‘F1: The Movie’ Starts Streaming In December
Apple on Monday announced via press release that its summer auto racing blockbuster F1: The Movie will be available to stream beginning Friday, December 12. The film, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and starring Brad Pitt, casts Pitt as the so-called “greatest that never was,” Sonny Hayes, a driver whose career was derailed by an accident at a race, recruited decades later by an ex-teammate to save a flailing F1 team.
“It’s been thrilling to see audiences around the world embrace ‘F1 The Movie’ in theaters,” Bruckheimer said in a statement for the announcement. “Now, we’re beyond excited to bring this exhilarating, cinematic ride to fans everywhere through Apple TV’s unparalleled global reach. Partnering with Apple and Formula 1 has been an incredible journey, and we’re proud that even more viewers, from every corner of the world, will get to experience the heart-pounding action and passion that defines ‘F1 The Movie.’”
Apple posted a trailer to YouTube (embedded below) revealing the streaming date.
Notably, my friend Stephen Hackett linked to a MacRumors story in which writer Eric Slivka picked up on a sly bit of product news: Apple TV+ is apparently now known as Apple TV. Indeed, Apple’s single line of copy in the press release reads in part the change represents a “vibrant new identity” for the streaming service. It should be noted, however, as of this writing, the Apple TV website still uses the old nomenclature. I decided to cover the F1 news partly for the name change, but also because it reminded me of something that’s bothered me about “Apple TV” as a branding for some time now.
To wit, Apple TV can pertain to one of three things: the app, the service, or the box. From a disability perspective, primarily for cognition’s sake, it can be awfully difficult to distinguish the three entities. Apple sells a box called Apple TV 4K which includes both the Apple TV app and, within it, the Apple TV service. That’s confounding for anyone, let alone someone coping with an intellectual disability. When most people think of Apple TV, they think of the service where Severance and Ted Lasso lives—in that sense, I’d guess that’s what drove the name change. Nonetheless, the naming strategy remains messy with the aforementioned box and software. I’ve heard many people say Apple TV is “built in” to, say, Samsung televisions so you needn’t go to an Apple Store and buy one when they’re conflating two different things. They mean Apple TV the service when they allude to the Apple TV box running tvOS. Apple should clean up its mess; the situation gives off strong Spider Man meme vibes. Lest you think I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, my contention is that words matter. Clarity matters. Even if Apple TV the service gets the lion’s share of the cachet in terms of name recognition, it doesn’t mean the others ought to mire amidst a super convoluted game of word association.
See also: back in June, I wrote about the accessibility of the movie’s “haptic trailer.”
F1: The Movie grossed $629 million at the box office worldwide, according to Apple.
