Apple TV+ saw strong growth in spring 2022, according to a company that tracks viewership. It grew to 6% of the U.S. streaming market.
During the same quarter, Netflix stayed on top but dropped by two percentage points. It’s now just ahead of Amazon Prime Video.
From Irish folklore to ’60s New York, from culture clashes to meteors, here is a list of the very best films on Apple TV+ so far.
You can divine the company’s best impulses by seeing the best films it acquired, from arcane, auteurist curiosities and thoughtful genre pieces to documentaries that attempt to break free from the usual niches.
★★☆☆☆
1980s aerobics nightmare Physical goes in circles this week as Bunny and Tyler engage in surveillance for subterfuge, John and Sheila seek outside help, and Danny gets a hard dose of reality from Wanda.
In the episode, entitled “Don’t You Want to Watch,” the Apple TV+ series falls back into a familiar rut of Sheila facing problems and somehow solving them, with too little suspense and zero empathy generated for its ghoulish cast of characters.
Physical needs a Hail Mary in the worst way.
★★☆☆☆
Apple TV+’s lunar headache For All Mankind is headed to Mars for real this time. Three competing spaceships strive to make it to the red planet first to win a huge cash prize.
NASA holds some tricks up its sleeve to beat the wilier competition, but you can’t count out the Russians just yet. They’re always willing to do something stupid to make headlines. A mostly fine episode ends on a nice little cliffhanger to boot.
★★★☆☆
New Apple TV+ comedy Loot goes into damage-control mode this week, as a theme park that Molly owns undergoes a public disaster and the billionaire must take stock of her post-divorce holdings.
Sofia goes to an important meeting, Nicholas goes to an important audition, and Arthur goes to a suddenly important soccer game. The show settles into a comfortable groove as it gives everyone an archetype to play with around dependable star Maya Rudolph.
Apple is bundling a $50 gift card if you purchase an Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD in the United States. The offer is exclusively available through its online store.
Before making this promotion live, Apple took down its online store for a few hours earlier in the day.
An Apple TV can now be used to watch all of Comcast’s live, on demand and DVR programming. The cable behemoth’s subscribers just need to install the newly-released Xfinity Stream app on Apple’s streaming box.
Thursday’s release makes it simple for Apple TV users to add Xfinity access to additional rooms. No traditional cable box necessary.
Apple TV+ offered its first trailer Thursday for a new family comedy called Best Foot Forward, in which a home-schooled kid with a prosthetic leg hits public middle school for the first time, determined to fit in.
Based on a true story, Best Foot Forward premieres July 22 on Apple TV+.
See is coming to an end. The epic, post-apocalyptic adventure series starring Jason Momoa will wrap up with season 3, which premieres on Apple TV+ in late August.
A just-released teaser trailer for the upcoming season reveals a new threat for Baba Voss and his family.
Apple TV+ content enjoys the highest average IMDb score of any streaming service, according to a new study. It comes in tops in a variety of areas, including dramas and child-friendly shows.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise: Apple’s streaming video service regularly wins awards, including a Best Picture Oscar in 2022.
Rejoice, parents. A wholesome new animated series is on the way, and you can feel OK about parking your preschoolers in front of it. Or at least it looks that way from the new Apple TV+ trailer for Duck & Goose, out Tuesday.
The new show for preschool-age kids premieres Friday, July 8.
Apple TV+ subscribers seem much more satisfied with the streaming service than they were a year ago, according to a survey of viewers. The home of Ted Lasso and Severance even made gains on Netflix – streaming’s 800-pound gorilla – in a couple of categories, including value.
And more people than ever would make Apple TV+ their one and only streaming service.
Apple TV+ struck a first-look deal with Maya Rudolph’s production company after last week’s premiere of her comedy series Loot.
That means Rudolph’s company, Animal Pictures, will show what it’s working on to Apple first, before shopping it around to other buyers.
The first trailer for the psychological thriller Surface lets viewers dip their toes into the central mystery of the upcoming series: What if you woke up one day and didn’t know your own secrets?
The show premiers on Apple TV+ in late July, and stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw, best known for appearing in Apple’s critically acclaimed The Morning Show.
Apple is working on a new HomePod that could launch next year with a new S8 chip. The smart speaker reportedly will be similar in size to the original HomePod rather than the HomePod mini.
Apple is also working on a powerful new Apple TV with an A14 chip and more RAM.
★★★★☆
Apple TV+ murder mystery Now and Then draws to a simmering close this week.
Pedro has lost his campaign, but there’s always more to lose. Ana is ready to turn on him. Sofia’s troubles catch up with her. Marcos suspects his father. Flora suspects her best friend. Hugo suspects Sofia. And there’s only an hour to wrap things up.
It’s been a marvelous bit of sensationalism from start to finish. If we get a second season of this bilingual thriller, it will be a welcome development.
★★★☆☆
Apple TV+ alt-history hit For All Mankind makes all the right moves this week, then immediately blows a 26-point lead in the last inning.
For once, the dramatic arcs thrown at Margo, Karen, Dev, Aleida and Kelly all seem pretty satisfying and not at all cheap or hyperbolic. Then the writers ensure we won’t see how any of that plays out, instantly turning this from one of the show’s best episodes into its most frustrating yet.
But hey, at least we’re going to Mars, I guess.
★★☆☆☆
This week on Apple TV+ aerobics opera Physical, its star self-help guru buys a whiteboard and the show itself backslides. After a promising showing last week, Physical reverts to its worst tendencies.
Danny is still unbearably pretentious and selfish. Sheila is still a misanthropic jerk to absolutely everybody. John is becoming more desperate by the minute. And Greta indulges in a threesome. None of this constitutes real news or development on this show. But since Physical doesn’t really know what it wants to say, this is just how it goes most weeks.
★★★☆☆
In new Apple TV+ comedy Loot, Maya Rudolph plays a billionaire playgirl who must grow up and discover a conscience when she realizes that her public behavior casts her charitable foundation in a bad light.
Surrounded by misfits, she must tailor her wild lifestyle to more humble settings. Otherwise, she risks turning the one good thing in her life into a joke.
An episode of For All Mankind features some retro Apple tech that real people in the 1990s could only dream of: an Apple Newton with a color screen. And one that can make video calls!
A producer for the show explained the clever trick.
Watchful eyes have spotted code in the first two iOS 16 beta versions that appears to refer to an unreleased Siri Remote for Apple TV.
Information is scant, but chances are this is the new remote for a 4K Apple TV system with a updated price structure that could come out this year.
Apple TV+ took the wraps off a new trailer Thursday for the third season of the British comedy series Trying.
The new season, which shows signs of drama amidst the laughs, premieres July 22.
The new Apple TV+ trailer for the drama series Five Days at Memorial is just a one-minute preview. But it’s a powerful 60 seconds.
It depicts the desperate struggle in a New Orleans hospital in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one of the deadliest storms to ever hit the United States.
For All Mankind is one of the most popular shows available on streaming, according to a ratings tracker. Season three of the alternate-history sci-fi series premiered on Apple TV+ in early June, and it’s been a Top 10 show both weeks since then.
Critics praise the series, too, so it’s doubly a success for Apple’s streaming service.
Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo will take the leads as police detectives in Criminal Record, a thriller series coming to Apple TV+.
It will be set in racially charged and politically polarized modern London.