Apple TV built a reputation as a quality-first streamer. It gave us Severance, Ted Lasso, Slow Horses, and the first Best Picture Oscar from a streamer, 2022’s CODA. But even Apple can’t promise a universal guarantee of quality. Over the years, a handful of originals have landed with a thud, panned by critics, dismissed by audiences or both. See the eight worst-reviewed Apple TV shows and movies below.
March 21, 2007: Apple launches the Apple TV, a gleaming-white set-top box with a remote control, for bringing iTunes media to the living room.
Unfortunately, the device lacks key features needed to make it a killer entertainment system. It’s something of a missed opportunity for Apple.
Coach Lasso’s right-hand man Coach Beard returns in upcoming season four of fan-favorite soccer comedy Ted Lasso, and Apple TV dropped a quick clip Friday seemingly confirming a main plot line. They will coach a Richmond women’s soccer team this season.
“Same Beard. New book,” said the short video’s caption. The book’s title? Soccer Women.
This weekend Apple TV’s Formula 1 racing content gets into gear, as practice, qualifying and Sprint sessions for the season’s first major Grand Prix race get underway starting Saturday (March 7), Apple said Thursday. Multiview programming, with a handful of live feeds onscreen at the same time, looks like a notable feature for fans in the United States.
“This weekend marks the start of a new era for Formula 1 fans in the U.S.,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services. “We’re excited to bring every moment of the season to Apple TV, delivering an immersive experience designed entirely around fans.”
The giant monster action of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters returned on Friday with season two stomping onto Apple TV. The series is set in the MonsterVerse that includes Godzilla and other kaiju, with Kong taking a giant-size role in the season that just premiered. Plus there’s a new Titan X to battle with.
Watch the new season two now on Apple TV, or get caught up with season one.
Star City is an ambitious new Apple TV drama set in the Soviet space program. It expands the alternate-history universe established by the streamer’s acclaimed series For All Mankind. And the new show got the “first-look” treatment Thursday, when Apple sent out a new photo to get fans excited about the premiere of Star City season one.
The eight-episode series debuts May 29 with two episodes, followed by one new episode each Friday through July 10.
Earth almost seems to have a “make Earth great again” moment in the new For All Mankind season five trailer Apple TV released Tuesday. Happy Valley, the burgeoning Mars colony that the alternative-history drama depicts, needs so much funding and resources it’s starting to piss people off — on both planets.
The new trailer, full of new characters and aging favorites, ratchets up the tension for the upcoming 10 episodes. Season 5 debuts on Friday, March 27 on Apple TV.
Major League Soccer’s 31st season gets underway Saturday, with all 30 clubs taking the pitch for MLS is Back weekend. And Apple TV subscribers will have a front-row seat to all of it, with all 13 matches available and no blackouts across more than 100 countries and regions, Apple said.
“All eyes are on North America this year as the MLS season kicks off this week and the World Cup approaches,” said Thomas Müller, Vancouver Whitecaps FC attacking midfielder and 2014 FIFA World Cup champion. I’m excited to begin my first full season in MLS, help the team build on what we started, and give fans everywhere the chance to follow our journey on Apple TV.”
Apple has taken full ownership of its hit workplace drama series Severance, acquiring all intellectual property and rights from production studio Fifth Season in a deal valued at just under $70 million, according to a new report. That makes additional seasons of the fan-favorite show — and spinoff series — more likely.
Apple TV showcased its ambitious 2026 slate Wednesday at an exclusive press event, revealing a packed calendar of new and returning series, original films and expanded live sports coverage including Formula 1 racing, Major League Soccer and Friday Night Baseball.
The streamer plans to release new originals every week in 2026, headlined by the highly anticipated fourth season of Ted Lasso this summer. Watch trailers below.
You can set up your Apple TV’s Siri Remote to control the volume levels of a separate sound system. It might not work out of the box. But with a little poking around in Settings, you can set it up so you can use the convenient volume buttons built into the Siri Remote to control sound bars, etc.
That means you won’t need to keep two or three remotes lying around — you can make it all work from just one. It just takes a little setup.
In the crowded landscape of spy shows and movies, Apple TV’s Tehran cuts through the noise with a visceral intensity few titles can match. This Israeli thriller, which started airing season three on January 9, doesn’t just tell a spy story. It grabs you by the throat from the first frame and doesn’t let go until the credits roll.
For anyone who’s ever found themselves disappointed by the too-fast or too-slow pacing or predictable plotting of typical spy dramas, Tehran, now streaming season three (with a fourth on the way), offers a masterclass in sustained tension and genuine surprise. That makes it easy to forgive the subtitles, which most people will need for the Farsi (Persian) and Hebrew spoken on the show.
