Apple’s TV+, News+ branding is a bit familiar

At Apple’s big event on March 25, 2019, where we caught a glimpse of its expansion into the increasingly competitive streaming and news arenas, we also found out the names of the service — which have an odd similarity to another media giant’s streaming branding.

The two services will be known as Apple TV+ and Apple News+ (with the “+” being read as the word “plus”).

Disney’s streaming service adds a name

While adding “+” or “plus” to the end of a name is hardly new, it’s interesting to note that Disney has also used that same naming convention with ESPN+ and its announced Disney+ streaming services.

Apple itself has used the “Plus” branding in the past for its iPhone — but in those cases the word was spelled out in the iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6s Plus, iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 8 Plus. 

ESPN goes with ‘plus’ branding for streaming service

In these cases, the “Plus” was used to differentiate iPhone models with larger screens. With the release of the iPhone XS (read “ten-S”), the word “Max” took the place of “Plus” for the larger sized devices.

Samsung, meanwhile, also uses the “+” branding for its device names.