Grade: B (average score: 3.6, median score 4, last year: 4.0)
Apple loves its Services category, which contributed 16% of the company’s revenue in its most recent financial quarter and keeps growing at a remarkable rate. Our panelists were less enthused, though it’s worth noting that this category started in the dumps back in 2015 and has generally trended upward. Still, unlike the revenue totals, our panel’s enthusiasm about services did not continue trending endlessly upward.
David Sparks said, “Remember when we all talked about how Apple can’t do the cloud? I don’t hear anyone saying that anymore. My biggest concern about services is probably its overall success. The more Apple comes to rely on services income, the more they will create conflicts with Apple’s historical business of selling killer hardware with integrated software.”
Brian Mattucci said, “Apple’s improvements to ‘Hide My Email’, and the addition of Mail Protection and iCloud Private Relay were unexpected surprises. iCloud Private Relay isn’t ready for widespread use yet, and I hope they continue working on it.”
Marco Arment said, “The boring services — iMessage, iCloud, etc. — continue to function very well without fanfare. Siri continues to be an embarrassing mess of unreliability, sluggish performance, inconsistency, and poor-quality responses.”
John Moltz said, “Apple TV+ has really grown up. They’re not all winners, but Apple’s managed to put together a compelling enough lineup that I don’t resent my Apple One Plan.”
Stephen Hackett said, “Why 👏🏻 doesn’t 👏🏻 Apple 👏🏻 have 👏🏻 a 👏🏻 photos 👏🏻 service 👏🏻 that 👏🏻 works 👏🏻 for 👏🏻families?”
Josh Centers said, “Apple is pumping out all these services that are making them all kinds of money, but I’m not sure how useful many of them are. Apple Music and Apple Pay continue to be high points.”
Michael Tsai said, “iMessage has been extremely unreliable for me this year, with notifications and read state syncing essentially broken. Siri is still impossibly slow and unreliable, even for basics like controlling audio playback and adding reminders.”
John Gruber said, “Apple One is a very good value. Apple Music is great. TV+ is good and getting better every month. Fitness+ seems like a perfect fit for Apple given Watch’s focus on fitness. But iCloud storage tiers are too small at every price point.”
John Siracusa said, “Apple TV+ continues to have just enough excellent content to sustain itself. Apple Music seems stagnant and is saddled with some creaky apps, especially on the Mac. Apple Arcade is keeping its head above water, but might better be seen as a cost center aimed at fighting the scourge of ‘casino games for children’ on Apple’s mobile App Stores.”
Andrew Laurence said, “Each service functions well within its own domain but the value-add of bundles should be easier to navigate. I’ve yet to figure out why the Apple Music Voice Plan exists, or whom it targets.”
Gabe Weatherhead said, “The services division at Apple, if they have one, deserves a big bonus. They steered Apple from a hardware company into a services company. I’m generally happy with my Apple subscriptions, which includes the iPhone purchase plan. I pay them some money each month and I get cloud storage, news, TV shows, music, and some games. It’s actually a pretty good deal even if I wish I could get more iCloud storage. The price points are more reasonable than most streaming services so overall I like the direction Apple is headed.”
Tom Bridge said, “I remain a happy customer of the Apple One bundle. This is a good product, composed of some excellent items (iCloud, Apple Fitness+, Apple TV+), some okay items (Apple Arcade, Apple Music, Apple Card), and AppleCare remains a product in Apple’s lineup.”
Jean MacDonald said, “The Fitness+ offerings are fun to explore, and it’s great that they continue to add new interesting workout categories and instructors.”
Shahid Kamal Ahmad said, “Having paid for Fitness+ for a year, I’ve not used it once. I barely play any of the games. I don’t use the News service. Music is OK. TV is just about OK. It’s not a compelling package for the money.”
Charles Arthur said, “Very solid. Fitness+ is great, TV+ had some good shows (and the price is attractive), and the Apple One bundles are well priced. It’s also reliable. No big stories about downtime that I recall.”
Rich Mogull said, “TV+, Music, Apple Card, and even Apple News are solid. Fitness+ is pretty good but still doesn’t have enough variety. AppleCare+ has also been a great experience this year, with more flexible options. I wish I needed it less. But… iCloud. Oh iCloud. You’ve become the anchor gluing everything together and dragging them to the depths of the ocean as all the services on top try their best to tread water.”
