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By Tripp Mickle 

When Apple Inc. launched the iPod with iTunes, Steve Jobs fought efforts to make them accessible on rivals' devices. He wanted the newest Apple products to benefit the company's own hardware business

Nearly two decades later, the tech giant is changing its philosophy as it tries to maximize the reach and revenue of newly launched services. The change is a step to venture beyond the tech giant's user base, which is large but currently tethered to device owners, to effectively compete with companies that have a big head start in arenas like entertainment.

Announcing a suite of new services Monday, Apple said it struck agreements to bring its enhanced TV app -- with access to a la carte network subscriptions and, eventually, Apple's original content -- to smart TV devices from rivals like Samsung Electronics Co., Amazon.com Inc., and Roku Inc. Apple also said it would provide a physical credit card, so people who sign up for its new Apple Card payment service can make purchases at locations that don't accept Apple Pay.

Those offerings follow recent announcements that Apple Music would become available on Amazon's Echo smart speaker and Apple AirPlay on some TVs, allowing iPhone owners to stream content directly to devices made by Vizio Inc., LG Electronics Inc. and others.

Such deals are a departure from a formula that has been at the center of Apple's success since the original Macintosh: selling gadgets and software that were inextricably linked -- you couldn't buy one without the other. That approach, which gives Apple control over users' experience, has proven enormously profitable. Apple cleared nearly $60 billion in profit last fiscal year on $266 billion in revenue; about two-thirds of sales came from the iPhone.

But the approach also has limited Apple's reach. Despite launching its own streaming-TV box a decade ago, the company can claim only about 25 million active Apple TVs in the U.S., just over a tenth of connected TV users, according to eMarketer. Apple's HomePod smart speaker has sold a small fraction of the tally for Amazon's Alexa-based speakers, which has a 70% share of the U.S. market. And Apple Pay is still not accepted by some merchants.

Apple has to address those gaps in its network to make its new paid services succeed, said Ben Bajarin, a technology analyst with Creative Strategies. He pointed to Netflix Inc., which has 139 million paying subscribers across an array of devices, as evidence that a cross-platform strategy is required to compete.

"The more money you give Apple, the less restrictions you want on how you consume it," Mr. Bajarin said. "Apple has to meet customers where they're at and that may not always be on Apple hardware."

Apple didn't respond to requests to comment. Dow Jones & Co., publisher of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply news through Apple services.

Apple has some experience extending services to other devices. Beats Electonics LLC, which Apple acquired in 2014, already had a streaming-music service on Android. The service, which became Apple Music in 2015, has been installed about 40 million times on Android devices, according to app-use tracker Sensor Tower.

Still, Apple Music with 50 million monthly paid subscribers trails Spotify AB and its 96 million.

Apple executives have said the company had been too narrow in its view of rival platforms like Android, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.

Apple's shift speaks to larger challenges, notably for its bread-and-butter iPhone business. In January, Apple reported its first decline in sales and profits for a holiday period in more than a decade, and total sales this fiscal year are expected to decline by $25 billion, according to Sanford C. Bernstein.

Forcing would-be subscribers to buy an Apple device to access its new services would create an impediment to the growth that Apple needs to offset the iPhone's decline, said Bernstein analyst Toni Sacconaghi.

"Clearly, they're doing this to try and drive revenue rather than create platform loyalty," he said.

Even many iPhone owners may need persuading. At least 50% of the world's approximately 900 million iPhone owners don't own another Apple device, said Neil Cybart, who runs Above Avalon, a site dedicated to Apple analysis. He said Apple must make services that also run on other devices those users own to encourage them to subscribe.

Offering its app to other devices requires more than a philosophical adjustment. Apple on Monday demonstrated features on its Apple TV app, such as swiping up to view a movie, that could be hard to replicate on rivals' smart TVs, said Gene Munster, managing partner at Loup Ventures, a venture-capital firm specializing in research. He said Apple engineers will have to try to create as close to an authentic Apple experience as possible on someone else's hardware.

Apple executives have told partners in recent years that it has been difficult to recruit developers to work on its Android app for Apple Music because those engineers are skeptical that the iPhone maker is as committed to Google's operating system as it is to its iOS system, a person familiar with those discussions said.

"That's a reason they haven't done this in the past," Mr. Munster said. "It's a little complexity that shows: It's not that easy."

Write to Tripp Mickle at Tripp.Mickle@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 26, 2019 16:04 ET (20:04 GMT)

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