Apple TV - page 109

This week: For years Apple has reportedly been working their magic on the worst device in every home—the remote control. And now, with a rumored new Apple TV on the the horizon, we’ll tell you why an Apple-hewn controller could be its flagship feature. Plus: how to create your own Apple Watch band; how to share your digital heartbeat with other lonely Apple Watch wearers; and we vote on our favorite new gadgets on an all-new Faves ’N Raves.

Our thanks to lynda.com for sponsoring this episode! Learn virtually any application at your own pace from expert-taught video tutorials at lynda.com.

Full show notes ahead!

The high-tech “magic wand”-style controller rumored to ship with the refreshed Apple TV this summer may be the culmination of close to a decade’s R&D on the part of Apple.

Is this the “simplest user interface you could imagine” that Steve Jobs told Walter Isaacson about when he claimed he had “finally cracked” the way to build a perfect TV?

If so, we’ve combed through the patents to reveal how it might work.

The redesigned Apple TV and its accompanying streaming service are still nowhere to be seen, but Apple beefed up its channel offerings for its little black box today, adding new icons for USA Now and CBS Sports.

The new Apple TV’s channels offer viewers access to on-demand sports, TV shows, and movies to customers in the United States, and Apple’s also added Shomi and Crave TV for users in Canada. Both new channels are available as an over-the-air update and should be showing up on users’ boxes today.

Here’s a look at what you can watch:

Apple has been gearing up to launch a redesigned Apple TV to go with its rumored streaming service, and a new report claims the new black box will also include a redesigned TV remote with a trackpad.

Apple’s streaming TV service has long been a force of fodder for the rumor mill, but according to Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes, it’s already a foregone conclusion.

During Time Warner’s earning’s call on Wednesday, Bewkes told investors that he’s ‘pretty confident’ will launch a service that streams TV over the Internet, and we might not have to wait much longer to finally see it.

We cover all the best Apples stories on each week’s CultCast, but this week we take it to the next level. Hit play to hear: why trying on the Apple Watch will make you a believer; our WWDC hardware predictions; why a recent acquisition might mean a revolutionary new iPhone camera; and Leander reviews the new Macbook.

Our thanks for Freshbooks for supporting this episode. FreshBooks is the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. It also makes tax time a cinch. Get started now with a 30-day free trial.

Full show notes ahead!

Apple scored a huge win for Apple TV by making it the only platform your can watch HBO Now on for the next three months, and according to a new report, Apple might be rewarding HBO by taking a much lower cut on subscription fees than cable companies.

Apple has been taking a 30 percent cut anytime a company signs up a customer for a service through an iOS app. Publishers bristled at Apple’s policy when it was introduced in 2011, however, when it comes to subscriptions purchased through Apple TV, Apple has decided to reduced its take by 50%.

Want a free month of HBO Now on your Apple TV, iPad or iPhone? If you sign up for the standalone service now, you can watch the premier of Game of Thrones on April 15 absolutely free.

I’m a long-time cord cutter and I’m super-excited that I can now purchase HBO directly from the television network, via iTunes, instead of having to sign up for a local cable TV package and then pay for HBO on top of that.

If you’ve got an Apple TV or an iOS device, you can get your own free month. Here’s how.

HBO finally unleashed its Netflix-killer today with the HBO Now app for iOS and Apple TV. The company is already having a hard time keeping up with demand on the streaming service, but according to a profile on HBO CEO Richard Plepler CEO, the original plan was to launch it at the end of 2016.

Today’s launch may not have happened it if weren’t for Apple executive Jimmy Iovine, who sparked the connection between HBO and Apple. After Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch made a hostile bid to takeover of Time Warner last year, Plepler says he knew he need to pivot the company. So he called up his old buddy Jimmy and asked if Apple would be interested in an HBO Now deal.

“I think that’s the shit,” Jimmy said.

HBO Now has finally landed on Apple TV, giving users access to stream HBO’s entire catalog of shows and live programming for just $14.99 per month. Apple TV owners can start using the service immediately with a free 30-day trial period.

Today’s HBO Now launch comes just in time for the Game of Thrones Season 5 premiere this Sunday. If you haven’t caught up, there might be enough hours left in the week to stream the past four seasons.

More details surrounding Apple’s unreleased TV streaming service are leaking out as its Worldwide Developer Conference approaches in June.

There’s still a lot we don’t know for sure, but a new report sheds light on how Apple is proposing to handle the actual streaming of live TV to its millions of users.

Dish has reached a new agreement with Turner Broadcasting to keep TBS, TNT, and CNN on its Sling TV service. That’s great news for cord-cutters, but what’s even better is that HBO is coming aboard too — and in time for the new season of Game of Thrones!

