Could Apple carry its Apple Music human curation obsession over to its much-rumored Apple TV refresh?
During Jimmy Iovine’s new interview with Wired about Apple Music, Iovine — unprompted — chose television as another example of a place Apple could incorporate its belief in humans trumping algorithms when it comes to recommendations.
Iovine said that:
“We all know one thing, we all have different television delivery systems, don’t we all wish that the delivery systems were better, as far as curation and service? They’re all technically good. And Netflix is starting to cross the code because they’re starting to make some original content. It is really good, but still I mean none of us make movies here right, so we’re all punters, or what do you call them in the music business, fans right? We want to watch movies. Sit down with your girlfriend or a bunch of friends and try to find a movie online. That box helps you none — it doesn’t help. You’re on your own. And eventually that will catch them unless somebody digs in and really helps the customer. And entertainment needs that, it needs to live and breathe.”
Now that could, maybe, be all be one extended metaphor for Apple’s belief in human curation for music, but given everything we’ve heard about the company’s plans to reinvent television it seems an oddly-specific illustration to pull out of thin air, doesn’t it? Particularly since we know Iovine has been involved with the TV side of things, when it comes to helping Apple broker content deals.
Just how human curation would work for Apple TV isn’t obvious, since it would likely offer existing stations brought together under one banner, with a nifty UI thrown in. But the idea that Apple could conceivably feature human recommendations as part of the service — or even go full Netflix and produce its own content — is definitely intriguing.
It’s not like Apple hasn’t started doing this itself recently. A number of the new videos which have debuted on Apple Music were produced by Apple in-house, while more and more of its ads are created internally too.
If Netflix can scoop up Emmys for its original programming, then what could a company with as many entertainment contacts as Apple manage?
Source: Wired
