Apple held a special event at the Steve Jobs Theatre at the company's new headquarter, Apple Park where it announced a whole host of new services. In the weeks and months leading to the event, it was rumoured that there would be no hardware releases and it would be all about services.

The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, started off by listing all the services that Apple already offers, some of which are free and some are paid, like Apple News, Apple Books, Maps, Find My iPhone, iCloud and so on.

It is clear that Apple is really going all in with the services especially as some of the other categories have begun to reach market saturity. It will be interesting to see how these new services play out for Apple and just how much the customers will love them.

Here is everything Apple announced at the "It's showtime" event.

Apple News+

Many Apple users across the world were already familiar with the Apple news app which is a great place to check out news articles tailored for the individual preferences. Today, Apple made an addition to the app by revealing the Apple News+ service.

Basically, this service provides the user access to over 300 magazines and newspapers that would have otherwise cost them over $8000 a year (as per Apple). Now however, users can have all that for $9.99 a month and can even share this service with all their family members with no additional cost.

Apple News+ will be initially available in US and Canada with more countries to follow. In my opinion, the magazine experience that Apple showcased on stage looked really cool and well designed.

Apple Arcade

Next up was Apple Arcade which to me seems like Apple's entry into the gaming industry, for real this time. Basically, this service is a subscription to an increasing bundle of over 100 exlusive games that the users can play both online and offline, across all of their devices (iPhones, iPads, Macs), thus providing a unified gaming experience.

As it is a subscription based service, it will be totally ad-free. The details on the pricing have not been released yet, though we do know that Apple Arcade will be launced around September in over 150 countries.

Apple Card

For me personally, this was the most exciting release at the event. Apple is partnering with Goldman Sachs and Mastercard to launch Apple Card which is basically Apple's credit card service and Apple's entry into the consumer finances industry.

Users will be able to apply for and get approved within minutes and the credit card will be stored within the Wallet App on iOS and be available across all your Apple devices, providing great hardware and software security to protect your financial information. On top of that, Apple was really clear on the fact that Apple will not be collecting any data on its consumers.

One of the best things about the service is that there will be no fees. That means, no late fees, no international fees, no annual fees and so on. On top of this, users will actually get cashbacks each time they pay as 'Daily Cash', which can be used to pay for other stuff.

Users can use the Apple Card anywhere Apple Pay is accepted in the world. For places that do not accept Apple Pay, Apple will be releasing a beautiful, titanium physical card that users can use. Apple Card service will be released this summer in the US with more details to follow.

Apple Tv+

For the longest time, there were rumours floating around that Apple will be releasing their own TV service that was being touted as a "Netflix killer", and at the event, Apple finally unveiled the service.

To do so, Apple had invited on stage, popular celebrities and directors like Steven Spielberg, Jason Momoa, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and even Oprah! Apple really is going all out for its TV service with some really great sounding original shows and movies.

It will be interesting to see how Apple's own creations compete against Netflix's offerings which have garnered a lot of praise and popularity in the recent times.

Apple TV+ will be an ad-free service and will be available in the fall (probably around September). Users will be able to watch everything online and also offline in the TV app on their Apple TV devices. What's interesting (but not surprising) is that Apple is not limiting the service to only Apple users as they will also launch Apple TV+ on other companies' smart TVs as well!


All videos are taken from Apple's Youtube channel