Apple Books Left on the Shelf? | Job Cuts Signal Reduced Focus
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Although Apple Books has its fans among iPhone and iPad users, it’s always been a distant second to the Amazon Kindle empire, and it seems Apple may be tacitly acknowledging this. A new round of job cuts in its digital services group shows shifting priorities in the company’s focus on e-books.
Earlier today, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman? reported that Apple has taken the relatively rare step of slashing 100 jobs on its services side. Most of these affect the team that develops the Apple Books app and the Apple Bookstore.
Those weren’t the only layoffs, as some other engineering roles were affected, as well as a few in other services teams, specifically the one behind Apple News, which is also less of a priority for the company compared to flagship services like Apple Music and Apple TV+.
While Apple has also made some cuts in the Apple TV+ arena, those have been confined to tightening the purse strings on external production budgets rather than cutting internal staff. Of course, that’s easier to do since the vast majority of Apple’s productions are contracted through third-party studios and not handled by in-house employees. Nevertheless, Apple is still paying big bucks where it sees value, with hits like The Morning Show still netting the lead stars and executive producers around $2 million per episode, and the upcoming original film, Wolfs, reportedly paying co-stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney around $35 million each.
Still, if there’s one service that feels like one that time forgot, it’s Apple Books. While Apple undoubtedly does a reasonable business of selling e-books through its online bookstore, it’s far from a significant revenue generator, and the company has shown no interest in expanding into an e-book or audiobook subscription platform like Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited or Audible.
This doesn’t mean that Apple is abandoning Apple Books. Gurman says it will still add new features to the Books app over time, but it’s likely to focus on maintaining the service rather than improving it.
Apple Books has become less of a priority for the company, which doesn’t see it as a major part of its services lineup. The Books app is still expected to get new features over time, according to the people. As for Apple News, the layoffs aren’t a sign that it’s becoming less of a focus, they said.Mark Gurman
On the other hand, Gurman says the layoffs in the Apple News division don’t signal that Apple plans to de-prioritize that service in any way.
While it’s rare to see Apple lay off employees, it’s had a few rounds in recent months due to significant projects that have been outright canceled. For instance, the long-term Apple Car project was cancelled earlier this year, resulting in substantial layoffs. Apple did its best to reassign team members who could still be used in other divisions, such as artificial intelligence and robotics. Still, there aren’t many places where automotive engineers and car designers can find another home at Apple.
As Dan Moren points out at Six Colors, Apple seemingly never fully recovered from its e-book price-fixing scandal. It’s been hesitant to take any real risks since then, leaving Amazon to remain the juggernaut in the industry by default. It’s the only company in a position to take on Amazon, yet it’s done little to compete beyond some awkward and misguided attempts to reinvent the reading experience. Meanwhile, Amazon enjoys a massive market share thanks to its affordable e-ink readers — a low-margin category that Apple would likely never consider — and “all-you-can-eat” subscription services for e-books and audiobooks.
Still, Apple may enjoy its comfortable yet distant second place in the game. It certainly has bigger fish to fry, and it’s likely content to keep Apple Books as a value-added service that allows it to provide a full range of media options to its fans without the need to pour a ton of money into trying to topple the dominant player. That’s not unlike its strategy with Apple TV+, which feels like a similar “boutique” service when put up against streaming giants like Netflix and Disney.
