Apple TV Plus Name Change Explained & Subscriber Hints
▼ Summary
– Apple has rebranded its streaming service from Apple TV+ to Apple TV, dropping the plus sign to align with how people commonly refer to it.
– Apple TV is now the shared name for the streaming service, the streaming media player hardware (Apple TV 4K), and the app, which Cue believes won’t cause confusion.
– Production delays, including a nine-month strike, set the service behind schedule, but Cue emphasized that the current content is the best it has ever been.
Apple has streamlined the name of its streaming platform, now calling it simply Apple TV, a move that sheds the “+” sign and aims to simplify branding. This decision comes directly from Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services, who recently discussed the reasoning behind the change. While the rebrand helps align the service with common internal usage, it has also sparked some confusion among users who associate the Apple TV name with both the company’s streaming hardware and the app itself.
Cue explained that the “+” designation was originally used across Apple’s service lineup to indicate a paid tier that builds upon a free version, citing examples like iCloud+ and Apple News+. However, he noted that the team consistently referred to the streaming service as “Apple TV” in everyday conversation. “Given where we are today, it’s a great time to do it, so let’s just do it,” Cue remarked during an interview on The Town podcast. Still, this naming logic doesn’t apply uniformly across Apple’s portfolio, services like Apple Fitness+ and Apple Music don’t follow the same free-to-paid model, yet one carries the plus while the other does not.
To address potential mix-ups between the Apple TV streaming service, the Apple TV 4K hardware, and the Apple TV app, Cue offered clarification. He emphasized that the streaming device is officially named Apple TV 4K, while the app is simply Apple TV. According to Cue, this distinction has already been established on third-party platforms and should not lead to significant confusion for customers.
Launched in 2019, Apple TV (formerly Apple TV+) debuted with a lineup of eight original series, including popular titles like The Morning Show, For All Mankind, See, Servant, and Dickinson. Since then, the service has expanded its catalog, though Cue acknowledged challenges along the way, including production delays and industry strikes that impacted content schedules. “We were a little further behind than where I’d like to be, but where we are today is great,” he said. “Our content has never been better.”
When pressed about subscriber figures and profitability, Cue remained upbeat but guarded. He described the service as “doing fine,” though he admitted that creating high-quality content is more difficult and time-consuming than it appears. While Apple has not publicly released specific subscription numbers, Cue responded to reports estimating 40 to 45 million subscribers by stating, “We’re significantly more than that.” He stopped short of providing exact totals, reinforcing that the company prefers to keep those metrics private while expressing satisfaction with the platform’s growth and ongoing success.
(Source: Dead Line)
