Review: Planet of The Apps

Webwizard
Jun 9, 2017
2 min read

Webwizard's Review: 👍🏼

Apple Music has just released a new show called Planet of The Apps for those of us who like to get our geek on. If The Voice and Shark Tank had a baby in Silicon Valley, it would be Planet of The Apps.

Hosted by Zane Lowe, the premise is this; Mobile App developers get a chance to pitch their app ideas to Gwyneth Paltrow (actress and CEO of lifestyle brand GOOP), Jessica Alba (actress and CEO of toxic-free household product company, The Honest Company), Will.I.Am (Black Eyed Peas musician and inventor), and Gary Vaynerchuk (entrepreneur and author).

The judges choose which app developers they would like to mentor and the developers choose which of those judges they would like to work with (just like on The Voice and Shark Tank). After a judge and developer are paired up, they work together to develop the idea and eventually present it to venture capitalists, Lightspeed Venture Partners, in hopes of having them invest capital in the app (just like on Shark Tank). The winning apps will also get premier placement in the Apple App Store.

In the series premier, only two apps were selected to make formal pitches to Lightspeed Venture Partners;

Companion - An app geared at personal safety allowing users to have trusted friends virtually accompany them until they reach their destination.
Pair - An app that uses augmented reality to place merchant products in your own surroundings so you can see what they'd look like before buying them.

To see who won, you will have to watch it for yourself. I'll admit, even though the show is wrapped in Apple's brand (full disclosure - I'm partial to the Apple ecosystem), I went into it with low expectations. However, about half-way through the show, I realized I was hooked. I found myself rooting for the developers knowing from personal experience how much risk, hard work and passion they have for their ideas. The feedback the judges were providing were spot-on legit and not just television drama (they're are also pretty easy on the eyes 😉). As an added bonus, there are no commercials so the show moves at a great pace. It just works! The only negative thought I have about the show is that it is only available to AppleMusic subscribers. With our attention being pulled in so many directions already, I'm not so sure if the viewing audience is ready to start adding AppleMusic to the already enormous list of streaming content providers (i.e. Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, GooglePlay, Hulu, DirectTVNow, etc..).

Truth be told, there are lots of lessons to learn from Planet of The Apps including emerging technologies, marketing, end-user demographics, analytics, social marketing, investing, and business planning.

If you're a fan of The Voice, Shark Tank or even just technology in general, I recommend you tune into Planet of The Apps on Apple Music. A new show is released every Tuesday.

Here's how Apple Music subscribers can watch: