Beginning next month Apple will no longer offer year-long free trials of its TV+ subscription service.
Apple TV+ drops 12-month free trial
Launched in 2019, Apple TV+ is still a relatively new player in the streaming services game. And it combated this by offering a 12-month free trial for anyone who bought an iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad or Mac. It has also offered promos and credit to keep users on the service.
And the strategy made sense. While it has some great shows like Mythic Quest and Ted Lasso, it doesn’t have anywhere near the suite of shows and movies that its competitors boast.
But as its library has grown, it seems like Apple doesn’t feel the need to be quite so generous anymore.
From July 1 (most likely July 2 here in Australia), the free trial will be reduced to three months. From that point it will cost $7.99 a month, or you can bundle it with Apple One’s larger subscription service, which starts at $19.99 a month. This comes with TV+, Music, Arcade and 50GB iCloud storage.
As an added bonus, you can squeeze an extra month of Apple TV+ for free if you sign up for the Apple One trial, which is 30 days.
This still ain’t bad, comparatively
Despite the change, in the streaming world a three month trial is still pretty good.
Last year Netflix quietly removed its 30-day free trial in Australia. Disney+ also removed its 7-day free trial in June, with some speculating it was coinciding with the release of Hamilton on the service.
Still, not all platforms have removed free trials. In Australia Stan and Amazon Prime Video still offer 3o days for free, and Binge offers two weeks.
But if you do want to grab that year free and have a purchase to make at Apple, you might want to do that before the end of June.
Disclosure: the author owns shares in Apple.