The HBO Max app has had its issues, but I don't know if it deserves to be killed off entirely. Unfortunately, that's exactly what is going to happen.
As reported by The Verge, Warner Bros Discovery is planning to kill off the HBO Max app in the summer of 2023. On an earnings call earlier today, CEO David Zaslav announced the move, saying that the company is planning to combine the HBO Max and Discovery+ apps into one new mega-app that will be named something completely new.
Zaslav says that the new app will combine the content power of HBO Max with the "better tech stack" of Discovery Plus.
“HBO Max has a competitive feature set, but it has had performance and customer issues.” He went on to claim Discovery Plus has a better tech stack and would become the core of the new service which will combine the content of HBO Max with the content and tech of Discovery Plus.
What will the new service be called?
While Zaslav was willing to announce the killing off of HBO Max, he didn't go as far as naming what the new service will be called. Some expected that HBO would get rolled directly into the Discovery+ app as a so-called "channel" within the app, but it appears that Discovery+ is also getting the ax — at least as its own standalone app.
“We think that product is going to be superb,” said Zaslav, referring to the newly combined service that it plans to launch in the summer of 2023. The CEO did note that HBO Max, despite its technical issues, has quickly grown in brand recognition when compared to other streaming services.
That makes a lot of sense since HBO Max is a much better know streaming service than Discovery+ is currently. We'll have to wait and see how Warner Bros Discovery launches its new service while maintaining the steam that HBO Max has garnered over the last year or so.
If you want to enjoy HBO Max, Discovery+, and whatever the hell else Warner Bros Discovery puts together, the best place to watch is on the Apple TV 4K. Even better, the 32GB model is on a great sale right now on Amazon.
The new Apple TV 4K features an upgraded processor, support for higher frame rates, and the new Siri Remote.
