Apple Invites

Even though "... anyone can RSVP, regardless of whether they have an Apple Account or Apple device" I think this being an Apple branded service is going to make this appear exclusionary and will mean some people won't participate even if they could.

I see the same risk involved with Apple TV's branding; Apple TV works great on Xbox, on NVIDIA Shield and on PC. I'm sure though there are a lot of people who just decide that shows like Foundation and subscriptions like MLS Season's Pass just aren't for them. I don't know if it is a 5% or a 20% drop but it has to be real.

Software engineer here with an android phone. I've never bothered to look into Apple TV because I assumed it'd only be available on Apple devices. Similarly, I saw this post and thought there may be a reason for me to get an iPhone now as I assumed this would be available on apple devices only.

> I think this being an Apple branded service is going to make this appear exclusionary and will mean some people won't participate even if they could.

Don't you think that's kind of the point? Do you think having green and blue messaging bubbles was unintentional?

As a non-exclusive, non-big tech and dead simple alternative, I’ve built Partey.io [1] myself.

[1] https://partey.io

The Apple TV one is particularly bad due to them naming the service, the box, and the app the same thing. One of them has a + tacked on, who knows which.

As long as they don’t start naming other things Invite, they might avoid that issue. Although maybe they’ll name their HomePod with a screen that and we’re back to square one.

> there are a lot of people who just decide that shows like Foundation and subscriptions like MLS Season's Pass just aren't for them.

This needs anti-trust breakup. Tech companies shouldn't be media giants. They're turning a once-healthy media industry into an attention economy platform play, giving it away below cost, and wringing a robust sector of the economy of its value.

It's disgusting that Apple and Amazon are doing this. Amazon owns James Bond. And they're a grocery store and primary care doctor, for god's sake. That's not good.

This is worse than Standard Oil and Ma Bell because they own our entire lives: eyeballs, financial transactions, business matters, commerce, and personal relationships.

> "there may be a reason for me to get an iPhone now as I assumed this would be available on apple devices only."

That's the objective. Green text and all. To force everyone to adopt one platform because of network effects and social stigma.

These platform plays by the god tier trillion dollar companies are insidious and should be given scrutiny by the DOJ / FTC.

A breakup of these platforms would make none of this matter. You could pick and choose services across devices. We might even see some competition for Android and iPhone if the DOJ would step in and break this up.

Big tech is too big. A breakup would oxygenate the entire tech sector. It would probably even make the MAGMA stock go up because the sum of parts are being given away for free just to get eyeballs.

Billions of dollars are being given away for free to scrape in network effect advantages. It's at a level where competition from new players is virtually impossible. They can tax anything that moves. Every transaction, every relationship, every quanta of information.

One of the rare marketing misses for Apple is naming the app, box, and service (with + added on) the same.

Yes it was intentional, but this is a different case. If a meaningful percentage of people don't think they can attend an event because they don't own an iPhone, that's a big problem for adoption of this product. Whether that will happen or not, I have no idea, but I think that's what the person you responded to was saying.

It's pretty good on Chromecast, though some of the media player design patterns don't quite translate to non-apple.

I'm only aware it doesn't need an Apple device because spouse does have an iPhone and was able to set it up on our Roku that way. I still assume that someone in the household does need an iPhone in order to get a subscription, although now I think about it probably that's not true.

It will feel that way at a distance because it basically is.

To start, it's not a service but an app. Sure there is a web interface, but the focus on the app already sets the stage (which also puts macos only users in an interesting position).

Then non-Apple users probably can only respond when the sales pitch is "to contribute to Shared Albums, and engage with Apple Music playlists"

If I'm not an Apple user there will only be downsides to using this service compared to any other one.

I was shocked at how bad the onboarding experience for Mac is in 2025. I replaced a dying but well seasoned Alienware laptop with a M4 mini, my wife was furious about 'ads everywhere' I mean, Microsoft is notorious for the unwanted solicitations that come with Windows but the nagging pop-ups that are barely altered from 1984 modal dialogs [1], dock crammed with unwanted applications, terrible Safari experience without ad blocker, need Apple account to install ad blocker (at least you can log into Windows with a Microsoft account.) So far as I can tell I didn't even get the 3 months of Apple TV that comes with an iPad.

[1] OG mac, not Orwell. At least Microsoft nags look like HTML.

"Conglom-O: We Own You."

...Just to highlight the absurdity of the situation. Literally cartoonish corruption.

Seriously - not sure what they were thinking - but this confuses the hell out of everyone (especially if they have the Apple TV+ app installed on their smart TV directly and an Apple TV physical box hooked to the same TV)

Let's just hope they don't start producing TVs (the screens) alongside all of this!

You can subscribe to Apple TV+ directly through Amazon Prime.

As a big fan of Apple TV boxes and a medium fan of Apple TV+, I can't agree with this strongly enough. It's such an unforced error.

It's so unnecessary to call everything "Apple something" when they've had great success creating recognizable brand names like "iPod", "iPhone", and "Macintosh".

Calling it "Apple TV+" just feels like both the set-top box and the streaming service wanted the name "Apple TV" and neither side was budging.

I very rarely interact with any Apple tech. Recently I wanted to watch Severance, so I signed up for a trial period of Apple TV. It even worked on Firefox on my Linux desktop. But I only get 1080p video, while my screen is 1440p. The show didn't look good, and I found that yes, you can only get 1080p if you're not watching through an Apple device. I would have been happy to become a subscriber of the streaming service, but not if it looks ugly on my PC, so I didn't continue the trial.

I'm sure Apple has data showing that offering higher-res video on non-Apple hardware isn't worth it, but this experience felt like a perfect match for the rest of my experience with Apple - if you want to use their software but not hardware, fuck you. If you want to use their hardware and software with a different workflow than they intended, fuck you too.

I'm watching Apple TV+ on my Apple TV connected to my Apple TV running Apple TV.

Yeah I've heard similar, although I'm surprised you got 1080p out of Apple TV on Linux.

The streaming services landscape is very weird in general. Lots about DRM or what have you that cause very bizarre rules like Netflix only allowing Opera on linux to play full 1080, or how on mac Edge only does 720. Some of them refusing to show anything over 720p on browsers no matter which platform. Of course some have workarounds through extensions.

Certainly not the seamless experience one would have hoped from the switch away from cable services!

There's a dedicated physical button for it on the Roku remote. Kind of hard to miss.

Do any mainstream streaming services offer you greater than 1080p on desktop Linux? I had thought that none of them allow it due to the perception of weaker DRM. And because 90% of consumers watching on desktop really care/notice

I can't say I care that much: 1080p quality pixels are really good, I'd prefer that to messy 4k with visible blocking artifacts.

I am no Apple sympathiser, and I use Firefox religiously, but to be fair to Apple Firefox streaming support and implementation is the worst of all the browsers.