- Apple’s senior vice president of services has weighed in on the streaming service’s name change
- His comments point to some big changes for Apple TV, most notably an ad-supported tier
- This news comes after the streaming service dropped the ‘plus’ from its name
Apple TV recently dropped the ‘plus’ from the name of its streaming service, confusing fans. I recently suggested that the reshuffle might be unnecessary, but a new interview has suggested that there is a reason for this.
Speaking on The Town with Matthew Belloni podcast, Eddy Cue, senior vice president of services at Apple, said it was a “good time” for the Apple TV rebrand.
He revealed: “We put the plus in there because we’ve used it in our other services like iCloud+ and [Apple] News+, but we do that when we have a free service and then there’s a paid version.”
“We stayed consistent because of that, but we all called it Apple TV and we said, given where we are today, it’s a good time to do it, so let’s just do it.”
Cue also clarified the confusion surrounding the name and how it already applies to other products in the Apple family.
“Our hardware is called Apple TV 4K for your TV,” he said. “I think it’s fine, and the app is called Apple TV. It’s also been called Apple TV on our third-party products, so I don’t think it’s going to be a problem at all.”
However, this explanation has created quite a bit of further confusion. Apple Fitness+ has no free tier, and Apple Music is a paid service that doesn’t offer a free tier and doesn’t have a plus at the end of its name, pointing to some inconsistencies across the brand.
From my perspective, this rebrand could hint that more changes are coming to Apple TV, and an ad-supported tier could be coming off the back of it.
Will Apple TV get an ad-supported tier?
Right now it’s all speculation. We don’t know if one of the top streaming services gets ads or not, but given that the competition does, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Apple TV is currently the only major streaming service without a cheaper, ad-supported tier and only has one plan. A monthly Apple TV subscription is $12.99 / £9.99 / AU$15.99, or you can pay annually, which costs $99.99 / £89.99 / AU$129.99.
A recent Apple TV price hike saw people pay 30% more, angering subscribers, which leads me to predict that the streamer may be planning to roll out a cheaper tier.
By introducing a tier of ads similar to other streaming giants like Netflix and Disney+, Apple could compete with competing ad-supported tiers.
Only time will tell if Apple TV goes ahead with this change, but based on recent events, I think it’s very likely.
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