The day has come. Max is upon us.
Max, the brainchild of Warner Bros. Discovery and David Zaslov, has officially launched today. Gone is the HBO Max app, and in its place, the Max app reigns from the iron throne. Users of the HBO Max app may have already seen it go away on their devices and get replaced with the Max app but, if you haven’t, you’ll need to download the Max app manually. You’ll need to do so in either case in order to enjoy HBO content going forward.
As with any launch, Max has already run into some issues. I personally woke up to the HBO Max app being replaced with the Max app on my iPhone. I thought, “nice, that’s convenient.” I went to sign in and…got an error message. I tried a few more times, but I was unable to get into the app this morning. Thankfully, that appears to be an issue for only some as other staff members at BGR were able to use the app without an issue.
In addition to some opening day bugs (which are always expected), Max is also launching its new Ultimate Ad-Free tier of service. That will bring the top tier of service to enjoy HBO content to $19.99 per month, a jump of a few dollars compared to HBO Max’s highest-costing tier.
With Ultimate Ad-Free, you will enjoy some perks that the old, highest tier for HBO Max did not have. In addition to being ad-free and also including all of the content from Discovery Plus, the new plan will also offer over 1,000 titles in 4K at launch with more being added every month. You’ll be able to watch in 4K UHD resolution and enjoy audio in Dolby Atmos, download up to 100 titles for offline viewing, and stream on 4 devices at the same time.
That lines up Max pretty similarly with Netflix’s highest tier of service, which also costs $20 per month. We’ll see if flooding HBO Max with the Property Brothers and offering more titles in 4K does the trick to get people to pay the higher price.
Unfortunately, that is probably going to work on me. While I’m not interested in much of the content that Discovery Plus has, I will pay more for higher video and audio quality, so I won’t be surprised if Zaslov is getting my $20 in a few months’ time.
