Actor and Saturday Night Live alumnus Jason Sudeikis's "Ted Lasso" series is set to launch on Apple TV+ on Friday, August 14.
The original Ted Lasso content
Sudeikis played Ted Lasso for the 2013 NBC Sports English Premier League coverage, and now he is reviving the character for his new television show.
Sudeikis plays Ted Lasso, a small-time college football coach from Kansas hired to coach a professional soccer team in England, despite having no experience coaching soccer.
In addition to starring in the series, Sudeikis is also an executive producer alongside Bill Lawrence, known for his work on "Scrubs."
Apple has been adding new television content to Apple TV+ on a regular basis, yesterday premiering "Central Park," a new animated series from Loren Bouchard and earlier this week adding all of the old episodes of "Fraggle Rock."
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Today, the time spent on Apple's devices, that used to be on apps, has been superseded by a different kind of content: video. And it's not even close. Video content is now by far the number one use for these devices. For Apple to continue to "make the whole widget", they have to move beyond just apps and also produce their own video content on par with the content giants. It doesn't mean restricting others, just offering that reference model that enables others to compete against.
With people spending more and more time inside of streaming services' own apps and user experiences, that UI begins to become what Apple users are exposed to the most. Had Apple not created AppleTV+, those giants would begin to increasingly influence how Apple devices are used and you'd have your Apple experience determined by outside third parties in the same way that Facebook had sought to create an internet within the internet, apps within their own apps, taking over the default experience. For an example of how that was already happening, look no further than the way Netflix had started pushing Apple around and dictating their own terms, preventing Apple from building the TV app the way they had liked to.
With AppleTV+, that upper hand has been levelled. Apple is now an emerging threat to Netflix' model, just enough that they'll have to play Apple's game if they want to continue to compete. I think that looking ahead, we'll have healthy competition with a set of services all offering content in Channels in the AppleTV app, AppleTV+ being just one of them.
It won't be free with new devices if it takes off, otherwise they'll carry on stealth charging people for something they don't really need. Personally an option to take £60 off a new Apple iPad or iPhone if you have no desire for it would be good. I thought getting things for free was being the product...