prior to Brie Larson was presenting for that eye-popping group picture in Apple’s smooth theater lobby, she was publishing the trailer to her directorial launching, Unicorn Store, from Netflix. 

On the other side, some are currently analyzing Spielberg’s look at Apple — and his previous dismissiveness about Netflix as a movie supplier — as the famous director taking a side in the coming Apple vs. Netflix heavyweight bout.

Unlike Netflix, Apple does not have a single video customer yet. But it does have 900 million active iPhones in everybody’s pockets and what’s approximated to be a $2 billion yearly spending plan for shows. Even without Apple’s shine, any business with that type of circulation network which much cash to invest would not sweat scoring conferences with Hollywood’s elite.

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If Apple’s message to customers was that it had molded itself into a programming giant to rival HBO or Netflix, it delivered that message mostly with sleight of hand. Apple’s celebrity presenters had the chance to create excitement about their projects — and Apple’s time-tested stagecraft certainly put all its talent in the best possible light.

But ultimately we only learned crumbs of new information. We learned the titles of some shows and the general plots to some episodes of Spielberg’s Amazing Stories series and Kumail Nanjiani’s Little America. Sure, Apple gave us a sizzle reel with snippets from many of its shows. But with multiple shows already in the can, Apple couldn’t put together a trailer or two?

Whatever Hollywood thought of the show Apple put on Monday, we — the people who would be its viewers — are still waiting for Apple to put on a show for us. If Apple TV Plus is really, as Tim Cook put it Monday, “unlike anything that’s been done before,” it has more explaining to do.