Apple SVP explains why they dropped ‘Plus’ from Apple TV and hints at subscriber numbers

Eddy Cue, senior vice president of Services at Apple, provides insight into the rebranding of Apple TV+ to simply Apple TV.

Apple quietly rebranded its streaming service as Apple TV and removed the plus sign, but in doing so created some confusion.

Apple TV is also the name of their streaming media player hardware and the name of the application in the device. This plus helped distinguish the streaming service from the other two, but in a recent interview, Cue explained why they decided to rename it.

“We put the most into it because we’ve used it in our other services like iCloud+ and (Apple) News+, but we do it when we have a free service and then there’s a paid version,” Cue said on The city podcast.

He continued: “We stayed consistent through that, but we all called it Apple TV, and we said given where we are today, this is the perfect time to do it, so let’s do it.”

Although Cue argues that the benefit is being a paid version of services that have a free tier, this hasn’t always been the case. Take, for example, Apple Fitness+, the workout service, which doesn’t have a free tier. Likewise, Apple Music, a paid service, doesn’t offer a free tier and its name doesn’t include anything more, like Apple Arcade.

Cue also cleared up the confusion some users were now debating about Apple TV being both the streaming service and the streaming device.

“Our hardware is called Apple TV 4K for your TV,” he said. “I think it’s good, and the app is called Apple TV. It’s also called Apple TV on our third-party products, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem at all.”

The Apple TV streaming service launched in 2019 with eight original series, including The morning broadcast, for all mankind, see, servant, And Dickinson.

In the interview, Cue also alluded to the number of subscribers and whether he feels it’s profitable.

“The service is doing well,” Cue said. “It’s a lot harder than it looks, as always, because when you’re trying to do awesome things, it takes more time than you’d like.”

Cue recalls “being out of production for a year and a half,” adding, “I wasn’t planning on a nine-month strike from that standpoint. So we were a little bit further behind than where I would have liked to be, but where we are today is great. Our content has never been better.”

Although Apple has not revealed the exact number of its subscribers, Cue was asked about reports suggesting that they have around 40-45 million subscribers.

“We haven’t said what our numbers are, but we are much more than that,” Cue said. “We’re not going to say what our numbers are. We’re happy with our growth, but we’re trying to be successful.”