Apple TV Rebrand Explained: The Reason They’re Dropping the ‘Plus’

Apple recently changed the branding of its streaming service by dropping the plus sign and renaming Apple TV+ simply as Apple TV. This move has caused some confusion because Apple TV is already the name of the company’s streaming media player hardware and the app used on that device. The plus sign was originally added to help distinguish the streaming service from the hardware and app.

Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of Services at Apple, explained in an interview on The Town podcast why the company decided to remove the plus sign. He said, “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.” Cue continued, “We stayed consistent because of it, but we all called it Apple TV, and we said, given where we are today, it’s a great time to do it, so let’s just do it.”

Cue’s explanation about the plus sign indicating a paid version of a free service does not always hold true. For instance, Apple Fitness+, a workout service, has no free tier. Apple Music is also a paid-only service, and its name does not include a plus, similar to Apple Arcade.

He also addressed the confusion caused by Apple TV being used as the name for both the streaming service and the streaming device. Cue said, “Our hardware is called Apple TV 4K for your TV. I think that’s fine, and the app is called Apple TV. It’s been called Apple TV on our third-party products as well, so I don’t think that’ll be a problem at all.”

The Apple TV streaming service launched in 2019 with eight original series, including The Morning Show, For All Mankind, See, Servant, and Dickinson. In the interview, Cue also touched on subscriber numbers and the profitability of the service. He said, “The service is doing fine. It’s a lot harder than it looks, as always, because when you try to do things that are great, it takes longer than you want.”

Cue mentioned that production faced delays, stating, “I didn’t predict a nine-month strike from that standpoint. So we were a little further behind than where I’d like to be, but where we are today is great. Our content has never been better.” Although Apple has not revealed exact subscriber numbers, Cue responded to reports of 40 to 45 million subscribers by saying, “We haven’t said what our numbers are, but we’re significantly more than that. We’re not going to say what our numbers are. We’re happy with where we’re growing, but we’re trying to be successful.”

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