HBO Max is offering free episodes of TV shows, just like Apple TV+

HBO Max Review 2020 (Image credit: Bryan M. Wolfe/iMore)

What you need to know

HBO Max is offering some of its most popular TV shows for free in an attempt to hook new customers.
Shows like Batwoman, Perry Mason, Lovecraft County, and more all have their first episode available for free.

Streaming service HBO Max has announced that a number of shows now have their first season available for free, meaning people can watch them without paying the company a dime. The move follows a similar one by Apple TV+ last year.

Announced via press release, HBO Max is now offering a ton of big-name shows for free, although you'll obviously need to pay up if you want to watch more than the first episode. HBO Max also says that the free episodes will be rotated in and out periodically.

With the launch of this new feature, viewers will now have the chance to take a sneak peek at the platform's catalog of iconic and best-in-class programming prior to committing to a subscription, with the flexibility to watch a hand-picked selection of episodes in-app on their favorite supported device. The free experience will initially include 13 episodes of HBO and Max Originals, with new titles being rotated in and out of the collection periodically.

At the feature's launch, the following shows all have Season 1, Episode 1 available for free.

Batwoman
Euphoria
Game of Thrones
Harley Quinn
Lovecraft Country
Love Life
Perry Mason
Raised By Wolves
The Flight Attendant
Titans
Veneno
Warrior

Notable, Doom Patrol Season 2, Episode 1 is also available for free.

If you want to enjoy everything HBO Max has to offer in style, be sure to check out our list of the Best Apple TV deals on the market today.

Exclusive content

Apple TV+

100% exclusive content for the price of a cup of coffee.

With TV+, you can watch well-produced, big-budget TV shows from famed directors, and starring award-winning actors and actresses across all your Apple devices and with up to six members of your Family Sharing group.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.