In a bit of a shocker, Apple Original Film F1: The Movie earned a Best Picture nomination plus three other nods when the 98th Academy Awards nominations came out Thursday. Four out of Apple TV’s six nominations went to the racing drama, while the documentary film Come See Me in the Good Light and the wildfire drama The Lost Bus drew two others.
“With F1, Joe, Jerry, Brad, Lewis and the entire creative team delivered something only they could — the most authentic, visceral and entertaining racing film ever made,” said Jamie Erlicht, Apple’s head of Worldwide Video. “They pushed technical boundaries at every turn, and it’s been a privilege to partner on a project of this ambition. Seeing F1 nominated for Best Picture is a testament to their remarkable artistry, vision and unwavering passion.”
Not every Apple TV show gets merchandise like T-shirts and hats, but Vince Gilligan’s oddly original sci-fi head-scratcher Pluribus — the most-watched Apple TV show ever — just did. Too bad the merch is on the lame side.
One of the most weirdly refreshing sci-fi dramas in recent history deserves better than what Sony Pictures is peddling.
Apple Music and Apple TV just had their biggest month ever. That strong streaming performance added to a banner year for the collection of products that go under the heading of Apple services.
“2025 was a record-breaking year for Apple Services, marked by remarkable growth, global expansion, and continuous innovation,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, in a press release Monday.
Apple TV celebrated a successful night at the 83rd Annual Golden Globe Awards, taking home three awards Sunday for its hit Hollywood-spoof comedy The Studio and its sci-fi phenom Pluribus. But some of the streamer’s other hit shows came up short in the awards ceremony.
This week on the Cult of Mac podcast: Apple’s got a fantastic year ahead of it, with a genuinely prodigious pipeline of new products coming in 2026. From a folding iPhone and a low-cost MacBook to entirely new product categories, get ready for 12 months of exciting new Apple hardware.
In our first show under the new Cult of Mac branding, and our final podcast of 2025, we discuss all the great stuff that Apple fans have to look forward to in 2026.
Also on the Cult of Mac podcast:
Listen to this week’s episode of Cult of Mac in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
Apple TV is poised for a banner year in 2026, with an impressive slate of new original series, highly anticipated spinoffs and beloved returning favorites. From cyberpunk epics to gripping thrillers, the Apple TV 2026 lineup helps cement the streamer’s reputation as a powerhouse for quality programming.
Here’s your complete guide to the most highly anticipated shows coming to Apple TV next year.
With more than a dozen new Apple products in the pipeline, 2026 is shaping up to be a busy and important year for the company. Among a plethora of high-profile device launches, we should see the first folding iPhone next year
If all the rumors prove true, Apple’s 2026 product road map looks bold, exciting and ambitious. Check out all the new products Apple likely will launch in 2026.
December 27, 2010: Almost four months after the second-gen Apple TV’s debut, Cupertino says it has sold 1 million of the streaming video devices.
The news shows that Apple’s set-top box is gaining momentum. However, Apple’s PR move — which included a preemptive press release issued on December 21 that said Apple “expects sales of its new Apple TV to top one million units later this week” — is also a low-blow shot at competitor Roku, which recently said it planned to hit the 1 million unit mark by the end of 2010.
Apple TV delivered another stellar year of television in 2025, cementing its reputation as a home for premium storytelling across genres. From stellar sci-fi to sharp Hollywood satire, here are 13 standout series that defined the best of the streaming service’s 2025 lineup of new and returning shows.
You should binge them because they’re great. And what better time to do so than during holiday downtime?
The Christmas season is starting, and there’s good news for fans of the Peanuts holiday specials. Apple made the holiday classic A Charlie Brown Christmas available for everyone to stream free this weekend, whether they’re an Apple TV subscriber or not.
That gives everyone the opportunity to watch Linus teach his friends what Christmas is all about.
A leaked iOS 26 internal build reveals several new features Apple plans to introduce in iOS 26.4. These include credit card autofill support for third-party apps, folders in whiteboarding app Freeform, and a Sports tier in Apple TV.
The company will supposedly also introduce additional security measures with the update.
After earning more than $629 million at the global box office this summer, the racing flick F1: The Movie finally zoomed from theaters to living rooms, reaching the Apple TV streaming service on Friday.
The film blends blazing-fast cars on the racetrack with clashing personalities off the track. Brad Pitt stars as an aging racer trying to prove he still has what it takes to be a Formula One driver, with the action playing out at 230 mph.
Apple TV has emerged as the streaming platform to beat this awards season, capturing half of the Best Drama series nominations at the 2026 Golden Globe Awards unveiled Monday — a remarkable achievement that signals the tech giant’s arrival as a major force in prestige television.
Three of the six nominations in the coveted Best Drama TV series category belong to Apple — the mind-bending workplace thriller Severance, the darkly humorous espionage drama Slow Horses and the breakout new sci-fi series Pluribus. That puts Apple ahead of streaming rivals Netflix and HBO Max, which each landed only one drama series nomination in the category.