"Curb Your Enthusiasm": Apple TV+ on ITA (for the time being) is just talk and .... Foundation

I admit, I got there about four hours after disembarking, only because I went and reread (several times) the post on the company's Linkedin profile and I am so right to the conclusion that no, not true, that ITA Airways is the first European airline to offer Apple TV+ to its passengers.

This would be an interesting development considering that on board IFE on A321, A330 and A335 there are no live TV channels and the content offering has never been comparable to what other carriers offer. So important that a DEM was also made to alert loyal passengers.

The facts

Over the past few weeks, we at TFC also. we highlighted the news circulated through the company's social channels, that as of December Cupertino's streaming service had arrived on board the IFE-equipped fleet.

Test of the facts, January 9 I was aboard the AZ flagship on the Rome/Tokyo flight. and the first thing I did, as soon as I sat down, was to look for Apple TV+.

I have already flown with several airlines that offer Apple's original content to their passengers, and for this I expected something similar to what American Airlines offers, that is, a clearly visible box in the main screens.

Not finding any widgets on the IFE home page is I searched from the drop-down menus, as do other companies offering products from similar catalogs such as HBO, Showtime, AMC... And again, nothing.

No graphics, no widgets in the interface, it seemed strange to me, if you have a novelty of this magnitude you will want to let your passengers know. I asked the crew and the answer was. "we are not aware of, we have no communication about it, however, we have the new WI-FI!!!" (ed. was not referring to Starlink, but to the installation of Viasat instead of the old Panasonic).

Reality

Picking up the thread again, why do I say that "I realized only hours later the truth"? For the simple reason that the two communications are profoundly different.

On Linkedin the post is clear: there is Foundation, which then on the IFE is translated into Foundation and nothing more,

However, we are talking in the present tense about 50 episodes and 70h of content, But the American series has only 30 episodes to date (source wikipedia), and on ITA's IFE there is only the first of 10 episodes.

DEM, on the other hand, is much more explicit and talks about the arrival on board of Ted Lasso, The Morning Show, Severance, and indeed Foundation.

The reality of the facts is that of original there is "only" Foundation., thus a single product in the Apple TV+ catalog, a little like saying there is SKY tv just because there are 5 episodes of Buffa Racconta.

I asked ITA for clarification and I have been confirmed that more series and episodes will be included in the months to come, According to ITA's press office there should already be The Morning Show, but I am on board right now on a Rome-bound A350 and it is not there.

The February cycle will also include the Ted Lasso series. Additional titles will be added in subsequent cycles, for a combined total of 50 episodes and more than 70 hours of programming. ITA concludes.

In conclusion

I therefore find it deeply wrong "Crown itself" as the first European company to have Apple TV+ on board, it might have been more accurate to talk about the fact that some Apple TV+ titles will be available on board,

Because if you get on board United or American Airlines, there are hundreds of episodes, you can even start an episode on a flight and finish it on your cell phone, that's what Apple TV+ is offering, not what ITA has so much bandied about.