Colorful rebranding: Apple TV+ omits the plus

It’s only a small sentence, but it entails a rat’s tail of changes: “Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV, with a vibrant new identity,” writes Apple in a press release on the streaming debut of his hit film “F1 The Movie”. This means that the iPhone manufacturer’s streaming service is losing its plus and will be confusingly named the same as the company’s multimedia box, which has been called Apple TV (possibly supplemented with a “4K”) for many years. Apple has not yet communicated whether there will be a renaming here as a result of the video services rebranding – which would be appropriate is completely unclear.

Apple TV with and without 4K

Apple then demonstrated what “vibrant new identity” means in the third developer beta of iOS 26.1, which was released on Monday: Instead of the cinema-like logo with spotlight effect, there is now a glassy Apple logo with “tv” lettering, which is transparent in the liquid glass look and shows some blurry rainbow colors. Apple’s press page Apple TV(+) has also already gotten the new look, but not the end customer website for the streaming service.

Here, too, Apple has one or two branding problems: The end customer website for the video service can be reached under “apple.com/apple-tv-plus”, while the page for the Apple TV hardware can be found under “apple.com/apple-tv”. Under “apple.com/tv” you will also find a completely different page: Here, all TV-relevant entertainment offers – i.e. hardware including HomePod as well as services – are summarized on one page. “tv.apple.com”, on the other hand, leads directly to the web version of Apple TV(+), but that has always been the case. Observers are currently waiting for a new Apple TV model to be released soon. Apple may then choose a new name here – or write the “4K” a little bigger.

Brand oddities have existed at Apple for a long time

Apple has not shied away from pursuing rather inconsistent branding in the past. For example, “Pro” on the Mac means the middle model of Apple Silicon chips, “Max” the largest (supplemented by “Ultra” on the Mac Studio and Mac Pro). On the iPhone, on the other hand, “Pro” stands for the highest SoC expansion level (e.g. A19 Pro), although there is also a variant called “Pro Max”, but the “Max” refers to the screen size.

Confusing combinations are also possible: For example, you can buy a MacBook Pro M4 Pro (alongside the MacBook Pro M4 and the MacBook Pro M4 Max). The designation “Air” does not always stand for the thinnest model. For example, the iPad Pro M4 is thinner than the iPad Air M3. The Air is again the thinnest model for the iPhone.