Apple’s streaming service gets harder to tell apart from its streaming app, box

Apple has slightly rebranded its video-on-demand streaming service. The Netflix rival that brought us critically acclaimed shows and movies like Slow horses And The lost bus moved from Apple TV+ to Apple TV.

Apple announced the name change today in a press release focused primarily on the film. F1: The movie will arrive on its streaming service on December 12. Unlike previous announcements, however, today’s release referred to the streaming service as Apple TV, instead of Apple TV+. The announcement reads:

Apple TV+ is now just Apple TV, with a dynamic new identity.

Apple hasn’t said at all how the “identity” of its streaming service has changed. As of this writing, accessing Apple’s streaming service through a browser or Smart TV app still displays the original Apple TV+ branding.

Similar to rival streaming service HBO Max’s recent rebranding, or ESPN+ becoming ESPN, this rebranding is pretty sweet. Still, this change makes Apple’s streaming service slightly harder to differentiate from Apple’s streaming app, also called Apple TV, and its streaming boxes, which Apple officially called Apple TV until 2015, when their official names started including the maximum resolution they support (like: Apple TV 4K). You can take advantage of one or two of these deals without needing the others (although watching Apple’s streaming service on streaming hardware requires Apple’s streaming app).