When Apple TV+ launched in November 2019, eyebrows were raised because of the strategy the film and TV show streaming arm from Apple had put forward: Original content befitting the brand image. Though it took time to stock the library, today, there are enough titles with excellent ratings on, say, Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb, prompting the company’s CEO to recently iterate the original mission: “We stand at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts. We wanted Apple TV+ to be a place where great storytellers would tell their best stories.” At the upcoming Primetime Emmy Awards — scheduled for September 14 (Creative Arts ceremonies are on September 6 and 7) — Apple has landed the most acting nominations of any network or studio this year, with 31 performance nods total, and 81 across categories. What’s working in favour of Apple TV+?

Cost is not a factor

At first, in 2019-2020, Apple TV+ appeared to be a great “extra feature” for anybody carrying an Apple device. First, it is necessary to disconnect Apple TV+ from Apple TV. The former is the streaming arm of the company, while the other is a digital media player.

The shows that were originally announced — like The Morning Show, Dickinson, See, For All Mankind, and The Elephant Queen — were big-budget offerings. The cost consumers have to bear continues to be low — ₹99 a month (after a seven-day trial or three months free if you purchase an Apple device). It is low when one considers the budget of the shows.

Streaming represented 44.8 per cent of TV viewership in the US in May 2025, according to Nielsen's monthly report The Gauge. Illustration: The Telegraph

Apple is too big to associate the sale of iPhones with the performance of Apple TV+. What matters is the quality of shows. For a company which has few product ranges — don’t even start rattling out the list of categories Samsung or Xiaomi has to offer — but mind-boggling financial bandwidth, it is able to push innovative shows that are hitting high notes.

Carefully-crafted shows

What connects most of the shows on Apple TV+ with the greater philosophy of Apple is design. Every show is designed to make you feel that something worthwhile is being watched. Be it Silo or Severance or Ted Lasso, there is depth. If sci-fi shows are something you take seriously, the offerings of Apple TV+ have almost no competition.

Given the cash reserves of Apple, it could have easily bought a major studio or even an entertainment library. That’s the easy way out. There has to be some kind of design rather than just the beauty of seeing 10,000 shows hovering before your eyes with most of them not even worth a few minutes of your time. Great stories can be a great business, knows the team behind the streaming service.

If The Morning Show, Slow Horses, Shrinking and Ted Lasso helped Apple TV+ achieve top-of-the-mind recall value, Severance and Silo are helping the streamer reach the next milestone — a boost in viewership.

Unlike other streamers, Apple doesn’t offer viewership figures or how much Apple TV+ contribute to the company’s services business. But there have been indications of an uptick in minutes watched.

According to ratings data from Nielsen, Severance was the fifth-most streamed original show across all platforms during the second week of February, picking up 681 million minutes watched.

Netflix and Amazon Prime Video dominate the scene, while Max and Disney+ continue to turn in respectable figures. However, Apple TV+ has gathered pace and hasn’t slackened over the years. The focus on originals like Ted Lasso and the Oscar-winning movie CODA keeps the streamer in conversations, even with its limited library. Carefully-crafted shows and films make the platter of offerings unique.

Buoyed by innovation

Top 10 on Apple TV+ at the moment: Foundation, Ted Lasso, Tehran, Severance, Fountain of Youth, Stick, The Studio, Smoke, The Buccaneers and Murderbot. Collage: The Telegraph

It is here that the streaming service enjoys an advantage. Recently, the Brad Pitt-starrer F1: The Movie opened to rave reviews in theatres; the show will ultimately make it to the streaming service. Before its release, F1’s trailer made unique use of iPhones, which come with a strong Taptic Engine. The vibration mechanism on the iPhone is the best, alerting you of calls, alarms, and whatnot. During gaming, the mechanism is put to test. Why not do the same with a trailer of a movie about car racing? It was an instant hit.

The game doesn’t stop there. Bring in Apple TV, the device. When connected to any TV, even if it is one of the latest and most expensive smart TVs, the experience is enhanced to the power of N, be it buffering, picture or audio quality. Further, the tiny box is powerful enough to make gaming enjoyable. We are not talking about puzzles or a simple car racing game.

What is a computer, after all? It can be your MacBook, iPad, iPhone or even Apple TV. Given the complicated titles that are now being released for Apple devices, the company is quickly making deep inroads into the gaming industry.

There’s more. Apple is building up a long-term partnership in the sporting zone. There is a 10-year partnership between Major League Soccer (MLS) and Apple, bringing in better accessibility worldwide without blackout restrictions, and the streaming quality is extremely high. Apple and MLS have focused on the quality of broadcast, presentation of the product and added innovations. A multiview feature allows subscribers to watch up to four games at a time, for example. Further, the deal ensured that Apple integrated the league and the Season Pass app across the entire ecosystem, including into the Apple Sports app, Apple Maps and Apple Music.

Recently, The New York Times reported that Formula One is leaning towards choosing Apple for its US broadcasting rights from 2026 with the technology company’s bid being in the $120-150 million per year range. ESPN has had the rights since 2018 but the deal will be through at the end of the year. Throw into the equation the hit that has been F1, which has become Apple’s highest-grossing theatrical film, with global box-office sales just below $300 million after 10 days in theatres, according to Variety.

Major League Baseball also airs on Apple TV+. The agreement with MLB is a seven-year deal to air Friday Night Baseball.

There’s one (x3) more thing!

Three moves from Apple have widened its net over the audience. First, Apple TV app is now available to Android customers from Google Play Store. Android users don’t need to own an Apple device to watch the shows. The Apple TV app on Android includes key features like Continue Watching to pick up where a user left off across all their devices, and Watchlist to keep track of everything they want to watch in the future.

Breakout comedy The Studio sweeps with 23 Emmy Award nominations, including Outstanding Comedy Series. Picture: Apple

Second, signups have surged following inclusion of the platform in the Amazon Prime Video Channels app marketplace. In other words, Prime Video has Apple TV+ as an add-on subscription in India.

Third, Apple’s streamer is producing more and more non-English shows, which is widening its reach. Titles include Pachinko (Korean-Japanese- English), Drops of God (French-English-Japanese), Berlin ER (German), Love You To Death (Spanish), and La Maison (French).

The secret ingredient for Apple is not such a big secret — quality over quantity, even in an era where library content dominates streaming viewing time.

The growth of the streamer is coming at a time when streaming reached a milestone in May as its share of total television usage outpaced the combined share of broadcast and cable for the first time ever in the US, according to Nielsen’s monthly report of The Gauge (the report did not mention Apple TV+ but it doesn’t change the overall trend).

Apple TV+'s run of late proves that the company has arrived in Hollywood (and beyond): Seth Rogen’s The Studio, Jon Hamm-starrer Your Friends and Neighbours, Severance (executive produced and primarily directed by Ben Stiller), Jason Segel and Harrison Ford in Shrinking, Cate Blanchett in Disclaimer, Kristen Wiig and Carol Burnett in Palm Royale, and Joel Edgerton and Jennifer Connelly in Dark Matter.

The iPhone and MacBook are great, and so is the overall brand value of Apple. Needless to say, Apple TV+ has been designed in the same mould.

Mathures Paul