It is clear that services are the future of the tech industry and Apple wants to head hard into it this year. People already attached to the Apple ecosystem can finally rejoice as Apple promises to offer some of the best and unique services any tech company has yet taken initiative for. Bad news for people out of Apple’s ecosystem as these services will raise the walled garden as it stands, even though depending on who you ask it is a mess these days out of the garden.
So Apple on their 25th March event announced these four services:
- Apple News+
A subscription based service for all the magazines and collections in one place which would otherwise cost way more if you individually subscribed to them.
- Apple TV+
A Netflix'esque service but with more investment in Originals and the benefit of seamless transition between apple devices, also unlike Netflix you will be able to download everything for offline viewing and supposedly for a longer time than Netflix allows.
- Apple Arcade
Gaming and Apple have always been memed about, Google just announced Stadia and now this, another gaming streaming service but with focus on wholesome family gaming instead of triple AAA competition. Apple realises that the destination for casual and relaxed gamers is mobile devices and not a console or a buffed up system; so they are taking the lead where they are already ahead, mobile platform gaming with exclusive titles, no ads, offline play and 100 games coming at release. This might finally make Apple a serious competitor to the industry.
- Apple Card
This might be the most unexpected announcement in the event, an Apple Credit Card which will be virtual and physical. You get to use an Apple branded Credit Card which relies on no fees, charges or late fess anywhere; it will have the mastercard tag so it will work basically every where. The virtual card will work via your Apple pay app and if you cannot use Apple pay then you can also get a physical Titanium based card. A lot to learn about this product in general later on.
I don’t believe any of these services will be working in Pakistan which always makes it a harder choice to invest in an Apple product; you are missing out on so many Apple specific services and features. Overall for the industry this move by Apple might cause all other brands to shift their working models with their devices and implementation of services.
But exclusion of region to the services always hinder the demand and damage the reputation of a brand so lets see how far this goes.