Despite the star power of Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg and Big Bird from Sesame Street, all gathered by Apple for the unveiling in California of its television streaming service Apple TV+, Netflix need not panic. Apple is entering the arena, but it is not a Netflix killer.
Sony, the Japanese consumer electronics and video games company, is a better model for Apple. This sounds like an insult, given that Sony’s past diversification into entertainment never fulfilled the original vision, and its market value is a fraction of Apple’s. Although Steve Jobs, Apple’s founder, was an admirer of Sony, he overtook it before his death.
But Apple’s push into television, video games and news could achieve Sony’s original intention of integrating devices and content, this time more sensibly and without wasting so much money. Apple has a far better hand than Sony’s when it bought CBS Records and Columbia Pictures in the late 1980s, and technology has belatedly caught up with Sony’s historic purpose.