The first reviews are pretty uniformly bad at the moment, however The Verge (amongst others) seem to feel that Apple will just continually throw cash at this thing until it works.
I’m not convinced. Right now, if you’re going to pay for a streaming TV service, there is absolutely no reason to not go with Netflix. If you have extra cash to splash around, or even if you’re considering a switch based on content, then the next logical choice is going to be Disney+ so that you get Disney, Marvel, Star Wars, etc.
Even at a lower price, there really is no reason to go with Apple TV+ right now or even in the near future, in my opinion.
Part of me wonders if their long term goal is to build something that simply has enough content to the point where they combine it with Apple Music. Although Apple Music is objectively not as good as Spotify, it’s still somewhat popular and has built up a fairly decent set of subscribers over time. I can imagine a future whereby a bonus Apple TV+ subscription is simply an additional benefit of subscribing to Apple Music.
I can see the appeal for companies to have a slice of the action, but as a consumer it’s starting to get a little irritating having shows scattered across many different services…
Netflix, Now TV, Amazon Prime, Britbox, Apple TV+, Disney’s new service, Hulu
No-one in their right mind will pay for them all, and the likelihood is now and more people will share logins.
I pay for Now TV and use someone else’s login for both Netflix and Prime whilst sharing mine.
At the moment it’s it’s rather limited I think it has 3 episodes of the 3 big series it’s punting, got the free week trial not sure whether to continue or not similar to Apple Arcade only kids use but don’t think they have at all so not sure.
Got Apple Music never used Spotify
Anarchist
(Press ‘Help’ search ‘Contact us’ or email help@monzo.com or call 0800 802 1281)
4
It’s certainly not worth the money at the moment, in my view, and is unlikely to attract me in the short term.
I can see this changing for some people in 12 months or so, as I believe you can get a year for free if you buy an Apple device. But as with all streaming services, content is key.
Right now, I would not be willing to pay for it. But they’re giving it away with any device purchase. I can definitely see myself subscribing to it in the future though.
The reviews from critics are pretty incongruous with reviews from regular people on sites like IMDB and RottenTomatoes. Plus, many people I follow in the tech world are pretty upbeat about the content e.g. Jason Snell, Myke Hurley, Ben Mayo
For All Mankind is my favourite so far, and I think it has the most potential for future series.
The Morning Show is interesting and a fair bit better than the thought.
See has the weakest story for me. It sounded good but I don’t think it works at all. However, it’s got a great cast, the acting is superb, and the audiovisual work is top notch. But the story just does not work for me. It’s still pretty good to watch just to enjoy the scenery.
The worst part of the experience for me is the TV app itself - this article discusses it pretty well.
Apple have recently bundled TV+ with their Apple Music student subsciption.
Because of that I pay a total of £4.99 for both.
I’m yet to use TV+ and I’m unlikely to do so unless the content is similar to that of Netflix.
I do think apple will just throw money at it, they have plenty to experiment with. It won’t grow at the same rate as their music service though. People just won’t want to pay for multiple services all at once.
One additional point I didn’t mention is how they’d account for subscribers.
I suspect that, as a Prime customer, Amazon would probably consider me a customer of their Prime Video service. It’s built in to my smart TV, and I’ve signed in on there so I could actually watch something on there in a couple of clicks if I wanted to. Yet, I never have. I’ve not seen any content on there worth my time. If it became a separate service I absolutely would not pay additional money for it.
There’s a solid chance that this is what will happen with Apple, IMO.
I doubt they’d break out subscriber numbers any time soon. More likely to emphasise any increase in revenue per user and overall services revenue. They don’t like talking about unit sales or subscriber numbers.
I actually have pretty high hopes for Apple TV+.
I think it’ll take a while to build a nice catalogue of shows, but that’s ok. I’ve got Netflix for the massive catalogue of original/licensed series.
At £4.99, and with family sharing, I’ll only be paying £2.50 a month. I’ll probably wait until around January to subscribe to let a bit more content build up.
Most of the shows so far seem to have had a much better reception with audiences vs critics.
Purchased an Apple TV 4K specifically for the release of Apple TV+. I wouldn’t pay for it currently but as it came with a free year and I had been eyeing up an Apple TV for a while it was a no brainer. I’m yet to activate my years trial as yet but will be at the weekend.
The fact that Apple, of all companies, has chosen to give it away for free speaks volumes about the current value proposition.
If they’re only going to have their own shows it’s going to take an age to build up a catalogue of content worth paying a decent fee for.
I’ve heard it’s just a loss leader to get people to use the TV app, from which they get a cut when users subscribe to other channels. Gotta keep that services money coming in.
Whether or not they’ve added value is very subjective. I’d wager that most people would rather have more free iCloud storage. But again, can’t give up that services revenue.
