• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, December 9, 2015

Common sense, or at least a reality check, appears to have paid a visit to Apple. Regular MAD London readers will know I've always had an Apple TV on my wish list, although the price is a little high, but would be hard to persuade to sign up to an Apple tv subscription service. Not only would the monthly subscription be placed at the pain point of just above the "OK" level, as Apple products and services always are, but I'd be wondering what I would actually be getting that I can't already get.

Sky has all the movies, box sets, catch-up and sports you are likely to need access to, bar a couple of must-see shows that are offered on Netflix first. Subscribe to both and it's hard to see where anyone else would fit in -- for now, at least.

In contrast, Apple appears to have very little lined up. It won't reveal quite what, but its admission this week that plans are on hold until it signs some content deals speaks volumes. When you look at its current TV offering, it's a lovely box whose latest incarnation lets you put up apps on the big screen -- but if you take that latest feature out of the mix, you have to concede that you get a lot out of a Fire stick or a Chromecast for way less. 

Is that where Apple should stay? The upmarket box that has a nice extra feature to get iOS apps on the big screen and looks good under the set? Well, Aople doesn't think so, and it has been pretty public in its plans to add a tv service to the box. One can only presume that the company thought conversations would be going a lot more smoothly and they'd have some great deals lined up by now. To be fair to them, entertainment deals are always a nightmare, particularly when you are talking about agreements that span borders and devices. Maybe it's a matter of time -- or maybe, just maybe, the entertainment we want to see is already spoken for and it's going to be very tough to offer it afresh within a new service.

To make the point about the UK again, if you have a Sky subscription and Netflix account, it's pretty hard to find a reason to buy another platform. People watch tv to watch tv, not to have a smart box underneath it. An Apple TV is a nice object, but at several times the cost of others, it really has to offer some bespoke entertainment before it's going to take off. The real irony is, of course, that it will never secure any lucrative deals unless it has the boxes to sell the content on to. Movie houses and tv production companies want big bucks, but they also want their content to be viewed widely. 

So it's hard to see where Apple goes from here without doing a Netflix and commissioning some bespoke original content that is so not to be missed that people buy the box and the subscription to be the first at the water cooler to know what Apple's equivalent of Frank Underwood has got up to next in the race for the Presidency.

Truthfully, I don't see any other way forward if Apple is set on being a content company as well as a purveyor of the shiny boxes none of us need but all of us want.