Apple should rename Apple TV+
Apple TV and Apple TV+ are not in the same product family
Apple TV+ is by far the highest quality streaming service on TV with several shows you could make an argument are the best show on TV.
There are very few bad Apple TV+ shows. The service also has several original movies that are fantastic. If you just subscribed to Apple TV+, I think you’d be very happy. And it’s one of the cheapest streaming services around! The thing is, almost no one subscribes.
It has become a running joke that Apple has yet another amazing show or movie coming out that no one will see.
This isn’t just hyperbole. Netflix receives more minutes viewed in a day than Apple TV+ gets in a month.
People are blaming marketing, and Apple could probably spend more on marketing their shows and movies, but the bigger problem is that people are confused about how to watch them.
The problem is the naming. Apple has sold the Apple TV streaming box since 2007. It’s one of the oldest and best-known devices for streaming video content and music (and now video games).
A lot of people think you need an Apple TV box to stream Apple TV+, when in fact Apple TV+ works on all kinds of devices and TVs — Roku, PlayStation, Xbox, every major TV platform, etc.
The + in the name implies that this is Apple TV taking to the next level. There are all kinds of services you could imagine doing just that. In reality, there is very little relation between Apple TV and Apple TV+ beyond the fact that they both can (but don’t always) involve video content.
If Apple rebranded Apple TV+ to something like Apple Primetime and did a marketing campaign around it, it would probably quickly get more subscribers, and people would be more likely to see the fantastic content they are producing.
The pitch for Apple Primetime is pretty simple. Incredible content. But not so much that you get overwhelmed and have decision paralysis. Fair price. Watch it anywhere.
You’ve probably heard of Ted Lasso, and it’s a great show, but it’s not even one of their best shows. I would rank Slow Horses and Foundation as the top two shows on TV on any service or channel.
A big part of product development is the go-to-market strategy. Great products and features die all the time because the strategy wasn’t conducive to success. Product naming and positioning are big parts of that.
Both market and user research would have made this confusion evident quickly. You can’t just rely on gut instinct when naming a multi-billion dollar service, particularly when you have other products that could be confused with it.