This week: more rumors of a souped-up Apple TV coming in June, and we examine the softer side of Steve Jobs, as described in a new unofficial, Apple-backed biography. Plus: Skynet is the stuff of movies, but Elon Musk, Steven Hawking, and now Steve Wozniak, all believe AI is a big threat. Should we worried? You’re gonna want to unplug your Segway after this discussion.

Our thanks for Freshbooks for supporting this episode. FreshBooks is the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. It also makes tax time a cinch. Get started now with a 30-day free trial.

Full show notes ahead!

It turns out Apple isn’t talking with NBCUniversal about partnering for its forthcoming TV service. At least not yet.

How do we know? Because Comcast, NBCUniversal’s parent company, hasn’t been approached by Apple at all. But that doesn’t mean NBCUniversal’s content won’t be on Apple’s service when it launches.

CNN came to the Apple TV today in the form of “CNNgo,” an app that lets you view live broadcasts, shows, and popular news clips.

Unfortunately, the bulk of CNNgo is still shackled to cable, meaning you won’t be able to view anything except some short video highlights without first entering TV subscription information.

Apple TV is boosting up its channel lineup ahead of the company’s rumored launch of a stand-alone streaming service. Channels for TED Talks, Young Hollywood, and Tastemade were added to the Apple TV homescreen this morning, bringing viewers a new selection of cooking tutorials, celebrity TV shows, and educational talks.

TED Talks serves up a number of presentations given by intellectuals all over the world, focusing on a myriad of topics ranging from body language to how we discovered DNA. Young Hollywood offers users a range of celebrity-focused shows, interviews, and other programming all available for free. Aspiring chefs can find a bevy of cooking shows in the Tastemade channel that features food adventure shows, cooking shows, and also video city guides.

A new Apple TV set-top box is set to arrive this summer at Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference, according to a new report citing sources familiar with the situation.

The upgrade would represent a much-needed “significant overhaul” of the device, letting it go far beyond Apple’s current TV offering and crossing over into other areas such as music, apps and even home automation — with a nifty Siri-based interface, to boot.

Apple TV’s big redesign has been rumored for over a year now, but the long wait might pay off big time, for shareholders at least.

By blowing up the cable industry with its subscription TV streaming service, Apple could add up to $30 billion in global annual revenue to its bottom line, according to projections released by Baird Equity Research.

The more we hear, the more Apple’s reported web TV service sounds like a dream come true for cord-cutters!

With previous reports suggesting the subscription service will offer around 25 channels in total, a new Wall Street Journal report claims Apple is busy talking with both Discovery and Viacom about the venture. Deals with those companies could bringing channels including Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, TLC, MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon to viewers.

Apple is planning its own cable-free TV service for a fall launch, and it’s pulling out all the stops to lure potential content partners.

According to a new report, networks Apple is courting have been offered complete access to viewer data, such as what shows they watch and when they watch them. It’s an unusually friendly negotiating approach for Apple that signals the company really wants to get the service off the ground soon.

It’s looking like 2015 will finally be the year that Apple’s dream TV service becomes a reality.

After years of reports that the company has been trying to get its own TV subscription off the ground, June is on track to be the month it’s debuted for the world to see. The service will reportedly offer around 25 channels and cost a little more than the competition.

Assume, for a moment, you’ve always been an Android guy but yesterday’s spintastic Apple Watch presentation sent you over the edge.

Now you’re a freshly minted Apple fanboy with money to burn, and you want to go from zero to full-on Apple hero. How much is it going to set you back if you’re ready to go all in with the latest, greatest gear Cupertino has to offer?

Whether it’s watching it via Apple’s website, or joining us here on Cult of Mac for our live blog, there are plenty of ways to keep abreast of today’s “Spring Forward” Apple keynote.

If you’ve got an Apple TV, you can also tune in to watch the event — courtesy of the newly-added Apple Events channel.

Apple is no stranger to having competitors copy its style. Samsung, HP, and Xiaomi have all been caught in the act multiple times, but the last company we expected to rip off Apple is Comcast.

For its new cable remote, Comcast has taken a page out of Apple’s playbook by copying the company’s iconic “Designed by Apple in California” tagline. The copy job is so bad, they didn’t even bother to change the font. It looks like the words “Comcast” and “Philadelphia” were basically slapped over Apple’s original tagline after production.

Take a look at the ‘premium’ remote below:

The rumor mill has been quiet as of late regarding Apple’s plans to disrupt the TV industry. But now Recode is reporting that Apple is in talks with programmers about doing its own Internet-based TV service for cord-cutters.

Similar to the way Dish’s Sling TV bundles channels together at an attractive cost, Apple would design its own experience around delivering content without the use of traditional cable companies.