Apple's streaming service rebrand wasn't the result of expensive consultants or focus groups - it happened because everyone at the company was already calling it Apple TV anyway. Senior VP Eddy Cue revealed the surprisingly straightforward decision-making process behind dropping 'Plus' from the service name during a candid interview on The Town podcast.
Sometimes the biggest corporate decisions happen with the least fanfare. Apple's recent rebrand of Apple TV Plus to simply Apple TV might have seemed like a calculated marketing move, but according to services chief Eddy Cue, it was more like finally admitting what everyone already knew.
Speaking on The Town podcast, Cue offered rare insight into how Apple makes naming decisions. "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," he explained with characteristic Apple simplicity.
The original Plus designation made sense within Apple's broader naming strategy. The company uses Plus to distinguish paid versions of free services - think iCloud Plus, News Plus, and Fitness Plus. "We stayed consistent because of it," Cue noted, referring to the internal logic that initially drove the longer name.
But consistency only works when it matches reality. Inside Apple, employees weren't saying "Apple TV Plus" in meetings or casual conversations. They were just saying "Apple TV," the same way consumers had been doing since the service launched in 2019. The formal rebrand simply acknowledged what was already happening organically.
Cue's revelation also sheds light on how Apple approaches brand confusion - or rather, how little it worries about it. Critics have pointed out the potential for customer confusion between the streaming service, the Apple TV 4K hardware, and the Apple TV app that houses content from multiple providers. Cue brushed off these concerns with typical Apple confidence.
"Our hardware is called Apple TV 4K for your TV. I think that's fine, and the app is called Apple TV," he said. "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."
This casual attitude toward potential naming confusion reflects Apple's broader philosophy that good products sell themselves, regardless of what you call them. The company has never shied away from reusing names across product categories - just look at how many different things carry the "Pro" designation.
The timing of the rebrand also signals something important about Apple's streaming ambitions. The company launched Apple TV Plus in 2019 as a premium add-on service, competing with Netflix and HBO Max on original content quality rather than catalog size. Five years later, dropping "Plus" suggests Apple sees its streaming service as core infrastructure rather than a premium add-on.
