The Streaming Service Formerly Known As ‘Apple TV+’
9to5Mac points out that Apple buried an announcement that their “Apple TV+” streaming service is rebranding simply as “Apple TV” in a press release about “F1 The Movie”.
From the press release:
Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV, with a vibrant new identity. Ahead of its global streaming debut on Apple TV, the film continues to be available for purchase on participating digital platforms, including the Apple TV app, Amazon Prime Video, Fandango at Home and more.
Fine, this should be easier to say so everyone wins, right? Except what does “Apple TV” even mean?
Apple has a long history of using names to distinguish between models of a device or service but not necessarily the specific iteration. For instance, users might refer to a MacBook Air as the “M4 MacBook Air” but for Apple, it’s just “MacBook Air”. The iPhone and Apple Watch stand out by including the iteration number in their names, like “iPhone 17” and “Apple Watch 11”.
I wonder when or if they’ll give in and switch to using the year instead, as they did with OS releases this year (hello “visionOS 26”, the third major release of visionOS). Using the year makes sense if there’s an annual update; otherwise, it risks making a device feel stale after the year ticks over.
In this case, there will be at least three different things called “Apple TV”:
Apple TV - the streaming service, which requires a subscription Apple TV - the free/bundled application that runs on all Apple hardware except Apple Watch (watching video on that tiny screen would be crazy and you know people would do it, draining their watch batteries at an epic rate), as well as some competitors’ hardware (Android, Roku, Amazon), and is the source of incessant annoying advertising for the streaming service formerly known as Apple TV+ Apple TV - the small black box that hooks up to your TV and runs the Apple TV app among many others, and generally costs less than $200
I look forward to trying to figure out what the hell people are talking about when they complain that they’re having problems with “Apple TV”.
So let’s watch Apple TV using Apple TV on Apple TV… at least I’m grateful Apple never actually released their long-rumored television set because you can be sure that would also have been called “Apple TV”.
