Sustainability, Health, and Global Domination: A Snapshot using Apple’s 3rd Camera
(Originally published on LinkedIn on 11th September 2019)
This year’s Apple Event was once again a display of the future of technology. But to me, more than that, it was one of hope and inspiration — the energy, excitement, enthusiasm, stunning design, beautiful videos and pictures, and last, but not the least, the amazing advertising content.
Sustainability and health emerged as key themes going forward for Apple, which are extremely important with the ongoing climate crisis and the globally aging population. But more importantly, Apple is expanding to categories that are now growing exponentially. Even though it’s not necessarily an expert in these categories, Apple is going after these to ensure complete global domination. Here’s my quick roundup of the highlights of the announcements made on 10th September 2019, starting with the daunting Global Domination.
Global Domination
Apple’s new price to spread everywhere is $4.99 per month. Both their 2 new key services — Apple Arcade and Apple TV+ are being priced much lower than the existing players and establishing cost leadership. Apple’s probably the only company that can afford to undercut the opponents and offer such prices. These services have also been designed with clear user understanding. Arcade offers accessibility for the entire family and the TV+ subscription comes with 6 member access. Password sharing has been a nightmare for the existing providers including Netflix and Hulu
Apple TV+ has already created an impact in the market with its shows Dickinson, See and The Morning Show. With See, Apple is also pushing the boundaries of inclusion by working with cast and crew who are visually challenged and this also adds credibility to the show’s dystopian theme. But the homerun with this service is Apple offering it free for a year with every new Apple product purchase. The easiest hook in the playbook. But with Disney+ in the market, and Netflix and HBO having licenses for the majority of the content, it will definitely be interesting to see how much Apple TV+ is going to depend on original content and how it’s going to keep its users hooked on to the service.
Health
Apple Watch Series 5 is being sold as a watch “that tells time, among other things”. Side note — Apple’s ads have always been great and this video is no less. In fact, this year every piece of content seems like an upgrade with Apple’s content venture.
The video speaks for itself and is being positioned as the perfect companion. But the sales of these watches don’t seem to be Apple’s key interest. It’s only a means to an end. Their ultimate goal is to usurp the current approach to healthcare.
Apple has already been collecting a lot of data from its watches and now has also opened it up to the audience to voluntarily sign-up for these health studies. The studies include one on hearing, one on women’s health concerning menstrual cycles, infertility and osteoporosis, and one on heart and movement study to create interventions. Apple has always been great at understanding its users and another example of this is its key sale point for its health research projects — providing control of data to the user and its promise of data anonymity.
Health is a domain that has, is and will always be a high-profit generator and Apple has its eyes set on stealing a share of that market. By partnering with both, key stakeholders and with the general public, Apple forms the perfect bridge between them. By providing one product with all features and not limiting access, Apple’s model clearly outcompetes the likes of FitBit and other fitness band providers. This growing monopoly is going to be the new health-tech going forward.
Sustainability
Apple, with these 2 services, expands its influence on our lifestyle and on some level, this could be scary since it increases the customer’s dependency on the Apple ecosystem. The ecosystem is Apple’s best part, but with these new services, is it straining it? Only time will tell. Although knowing Apple and its fanatics (me included), it will be successful at it.
Sustainability has been a part of Apple’s product portfolio for a while now. The improvement to this in 2019 is making its aluminium cases 100% recyclable. It’s necessary for firms like Apple to stress on the importance of sustainability. Disposal of tech has been bad and so many people are completely unaware of the ways to even dispose of headphones let alone phones, laptops, and tablets that are made up of 1000s of minute components. The least that could be done is to make the outer shell recyclable and that’s what Apple has done. It won’t be long before other firms follow and make the world a better place.
That brings my roundup to an end. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this.