Dr. Drang said, “iCloud Drive continues to be my main cloud storage system. Its reliability is an undertold story. But Apple needs to make sharing as easy as Dropbox does.”
Casey Liss said, “For the most part, I’m pleased with Apple’s services. I don’t love that they’re becoming an ever-larger priority for Apple, and I feel like I’m continually being nickel-and-dimed about… everything. However, I enjoy the services I do subscribe to as part of Apple One. Fitness+ is really well done, and I like that they’re trying new things throughout the year. iCloud still doesn’t have enough storage for free; it’s really getting kind of embarrassing now. I dove in on Apple Photos this past year and by and large it’s been pretty reliable and worked quite well. Apple Pay is becoming more and more useful over time, as more websites and more brick-and-mortar retailers adopt it. AppleTV+ is surprising in its breadth, and though I’ve only taken the time to watch a few of the shows offered, they’ve all been enjoyable.”
Joe Macirowski said, “Remember iCloud Private Relay? FaceTime coming closer to parity with iChat AV is nice, though.”
James Thomson said, “AppleTV+ produced a lot of really great shows, but iCloud has been very unreliable from a developer perspective since the autumn OS updates.”
Allison Sheridan said, “Apple Card was much more of a game changer than I expected. Being able to see all of our transactions in a human-readable form, having the immediate popup to confirm that a transaction went through (when often the seller’s web interface is stuck pretending it hasn’t) and the continued security of an obfuscated credit card number adds up to a fabulous service.”
Myke Hurley said, “Many of my favourite TV shows of the year were on TV+. That’s not something I would have expected this soon.”
Nick Heer said, “After decades of failed starts and reliability problems, it is still a little hard to believe Apple is a legitimately convincing internet services company. 2021 was the tenth year of iCloud and it has come a long way in that time. These services are rarely showy and do not necessarily stand out, but they have been reliable for me. Unfortunately, a security researcher managed to delete all public links to shared Shortcuts, so that wasn’t great. Apple Music is still nowhere near as compelling as it ought to be. Also, outside of the United States, Apple’s services portfolio feels like a watered-down impression of what they should be.”
Guilherme Rambo said, “I wish Apple Music wasn’t so slow and buggy.”
Peter Cohen said, “Just based on my own receipts, I’m throwing a lot more money at Apple this year for services than I ever have. So either they’re doing something right or I screwed up.”
Benjamin Mayo said, “Apple Arcade probably got the most love this year with the expansion of the library into ‘Timeless Classics’ and ‘App Store Greats’, enabling the company to funnel a lot more titles onto the service. Both Apple Music and Apple TV+ feel held back by the apps you have to use to access them. And 2021 didn’t really move the needle on improving those experiences, for either Music or TV. Rebranding of paid iCloud as iCloud+ was interesting, but the actual non-storage features feel a little underwhelming. Most notably, Private Relay was released as a beta, and the beta still seems quite buggy.”
Adam Engst said, “When Apple’s services are good, they’re very, very good. Apple Pay, particularly when activated from the Apple Watch, is living in the future. When they’re bad, they’re completely irrelevant.”
Carolina Milanesi said, “The introduction of Fitness+ offered a good alternative to Peloton, with a superior integration of Apple Watch. The introduction of Apple One allowed for higher attach rate of multiple services at a very competitive price point.”
Federico Viticci said, “Apple did a good job expanding Apple Arcade to include classic games and ‘App Store greats’ – basically using game preservation as a way to build a back catalog of content, which is clever. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the evolution of Apple TV+. Apple Music had a pretty quiet year with no major changes in the iPhone and iPad app, which is why I find myself more excited about Apple TV+ these days. A lot of people in our community dislike Apple’s transformation into a hardware company that also sells services for recurring revenue; I think it’s fun, and I like how you can mix and match the services you subscribe to and unlock different experiences on Apple platforms based on your needs and preferences. If an audiobook service is next, that’s likely another one I’ll subscribe to.”
Dave Hamilton said, “The addition of Custom Email Domains in iCloud+ is really a sleeper feature. I’ve helped many people migrate over to these, and it is — by far — the easiest path I’ve ever experienced to getting your own email at your own domain. Huge.”
Zac Hall said, “Big year for Apple Music with Dolby Atmos (and lossless for those who care).”