It's no secret that Apple ($AAPL) is gearing up to announce a media product next week at its March 25th "It's Showtime!" event. The move is considered by many to be an indication that the company is setting itself up for a future economy that will be largely service and subscription based, as hardware like smartphones and computers become more commoditized and commonplace.

As part of this effort, Apple is busy hiring media specialists. In fact, it's hiring 49% more media people than it was just a year ago. On March 18, 2018, Apple's job site listed 86 "Media" openings. This week, it lists 128.

Apple's new focus on media

A rise in openings of this sort can often simply be attributed to proportional growth of overall hiring at a company. But Apple hiring is actually down 18% since the new year. An overall drop in opening along with a focused uptick in a particular area — in this case "Media" — is a reliable sign that a company is making a quiet, but trackable, reshuffle in talent-acquisition priorities.

Hiring at Apple down overall

Other specialties that Apple has focused on in the past year, notably "Health" and its digital assistant "Siri" are down.

"Health" opening saw a market uptick through the new year but are now down from a high of 79 openings to 57 this week.

Meanwhile, openings for Apple's Siri team, once as numerous as 191 in January 2019, have dropped to 139 this week.

This all comes as the company has hired, for the first time, more software people than hardware people. Sure, Apple released new hardware last week and even launched new AirPods today, but for a company that needs to find growth beyond smartphones, tablets, and headphones, getting a piece of the content people consume on their devices — and the ability to ultimately curate and control it — is clearly within Apple's sights.

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