I think what everyone is missing here is that this is free content for Apple TV, which is not platform dependent. You only need an iOS device if you want to do screen mirroring to it.
For iPhone, iPad, MacBook owners who cares but for Apple TV this is a big deal.
This is also a way for Apple TV to compete against Roku, which recently made it easier to find free content on the service. Used to be you had to go all over the place to find free content but now they put it all in one place. Apple, being the sole distributor and the producer for the content, has an advantage because this is content you will not be able to get anywhere else. It is like YouTube Premium but without the $11.99 a month charge.
I don't see this as much of an answer to Amazon because you need to be subscribed to Prime to watch anything decent for free on that service. So this pays for itself right out of the gate.
This is Apple's cheapest, most accessible, product. But it is more expensive than Chromecast, Roku, or Amazon Fire stick so I think this is a great differentiation.