Apple TV+ crosses enemy lines, will be available as an Android app starting today

Apple is also adding the ability to subscribe to Apple TV+ through both the Android and Google TV apps using Google’s payment system, whereas the old Google TV app required subscribing on another device.

Apple TV+ is available for $9.99 a month, or $19.95 a month as part of an Apple One subscription that bundles 2TB of iCloud storage, Apple Music, and Apple Arcade support (a seven-day free trial of Apple TV+ is also available). MLS Season Pass is available as a totally separate $14.99 a month or $99 per season subscription, but people who subscribe to both Apple TV+ and MLS Season Pass can save $2 a month or $20 a year on the MLS subscription.

Apple TV+ has had a handful of critically acclaimed shows, including Ted Lasso, Slow Horses, and Severance. But so far, that hasn’t translated to huge subscriber numbers; as of last year, Apple had spent about $20 billion making original TV shows and movies for Apple TV+, but the service has only about 10 percent as many subscribers as Netflix. As Bloomberg put it last July, “Apple TV+ generates less viewing in one month than Netflix does in one day.”

Whether an Android app can help turn that around is anyone’s guess, but offering an Android app brings Apple closer to parity with other streaming services, which have all supported Apple’s devices and Android devices for many years now.