Apple TV+ announces launch date, price and nine original

Amid the flurry about new phones, Apple has also finally revealed when its anticipated streaming service will launch and how much it'll cost.

Apple has revealed the launch date and price for its Apple TV+ service (Photo by Josh Edelson / AFP)

Apple has finally revealed the launch date and price of its anticipated streaming service, Apple TV+.

Apple TV+ will go live in more than 100 countries on November 1 and it will be priced at $7.99 a month for Australians. But if you want to check out what the fuss is all about first, there’s a seven-day free trial.

Anyone who buys a new iPhone, iPad, Apple TV console, iPod touch or Mac will get a free one-year subscription as a sweetener. Family Sharing will enable six people to share the same account.

The service is launching with nine original programs on its first date, including the Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston media drama, Morning Wars and a futuristic dystopian show called See, starring Jason Momoa and Alfre Woodard.

Original programs will be available to download for offline viewing.

Apple launched its Apple TV app in anticipation of its paid streaming product and signed a deal with Samsung to make its app available outside the Apple ecosystem.

Steve Carell, Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston will headline Morning Wars. Picture: AP Photo/Tony Avelar

The app will be accessible at launch on iPhones, iPads, Apple TV consoles and iPod Touch and will be installed on Macs with the Catalina OS update. It will roll out in the future on Amazon Fire TV, and select LG and Sony TV models. It’s also available on desktop.

The nine TV shows and movies available at launch are:

MORNING WARS:

Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon’s expensive and splashy TV drama set behind the scenes of a morning breakfast program. Aniston plays a hardened veteran host who finds herself in competition with Witherspoon’s reporter after her co-host, played by Steve Carell, is taken down by scandal. Morning Wars is called The Morning Show in the US.

SEE:

Set 600 years into our future, a virus has killed off most of humanity and the ones who survived are now blind and must adapt to survive. See stars Alfre Woodard and Jason Momoa and was created by Steven Knight, the brains behind Peaky Blinders, and directed by Francis Lawrence (Constantine).

DICKINSON:

Starring Hailee Steinfeld as the famed American poet, Dickinson will up-end what you think you know about the 19th century icon, reimagining her as a rebellious millennial fighting against the limits of society and gender.

FOR ALL MANKIND:

From the creator of the Battlestar Galactica reboot Ron D. Moore, For All Mankind is a space drama which runs with the premise that the space war never ended and the jockeying for cultural supremacy in the cosmos still dominated. The cast includes Joel Kinnaman, Michael Dorman and Sarah Jones.

OPRAH WINFREY:

The queen of TV will chat with authors as part of a global book club with the aim to bring about positive change.

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Oprah Winfrey will bring a version of her famed book club to Apple TV+. Picture: AP Photo/Tony Avelar

Will you sign up for Apple TV+? Join the conversation in the comments below

GHOSTWRITER:

A reboot of the beloved 1990s children’s program about a group of kids who encounter a ghost who can write them messages only they can see. This remake will reposition the ghost as a mysterious spectre in a bookshop and they will team up to release fictional characters from literature.

SNOOPY IN SPACE:

Snoopy’s aspirations have gone far beyond his little red hut, with the beagle, Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang suiting up and taking command of the International Space Station.

HELPSTERS:

A kids’ show from the creators of Sesame Street about a team of monsters who help solve problems.

THE ELEPHANT QUEEN:

This documentary follows a matriarch elephant and her herd on an epic loss. The Elephant Queen was well-received at last year’s Toronto International Film Festival.

Apple TV+ also announced that in the months following its launch, new originals would be added to the service every month, including Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon’s anthology series Little America, drama series Truth Be Told starring Aaron Paul, M. Night Shyamalan’s Servant, Hala starring Australian actor Geraldine Viswanathan and The Banker, a movie starring Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson.

Apple made the announcements about Apple TV+ this morning at an event which also unveiled the iPhone 11.

The streaming service launches at a time of intense competition in the sector with Disney+ to go live 19 days later, and imminent offerings from US media giants Universal/Comcast and Warner Bros.

Apple’s price point of $7.99 a month is coming in cheaper than Disney+’s monthly fee of $8.99, which will launch on November 19, and also undercuts existing players Netflix, Stan and Foxtel Now, but not Amazon Prime Video which is $6.99 a month.

Australians also have access to subscription streaming services YouTube Premium, Hayu, DocPlay and iWonder.

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