Disney+

One subscription, several studios

Disney+ puts Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar, National Geographic and the animation back catalogue behind a single login, and the proposition needs no explaining to anybody. The service is built for households, particularly households where the ages range from a toddler to a teenager, and the app has clearly been designed with that in mind rather than for a solo viewer working through heavy drama on a weeknight.

Profiles, downloads and handing over the tablet

The interface is one of the more legible in streaming. Rows sort by studio as well as by genre, so getting to the Marvel shelf or the Pixar films is a tap instead of a search, and playback starts quickly enough that a child doesn’t ask what’s wrong. Downloads for offline viewing look properly good rather than merely watchable, which is the difference between a tolerable car journey and a peaceful one. On capable hardware the higher resolution playback just happens, with nobody sent into a settings screen to find it.

Parental controls are where the app pulls ahead. Profiles can be age-limited, the filters hold, and setting a child up is quick rather than an evening spent buried in a settings tree. The kids view strips things back to big artwork and no promotional rows, so a young child can steer it alone without help or accidentally landing somewhere they shouldn’t. Handing over a tablet stops being a negotiation, which is worth more to a parent than any line on a comparison chart.

Narrow if nobody in the house cares

The weakness is the catalogue rather than the software. Wide as the library is, it thins out in grown-up drama, so in a house with no children it rarely stands alone as the only subscription. GroupWatch works but feels unfinished beside the tools built specifically for watching together, and the cost has climbed a fair way since launch, which changes the sum for anyone who signed up on the old number. Care about these studios and the app is fast, clean and nearly invisible, which is the best thing you can say about a streaming client. Care about none of them and no amount of good software will make the shelves look full.