Apple Sets Price, Launch Date for TV+ Streaming Service

Apple is revealing more details about its long-gestating streaming service.


The tech giant announced Tuesday morning that subscription service TV+ will launch Nov. 1, offering originals like Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon starrer The Morning Show for $5 per month for a family subscription. To promote signups for the service, Apple is offering anyone who buys an Apple device a year of TV+ for free.


Apple CEO Tim Cook made the announcement at the company's annual fall product event, acknowledging that people have been wondering about the details of the forthcoming service.


The launch of TV+ will round out the offering in Apple's TV app, where it offers a storefront for buying and renting titles and subscriptions to third-party streaming services like Showtime and HBO Now. The revamped TV app experience, part of the Apple's plan to phase out iTunes, comes amid a push by the iPhone maker to double down on its services business, which houses revenue from subscriptions like Apple Music and iCloud. Apple has been public about its goal to grow its services revenue to over $50 billion by 2020.


In its push to become a purveyor of entertainment programming, Apple has also made a rare move and struck deals with other manufacturers to offer the app on other platforms, including Samsung, Roku and Amazon Fire TV.


After years of denying plans to enter Hollywood, Apple executives took the first steps into entertainment with the June 2017 hiring of Sony television veterans Jamie Erlicht and Zack Van Amburg. The pair have spent the better part of the last two years assembling a team and buying up a slate of originals, which in addition to Morning Show includes See starring Jason Momoa and Dickinson starring Hailee Steinfeld.


Initially, Hollywood rushed to work with Apple because of its deep pockets and brand cache — Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams and Oprah all have deals with the company — but the creative community has grown increasingly frustrated as the months have worn on with few details available about the pending service. Apple invited dozens of stars and creative partners to its March services event but offered little concrete information about the service (beyond the TV+ name and vague fall launch timeframe) and showed scant footage of its forthcoming projects. Meanwhile, there have been stumbles, including several showrunner departures and concerns that executives were getting hands on with programming over a desire to make it suitable for a range of audiences.


The company has been building to the launch of TV+ with the rollout of trailers for space drama For All Mankind, Morning Show and Dickinson.