It seems like Apple wants to change its own rules to promote its services



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Photo: Paul Sakuma (AP)

Apple really seems to really want people to sign up for its services.

According to 9to5Mac, Apple sends notifications to current subscribers and former Apple Music subscribers who are trying to re-engage them in an engagement or to attract their friends with a free three-month trial. Notifications may already be a minor inconvenience, but like 9to5Mac and Verge notes, Apple seems to bend its own rules to market its service to users.

Apple makes it clear in its App Store Guidelines Page that push notifications "should not be used for advertising, promotional, or direct marketing purposes." Gizmodo has contacted Apple for comments. It will be updated if the company responds.

It seems that Apple is struggling to attract subscribers before the announced announcement of its video streaming service next month. And, although it's still unclear what this subscription service will look like, Apple may see both as an opportunity to offset less-than-ideal smartphone sales. But that could be a problem.

Tim O'Shea, an Apple analyst at the Jefferies group, addressed this topic in an analysis released Sunday by Business Insider. Assuming that Apple charged $ 15 a month for the new streaming video service (which would roughly correspond to the Netflix 4-screen subscriber level), and was subject to a 30% discount by subscriber with its streaming partners, said O. Shea. it would be difficult for the company to immediately see a significant return on its product. By company insider:

If the service is successful and attracts 250 million subscribers, it will bring $ 13.5 billion in revenue to Apple. It's nothing to sneeze. After all, Netflix's total sales last year were $ 15.8 billion.

But in the Apple context, such a figure would be just a drop in the bucket. During the 2018 fiscal year, the company achieved a turnover of $ 265 billion. Although O'Shea and other analysts expect Apple's sales to drop sharply this year before recovering slowly, $ 13.5 billion would still be a small fraction of the company's revenue. .

If Apple Music was a resounding success – potentially exceeding potentially Spotify as a favorite streaming music service in the US and in much less time – O'Shea thinks that Apple is about to live a longer period difficult with video. This is partly because Apple would have spent a lot less than the billions of dollars that Netflix apparently releases to produce original content, an essential ingredient of its success.

But O'Shea also noted that requiring such a reduction could discourage potential partners and production companies, which, according to CNBC, could hinder Apple's dealings with HBO and other companies. O'Shea said that overall, even though Apple's service offerings were booming, it may not be enough to offset the weak sales of its iPhone.

In the end, we will just have to wait to see what Tim Cook has in his pocket in March. If O'Shea's prospects are accurate and Apple is struggling to take advantage of its new streaming service, we should probably get used to these promoted notifications asking us to try our luck.

[9to5Mac via The Verge]

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