APPLE TV JUMPS TO $14.99 A MONTH

🔴 Apple TV now costs $14.99 a month, up from $12.99.

The annual plan moved to $119 from $99.

Apple One, the bundle that packages Apple TV with iCloud storage, Apple Music and other services, went to $21.95 from $19.95 for an individual plan.

CNBC reports the increases landed Friday.

Context on how far this has travelled: when the service launched in 2019 as Apple TV+, it cost $4.99 a month, cheaper than nearly every rival. Apple has since spent heavily on content, including the film "F1" and "Ted Lasso," which returned for a fourth season this month. The new price puts it in line with the competition rather than under it.

📈 It is not the first move this year. Apple raised Apple Music by $1 a month in July, citing licensing costs.

The money reason sits in the earnings. Per CNBC, Apple reported $30.7 billion in services revenue in its third quarter, growth of 12%. But the unit's gross margin fell over 1%, which the company blamed on product mix and foreign exchange.

Services is the piece Apple has been leaning on hardest. When Apple announced Tim Cook would step down as CEO on Sept. 1, it called services a "major focus area" of his tenure.

So the question for anyone with a recurring charge on their card: at $14.99, are you keeping Apple TV or cancelling it?

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