By Dan Moren
April 30, 2017 5:18 PM PT
The Back Page: Introducing Apple Music Video, Coming at Some Future Date
CUPERTINO, California — April 26, 2017 — Apple® today announced its new Apple Music™ Video™ service, which will feature a variety of original video content developed by Apple® and its partners. Headlining the new service is the company’s upcoming “Carpool Karaoke” series, which will launch later this year and be exclusively available to Apple Music™ Video™ subscribers. The company is excited to debut this new show, which was always intended to appear later this year, and which it had no plans whatsoever to release in April, no matter what Eddy Cue said.
“Carpool Karaoke has been a highlight of James Corden’s Late Late Show,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer. “It’s featured memorable performances from some of our greatest musical luminaries, from Justin Bieber to me. We are delighted to bring it to Apple Music™ Video™ at some future time which is not this time. And we’re all too happy to state that this was not simply an elaborate plan for Eddy to get a chance to bring his karaoke to the masses.”
The star-studded Carpool Karaoke will feature pairings of celebrities that you never demanded to see. The show will be joined by other ill-conceived original programming on Apple Music™ Video™, including the recently teased reality show Planet of the Apps, in which prospective developers will have a chance to get their app idea backed by a “celebrity” judge in an in-depth review process that involves 30 seconds of riding on an escalator.
“We’re truly excited about Planet of the Apps,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing. “It’s a great way to get people excited about building apps and it does not in any way include a pool of lava that contestants will be thrown into if their pitch is not selected. However, we are considering changes for the second season, including adding a pit of spikes and replacing Gary Vaynerchuk with somebody who people actually know, like maybe Mark Cuban. I mean, he was on Entourage, right?”
In addition to these, Apple Music™ Video™ will eventually be the home of a number other programs that are currently being actively developed by Apple®, as well as a number of other seemingly random properties which the company has acquired as part of a “camouflage” strategy to keep its users guessing. At launch, the service will be available in select major cities, ranging from Cupertino, California to San Francisco, California.
Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984, and has been kind of scratching its head about what to do with the Mac lately. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV, though let’s be honest, only the first one really matters. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud, when they are working. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it when the techno-elite eventually decides to abandon the planet in favor of Mars. Which should be any day now.
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors. You can find him on Twitter at @dmoren or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. The latest novel in his Galactic Cold War series of sci-fi space adventures, The Nova Incident, is available now.]