Filming for the inaugural season of Apple’s “Planet Of The Apps” is not due to start until late 2016, but the “unscripted” reality show has already generated some heated debate.
Apple announced last week that Jessica Alba would be joining its forthcoming “Planet of the Apps” series as an executive producer and mentor. According to Variety, the actress-entrepreneur will be using her experience as a co-founder of non-toxic consumer goods company The Honest Company to provide advice and guidance to app developers at the startup level.
Concrete details of the show’s format have been hard to come by to date, but the general consensus is that it will be a mix of “Shark Tank” crossed with “The X Factor.” Apple has called it a “launch pad and accelerator for exceptional developers” that will include marketing and promotion, mentorship and funding.
“As a mentor on ‘Planet of the Apps,’ I’m looking forward to meeting entrepreneurs looking to address a problem with an innovative solution, and to help them realize their vision” said Alba, reported Variety. “I can’t wait to see the ideas the app developers bring to the table.”
Although Alba certainly has business experience, the decision to make her a mentor to app developers has not been greeted with universal enthusiasm by some members of the tech sphere.
Gizmodo’s Sophie Kleeman said in an opinion piece that the choice of Alba was nothing less than an outrage.
TechCrunch’s Romain Dillet was more diplomatic, calling it a weird addition to an already eclectic cast. The show has the potential to be worth watching, but none of the mentors—Alba, singer Will.i.am, actress Gwyneth Paltrow and tech investor Gary Vaynerchuk—had the necessary experience in design, engineering or App Store growth strategy, Dillet said.
Kleeman said:
Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against women in technology, and let me throw out some alternative casting choices to prove it: Whitney Wolfe, Evan Spiegel, Anne Wojcicki, Kevin Systrom, Julia Hartz, Dennis Crowley, Emily Weissor, or Pavel Durov.“Apps are a serious business, and there’s no better way to pay homage to them than to make a scripted reality show about how they’re made,” wrote Kleeman. “Next time, leave Jessica out of it. She’s got enough to worry about, anyway—having kids and being hot at the same time seems hard enough.”
And people wonder why women often feel discouraged to enter the tech industry.
Why Outrage Is Not The Right Word
Even if Kleeman is right about Alba’s programing skills, there is still no justification for calling it a casting outrage. Irrespective of her celebrity status, Alba’s addition to the program roster as a female entrepreneur indicates that Apple want to promote awareness about gender equality in the app economy through the show.I have read the Gizmodo article several times and I still don’t know whether Kleeman is being satirical or not. I showed it to a male game designer friend and he was appalled. Yes, the addition of Alba is out-of-left-field, but outrage is not the appropriate response.
Men dominate the tech industry. A recent global survey of 1,000 developers by mobile advertising platform InMobi found that a mere 6% of app developers were female. The numbers were better in the United States—around 11% of developers are women—but the fact is that it is still a man’s world.
The lack of gender diversity does not mean that there are not female programmers … far from it.
Non-profit organization Women Who Code has a global membership of 80,000 members and recently held the first all-female hackathon, according to a blog post. In 2015, the hashtag #ILookLikeAn Engineer brought hundreds of female software engineers into the spotlight after an recruitment campaign featuring a female full stack developer generated negative (and sexist) comments.
See also: Only 6% Of App Developers Are Women
Let’s look at Alba’s inclusion on the show this way.
Apple wants to not only produce a show that highlights app development talent but also get people to tune in on a regular basis. App developers are not famous people in the eyes of the general public so, it makes sense to have “celebrities” attached to the project. And if those celebrities have business acumen or tech experience—Will.i.am was a director of creative innovation at Intel, for example—then Planet of the Apps could be a hit.
“Apple’s move to hire recognizable names rather than startup founders that only a handful of non-tech people have ever heard of makes the show a viable option for those outside the Silicon Valley bubble,” wrote The Next Web’s Bryan Clark. “Alba’s appeal adds to this, and if you want to go really next level, could lead to young admirers watching the show that are tomorrow’s great female entrepreneurs.”
Planet Of The Apps Is A Showcase For Creativity
Apple has said that Planet of the Apps will be solely focused on apps and their creators, while the mentors will be able to call upon additional experts as needed. The Next Web reported that the show will take a “rather simple and unimaginative premise,” with cameras following app developers as they navigate the “shark-filled waters of Silicon Valley.Successful developers will receive up to $10 million in VC funding, Variety reported. In addition, the show’s website states that developers will get the chance to receive “hands-on guidance from some of the most influential experts in the tech community.” And while that is not likely to be a Zuckerberg, Gates or Wozniak (few people are), it is extremely unlikely that Apple won’t have a deep bench of established app developers available when filming starts.
Celebrity mentors aside, Planet of the Apps is supposed to showcase the creativity of the apps economy, which is something that Apple is in a unique position to do. Aside from HBO’s Silicon Valley—well-written satire—and the occasional show about hacking (USA Network’s “Mr. Robot”), the world of software development is a mystery to most people.
Apple is trying to create original programming around what it knows—apps. It’s a weird choice for Apple to be in the reality television market in the first place, but at least it is playing to a core strength. It is also odd that Apple’s first foray into original programming will be a reality competition … but they feel they have to start somewhere to combat the likes of Amazon and Netflix when it comes to streaming media.
Up to 100 developers will take part in the show and there is a deadline of September 21 to apply. Apple is not promising to make app developers into bona-fide tech celebrities, but Planet of the Apps may (possibly) be a groundbreaking series in popular culture.
If successful, developers will need to have an iOS, macOS, tvOS or watchOS in a beta or functional state by October 21 so that Apple can finalize the cast before filming starts. The show will be based in Los Angeles and is slated to debut in 2017.
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