CUPERTINO, CA – Apple’s new video subscription service Apple TV+ will launch this fall in over 100 countries including Canada, the tech giant said Monday from a star-studded event at the Steve Jobs Theater.
The ad-free service will sit inside a revamped Apple TV app and become “the new home for the world’s most creative storytellers,” hopes the company, and include original shows, movies and documentaries from the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Octavia Spencer, J.J. Abrams, Jason Momoa, M. Night Shyamalan, Jon M. Chu and Sesame Street Workshop (whose first production will be a kids show called Helpster, where real-life problems are solved while teaching coding).
Pricing and availability for Apple TV+ will be announced at a later date, and the service will be available on demand and be viewable both online and offline, company officials said.
“We’re honored that the absolute best lineup of storytellers in the world — both in front of and behind the camera — are coming to Apple TV+,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s SVP of internet software and services. “Apple TV+ will be home to some of the highest quality original storytelling that TV and movie lovers have seen yet.”
Additionally, the company said the redesigned Apple TV app is coming to iPhone, iPad and Apple TV customers in over 100 countries in May with a free software update, and to Mac computers this fall. The overhauled app will bring together different streaming services and traditional pay TV subscriptions (nearly all American from what we saw, pictured
, from the launch event webcast), as well as allow users to purchase or rent from iTunes and subscribe to and watch new Apple TV channels, paying for only the services that they want, with just the tap of a screen.
However, while Apple chose during its event to highlight how its customers can seamlessly order pay TV channels like HBO, Showtime and Starz with a few taps, those channels won’t be available to Canadian Apple users. Bell Media owns the Canadian rights to HBO, Starz and Showtime content and that’s not changing, a Bell spokesperson told Cartt.ca. Although one supposes Crave could someday find itself inside Apple TV.
That said, content from CTV News, TSN, and RDS has been and will continue to be made available through Apple News on the Apple TV console. A Rogers Media spokesperson told Cartt.ca that it has no deals with Apple and we asked Corus Entertainment about it and have not yet heard back. CBC News content will also be available inside the new Apple TV app, the pubcaster told us (CBC’s Gem could easily be part of Apple TV, too, we’d say, but that’s not imminent). “Apple is a great partner in supporting our CBC Gem app on iOS and Apple TV devices but for the time being, we have nothing further to announce with regards to Apple channels,” said a CBC spokesperson in an email.
None of the three Canadian broadcasters that we spoke to will be making their prime time entertainment programming or live sports available on Apple TV at this time.
Other announcements unveiled by the company on Monday include: Apple News+, a new $9.99 newspaper and magazine subscription service which now includes access to over 300 magazines, including 30 Canadian titles, and newspaper content from Wall Street Journal, LA Times and Toronto Star.
Apple also announced an upgrade to Apple Pay, including its own credit card as well as an upcoming video game streaming subscription service Apple Arcade.
Anyone invent an app yet to create 30-hour days so we can consume all this new content along with the stuff we already watch, read and play?
