Apple Invites

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.

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

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.

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!

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!

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.