Unpacking the new Prime Video-Apple TV+ partnership, and why I don’t think it’s *that* big a deal

Later this month, subscribers to Amazon’s Prime Video service will be able to sign up for Apple TV+ as a $9.99/month add-on to their Prime subscription. The announcement dropped on Thursday evening like a bolt out of the blue, and what it means is that the streaming home of The Rings of Power, Boys, and Reacher will soon be where some audiences go to also dip into Ted Lasso and Slow Horses. It’s an interesting combination, to be sure — but why was this move even necessary, and what does it actually mean?

First and foremost, the joint announcement is light on detail — I mean, really light. No timing beyond “later this month” and nothing else on the specifics of how you’ll actually subscribe (I assume you’ll be able to do it directly from the app, on any surface, but you never know).

Much more interesting to me is the “why” of this move, and that’s where things becomes a bit more speculative. As an Apple device owner myself, I’m not sure why this would be interesting to someone like me, given that Apple’s TV app already comes included with every iPad, iPhone, and Mac. If you have an iPhone and you really wanted to subscribe to Apple TV+, it seems to me that you’d just do it in the stock app. Now, if you’re trying to prune your screen to as few apps as possible? Okay, maybe I can see it — you can put your Apple subscription inside your Prime Video app to be a little more efficient.

If you’re an Android device owner with a Prime Video subscription, meanwhile, we could argue over whether Apple TV+ has enough content at this point to justify one of those consumers ponying up an additional 10 bucks a month because they’ve heard how great Ted Lasso is. There’s also an argument that this is about Apple TV+ chasing scale — riding on the coattails, as it were, of the much bigger Prime Video, which reportedly has hundreds of millions of users. But, again, a not-insignificant chunk of those Prime users include Apple device owners, who already have Apple’s TV app right there.

To me, this feels more like a “why not” kind of move on Apple’s part. What I mean is, Prime Video already lets users add-on subscriptions to similar services like Max, Paramount+, and AMC+ — so, as big as Prime is, there’s not much sense in Apple being the odd man out of that list, right? Apple SVP Eddy Cue, for example, addressed this very point in the announcement tonight:

“We want to make Apple TV+ and its award-winning library of series and films from the world’s greatest storytellers available to as many viewers as possible. We’re thrilled that Prime Video will now offer Apple TV+, giving viewers an incredible breadth of viewing options.”

So, there you go. Personally, I prefer having all these services in separate apps — I’ve never really enjoyed one all-encompassing app where all these things exist as individual tiles inside. Especially as all of the streaming apps get messier and messier, but that’s a rant for another time.