Everything Apple Announced at Today's 'It's Show Time' Event in 6 Minutes

Monday March 25, 2019 4:58 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today held its first ever services-centric event, where the company introduced several new and upcoming service products with no hardware announcements at all.

It took Apple almost two hours to introduce Apple News+, Apple Arcade, Apple Card, and Apple TV+, but we've recapped the entire event in just six minutes for our readers who want a no-frills overview of everything Apple announced today.


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The only service that's available today, ‌Apple News‌+, is designed to provide access to hundreds of magazines and a handful of paywalled news sources for $9.99 per month. Everyone on a Family Sharing plan can access ‌Apple News‌+ for that $9.99 per month fee.

‌Apple Card‌ is a new credit card Apple's offering in partnership with Goldman Sachs. Starting this summer, you can sign up for an ‌Apple Card‌ right on the iPhone and start using it immediately for Apple Pay purchases. You can make digital payments with ‌Apple Pay‌ using the card, but for non-Apple Pay payments, Apple is giving customers a slick titanium card with no visible credit card info like number and CVV (all of that info is in Wallet, though).

With ‌Apple Card‌, you get 1% cash back for standard card purchases, 2% cash back for ‌Apple Pay‌ purchases, and 3% cash back for Apple purchases. Cash back is provided to you on a daily basis and you can use it for paying your balance, making purchases, or sending ‌Apple Pay‌ Cash in Messages. There are also unique budgeting and tracking tools for monitoring spending along with support via the Messages app. There are no fees, and Apple plans to offer low interest rates.

‌Apple Arcade‌ is Apple's new cross-platform subscription gaming service that will provide access to more than 100 iOS games from publishers like Disney, Sega, LEGO, Cartoon Network, Konami, and more when it launches this fall in over 150 countries. Apple hasn't announced pricing, but an ‌Apple Arcade‌ subscription will include full access to all games with no additional in-app purchases necessary to unlock content.

Apple's final services announcement was ‌Apple TV‌+, which will house all of the company's original TV content. Apple has more than a dozen original shows in the works from creators like Steven Spielberg, J.J. Abrams, and Oprah. Pricing hasn't been announced because it's not launching till the fall, but ‌Apple TV‌+ will be available in Apple's revamped TV app, coming in May.

The new TV app, which will be available on iOS devices, ‌Apple TV‌, Mac (in the fall) and third-party Smart TVs from Sony, LG, Samsung, and Vizio, features better than ever recommendations built on machine learning and a new "Channels" option that will let you subscribe to and watch content from providers like Starz, Showtime, and HBO.

Below, we've rounded up all of our coverage from today's event if you missed it:Make sure to stay tuned to MacRumors because we'll have more coverage of Apple's new services including detailed guides coming this week.

Tag: March 2019 event
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Top Rated Comments

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Retsiem
9 months ago
Worst keynote ever.
Rating: 104 Votes
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Moonlight
9 months ago
Ugh, I usually berate others for being negative...but after watching this today, I am not sure they know what they are doing at all with these things. :(
Rating: 70 Votes
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gugy
9 months ago
As I was expecting, a very underwhelming announcement.
ATV+ I have the feeling will be an expensive Netflix.
Card could be interesting.
News, seems expensive and not sure I want another subscription.
Maybe if Apple combine all the above plus Music and storage for a great price, then maybe.

Finally....Come on Apple, bring that Mac Pro and displays at WWDC. Enough of this madness.
Rating: 56 Votes
Avatar
iapplelove
9 months ago
Why can’t we just stream everything in iTunes for one monthly price? Music, movies etc.

They already have the established library.

This was never what I wanted from Apple, ever.
Rating: 50 Votes
Avatar
gugy
9 months ago
My feeling is that Apple is trying to juggle too many balls at the same time.
I always think of Steve when he returned to Apple, simplified the hardware line and focused on software big time. While I get we live in different times, I wish Apple could focus on what matters most and stop trying to jump all over the place.
Rating: 41 Votes
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TheYellowAudi
9 months ago
Yeah, I really couldn’t care much less. I am intrigued by the credit card, but mostly because it fits into what Apple is (or has been) as a company; a hardware + software company that excels at seamlessly merging the two for a clean, ‘it just works’ user experience.

I’m a total Apple nut, but I feel like they’re moving more into the services arena because they KNOW they aren’t innovating like they used to. I feel like very soon, their products are just going to disappear into the crowd, instead of REALLY standing out as they have in the past. Since that equates to less revenue, boom! we jump into services for more revenue.

I’d prefer to see them double down their focus on products, both hardware & software & continue to innovate there.
Rating: 35 Votes
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Plutonius
9 months ago
Everything in six minutes ?

I could do it in under one minute :).

A very underwhelming keynote.
Rating: 26 Votes
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ipedro
9 months ago
I don’t care what people say, that was one of the most fun and feature packed Apple events that I can recall in recent memory.

Hardware is important... and so is software... and so is content and services. It’s not just about what hardware you can buy but what you can do with it. Apple announced a ton of new ways to use your Apple devices.

The presentations were well done, they moved through everything at a good pace and that intro video alone got me giddy about Apple like I haven’t been since the Steve Jobs era.

[MEDIA=youtube]b6d6iScjHpA[/MEDIA]
Rating: 22 Votes
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Reach9
9 months ago
This has to be the most confusing Apple event I've ever seen. I don't feel like they articulated the value propositions of any of these services nearly as well as they could've.
Wishing the best for the company as they try to increase other revenue streams, I just hope News+ doesn't go the way of Newsstand.
Rating: 22 Votes
Avatar
TheYellowAudi
9 months ago

You failing to see the innovation doesn’t mean it’s not there.

Care to support your comment with some meat, instead of a weak, keyboard warrior answer?

Trust me when I tell you I’m an ENORMOUS Apple zealot, but I’m becoming.....disheartened.
Rating: 21 Votes

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