Because of contract disagreements between Amazon, Roku, HBO Max, Peacock, and the other streaming boxes, it seems that Apple TV is the best option for customers who want to have one or the two streaming services.
As Ben Mayo of 9to5Mac.com reports, that may be the ONLY option for a while.
HBO Max and Peacock cannot agree on terms with Amazon and Roku. As such, you cannot get the HBO Max app, or the Peacock app, on an Amazon Fire TV device or on a Roku stick.
Amazon wants HBO to include all of its Max content as a Channel inside the Amazon Prime Video experience. HBO Max doesn’t want to do this because they don’t want to be aggregated onto someone else’s platform in a UI they don’t control, with enforced revenue sharing and a limited customer relationship… HBO Max doesn’t have ads at the moment, but they want to launch an ad-supported tier as soon as next year. Roku wants HBO to agree to a revenue-sharing agreement for the commercials served through the Roku HBO Max app. HBO naturally doesn’t want this… Peacock is balking at Amazon’s and Roku’s terms for similar reasons.
For as much as we have heard recently about Apple’s draconian and potentially anticompetitive App Store policies, it seems like a walk in the park as far as access to the Apple TV platform is concerned. The terms for these companies to be available in the tvOS App Store are straightforward: Apple gets a cut of subscriptions made inside the app using Apple In-App Purchase or users can login with account information they got from elsewhere. Apple likes these apps to feature full integration with the TV app and Siri and everything else, but it’s not mandatory. HBO Max and Peacock have been available on Apple TV from day one.
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