It's confirmed! Apple to unveil its next-generation devices on Sept 10

TV+ is the name for Apple’s upcoming video streaming service (think of it like a Netflix competitor) and this is what most rumours were talking about before the official announcement. This subscription will work with the new Apple TV app which will not only be available for Apple devices (iOS, Apple TV, Mac) but also for other platforms like Roku, Amazon Fire TV and smart TV platforms from Samsung, LG and Sony.

The video streaming service will feature a number of exclusive shows and various celebrities came on stage at the announcement event including Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, J. J Abraham, M. Night Shyamalan and Jason Momoa. Just like Apple Arcade, the TV+ service can be shared using Family Sharing with up to 6 other people in the family. Once again, no further details of the subscription fees were announced by Apple but the service will launch in 100+ countries (including India) from fall 2019.

In the US, Apple is giving users the option to subscribe to TV channels like HBO and Showtime and watch them from within the Apple TV app. Users pay only for the channels they want to watch. These channels and Apple TV App will be available from May 2019 but it seems unlikely that India will get this feature in the first wave. If at all, Apple may decide on content partnerships with existing players in India like Eros Now, Zee5, Hungama and others.

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This was the first service that Apple announced. Apple card is a digital credit card for your iPhone that works via Apple Pay, backed by Mastercard and Goldman Sachs. You can apply for and receive a digital card within minutes — it appears in your Wallet app. You can also apply for a fancy physical Titanium card to use in stores that don’t support Apple Pay. All your expenses show up in the app with details of location, time and amount in a clean and easy to understand format. The card also gives you a cashback of 2% on every purchase (3% on purchases from the App Store or Apple Stores). However, Apple Card will only be available in the US.

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Apple already offers a News app which is not available for Indian users. News+ is an upgrade to this service and has several handy features including offline downloads and access to over 300 newspapers and magazines. While the News app is available for free, the News+ service is paid — you pay US$ 9.99/month for these additional features with Family Sharing enabled.

A single subscription can be shared with up to 6 family members at no extra cost. You still retain all the feature of the News app. The app learns from your reading habits and shows you relevant content of your interest the more you use it — Apple was quick to point out that this intelligence is all on your local device. They don’t know what you read and also won’t allow advertisers to track you. All news is curated by human editors and you can also set the app to autodownload the latest issue of your favorite magazine as it gets added to the catalogue. However there is no announcement for an India launch and we don’t think Apple has any plans for it either.

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Arcade is the name of Apple’s gaming subscription service. First and foremost, Arcade is attempting to unify gaming across all iOS devices (iPads, iPhones), Apple TV as well as Macs. While the rest of the world looks toward cloud gaming (like Google Stadia), Apple is taking a different approach. You pay a subscription fee per month/year to get access to curated games that are already available on the App Store plus Apple exclusive game titles (over 100 titles confirmed for now). You can download these games from the App Store to any device and enjoy game continuity (start playing on one device and resume on another). There will be no ads, no in-app purchases and no catch.

Apple also lets you share the subscription with up to 6 family members. Further details regarding the subscription amount was not announced but Apple did say that it would launch in 150+ countries this fall. This means we can expect Arcade to be ready when the new iPhone launches in September/October 2019.

Image: AFP