Oh boy. Another streaming service is getting a new name that will muddy the waters for its related product line. Apple TV+ has been with us since 2019 and has slowly built a reputation as a premium service. Its hits have included For All Mankind, Silo, The Morning Show, and Ted Lasso. Well, soon it will be rebranded as Apple TV.
If that sounds familiar, it should. Apple has had a product called Apple TV since the early days of streaming. It was one of the first streaming media players on the market, preceding Fire TV and the Chromecast. It is still on the market and in fact, is getting a hardware update.
Now, to begin with, it was already confusing enough. I would have advised Apple to call the streaming service something else. It got very confusing as the Apple TV product itself, which is along the lines of a Roku or other streaming devices, had an app called “TV”. So you had an Apple TV streamer with Apple TV+ built into the “TV” app. Now it will all be called Apple TV, whether you access it on a Roku, Apple TV, Fire TV, Google TV, or smart TV.
The problem is that it totally complicates the way one would market it, or even talk about it amongst other informed parties, much less consumers. Apple is certainly not alone in the industry when it comes to stuff like this, but at some, point you would think someone would learn from others or their own mistakes.
Onward we go.
