So I activated my free AppleTV+ year over the weekend and I’m left wondering if I’m doing it wrong or what?
This is just accessed through the AppleTV app, which on one hand sounds logical, but then when I try and use it I’m left frustrated (and remembering what I didn’t like about it last time around).
AppleTV is supposed to be your hub of accessing all your content, great… for all the things it interfaces with anyway. Which leads to my previous issue, it mixes everything together including additional paid content available through Apple’s own store. Every other result, related show or recommendation is for something I haven’t (yet) paid for. The whole thing is just one giant advertisement for more paid content.
AppleTV+ doesn’t seem to change this paradigm either, it’s just another sub-item sort of buried in the interface which shows the extremely limited lineup of half a dozen or so shows (which I’m sure will increase). Most of the related content appears to be stuff you need to buy, although to their credit if you scroll down on each item enough it does show ‘ways to watch’ which do include Stan or Amazon Prime Video.
Another little gotcha, their free trial auto-renews at the end of the period, nothing unusual in that. But if you attempt to cancel your subscription, instead of cancelling at the end of the current period, it says it will immediately terminate and forfeit the rest of your year. I’m guessing that’s a nice subtle way to keep people on board while they build their catalogue over the coming year (the cynic also says it means plenty of people will end up auto-renewing since they forgot to cancel… gotta love monthly subs).
What do I want?
I’d like a way to view only the AppleTV+ content without being shown stuff I can’t watch without paying for it. Ideally, I like to be able to strip out all the other services (Netflix/Stan/Prime etc) and only see Apple in the App, although I get that I might be in the minority on that one.
So once again I’m the grumpy old man complaining, about my free service no less, but my underlying issue has always been the same with the AppleTV app.
/Rant