"The Big Conn" is a four-part Apple TV+ documentary series and podcast coming May 6. Photo: Apple TV+
Former eastern Kentucky lawyer Eric C. Conn is notorious for committing the largest-ever Social Security fraud, bilking the U.S. government and taxpayers out of $550 million. Plus, he partied with porn stars and opened a brothel before leading authorities on a major chase.
Apple TV+ covers the whole sordid affair like a blanket, judging by the new trailer for upcoming documentary series and podcast, The Big Conn.
Idris Elba will star in Hijack, a thriller series on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ landed Hijack, a thriller starring Idris Elba set on a plane that’s been hijacked. It will be a seven-episode series covering seven hours of action, so it’ll be told in real time — a technique that should be familiar to fans of 24.
Apple’s streaming service loves thrillers, and already has quite a few of them, with more on the way.
Prehistoric Planet will make the Jurassic Park movies look about as scientifically accurate as a Bug Bunny cartoon. Screenshot: Apple TV+
What might be the most visually stunning and scientifically accurate dinosaur documentary in a generation will soon premiere on Apple TV+. The first full trailer for Prehistoric Planet shows it’ll explore many parts of the world of the dinosaurs, from the Arctic to the oceans.
If you can’t imagine a Tyranosaurus Rex being loving or nurturing, then you really need to watch this.
Sadly, Mythic Quest will have to get along without F. Murray Abraham (left). Photo: Apple TV+
F. Murray Abraham reportedly won’t be in season 3 of Mythic Quest. The Oscar-winning actor was an important part of the ensemble cast for the first two seasons while playing quirky writer C.W. Longbottom.
Why the iconic actor is leaving the series is unknown. One possibility: he’s 82 years old.
Bilingual thriller "Now and Then" premieres on Apple TV+ May 20. Photo: Apple TV+
There are youthful indiscretions, and then there are youthful indiscretions. When a celebration among college besties ends up with someone dead, and everyone figures they can escape blame, well, that’s something that might come back 20 years later to haunt … everyone.
Along those lines, Apple TV+ shared a roughly 2-minute peek Tuesday at its new bilingual thriller Now & Then. The eight-episode series is scheduled to debut on the streaming service May 20.
Hang ten with some of the top surfers in the world. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ released the first trailer Monday for Make or Break, a new seven-part documentary series that delivers behind-the-scenes access to the world’s best surfers. The series follows them as they battle for the world title at the World Surf League (WSL) Championship Tour (CT).
In the trailer, you get to briefly meet a bunch of the world’s best surfers and get a taste of the huge challenges they face.
And dude, you can’t unsee the surfboard with the big shark-bite taken out of it.
Apple TV+ might score a touchdown with NFL Sunday Ticket. Concept: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Apple might be about to put down billions to intercept NFL Sunday Ticket, which would allow it to stream out-of-market games every week of future football seasons.
Cook during a previous commencement address. Photo: George Washington University
Gallaudet University confirmed Saturday that Apple CEO Tim Cook agreed to deliver its commencement address next month. Cook responded to a student’s invitation via Twitter to speak at the school’s 152nd Commencement on May 13.
Gallaudet, located in Washington, D.C., calls itself the only university in the world where Deaf, deaf-blind and hard-of-hearing students live and learn bilingually in American Sign Language and English.
Apple and the university have close ties, with Gallaudet serving as an Apple Campus. Incoming students are equipped with a MacBook Pro or an iPad Pro. And the school praised Apple TV+ Oscar-winning film CODA for its realistic portrayal of a deaf family.
Apple is still hard at work on a HomePod/Apple TV combo with a FaceTime camera. Graphic: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
The next HomePod reportedly won’t be a replacement for the full-size smart speaker. Apple is instead working on a combination Apple TV, HomePod and FaceTime camera.
The device supposedly will be the heart of Apple’s smart home strategy.
Apple is managing to stand out in the streaming market in Q1 2022. Photo: Cult of Mac
More streaming viewers watched the drama CODA on Apple TV+ than any other movie or series during the first three months of 2022, according to a ratings tracker. And the thriller Severance on Apple’s streaming service came in third place overall.
That means Apple TV+ streamed two shows with more viewers than anything on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu or Disney+.
It's a week of surprises on Pachinko. Photo: Apple TV+
This week, Pachinko rewinds to Solomon’s upbringing, the birth of a false hope, and the dying days of a wayward daughter. The Apple TV+ series brings out some big guns to connect the trauma of the past and present. And as usual, the cast, crew and writers are up to the task.
The developments this week are soapy and tug on your heartstrings as everyone does their best to make this material stick in your mind week to week. When you’re building a story out of little moments of heartache, it’s tough to keep them all equal. But this crew has done an amazing job with this material.
Things turn deadly serious this week, but thankfully there's still room for humor in this spy series. Photo: Apple TV+
Slough House’s Slow Horses are on the run in this week’s installment of the Apple TV+ dark comedy about rogue failed spies working at the bottom of the British intelligence circus.
Slough House chief Jackson Lamb makes a Faustian bargain with Standish. River can’t help but check on Sid. Min’s crush on Louisa deepens. Struan gets picked up. Ho is in the wind. And everyone’s afraid of Taverner.
It’s another cracking potboiler of an episode this week as the noose tightens around everyone.
Aren't these toxic lovebirds just adorable? Photo: Apple TV+
WeWork is finally going public in this week’s installment of Apple TV+ series WeCrashed. But is it too late for the company? Is it too late to save Adam and Rebekah’s marriage? And are any of these truly pertinent questions in a show about the waste of millions of dollars, aired during an economic crisis?
The show goes long on the emotional connection and dreams of these characters at a time when interest in them — after six episodes of watching them behave like spoiled children — is at an all-time low.
Nicole Kidman stars in the standout episode of this anthology series. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+’s newest series is Roar, an anthology series based on the short story collection by Cecelia Ahern. Shepherded by Glowshowrunners and playwrights Liz Flahive and Carly Mensch, the show is a collection of vignettes shot and presented in roughly the same style.
Each takes on a different facet of womanhood. And each contains some element of magical realism. The first season, which debuts Friday, seems like a mixed bag, to put it delicately. But the high points of these “feminist fables” prove high indeed.
Makur Maker is the focus of in The Long Game: Bigger Than Basketball on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
A docuseries about an NBA hopeful determined to take control of his journey premieres on Apple TV+ on April 22. The Long Game: Bigger Than Basketball tells the story of how Makur Maker, a five-star NBA prospect, ended up at Howard University.
A new trailer for the upcoming series gives an early look at his inspirational story.
Espionage thriller Tehran returns to Apple TV+ on May 6 with Glenn Close in a prominent role. Photo: Apple TV+
Mossad hacker-agent Tamar remains undercover in Iran in Tehran season two. But this time she has Glenn Close to help. But is she really there to help?
Watch the trailer for the upcoming season for more hints of what’s to come. And the wait won’t be long — new episodes of the spy-vs-spy thriller premier May 6 on Apple TV+.
Joel Kim Booster, Maya Rudolph and Ron Funches in “Loot,” premiering globally June 24, 2022 on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ said Tuesday its new workplace comedy Loot, starring Emmy Award winner Maya Rudolph, premieres Friday, June 24.
The accompanying first-look photo shows Rudolph and costars Joel Kim Booster and Ron Funches standing all in a row in an office. It looks like it could be an awkward moment. And isn’t that the bread and butter of workplace comedies?
Noel Fielding stars in an upcoming untitled Apple TV+ comedy series. Photo: Apple TV+
Noel Fielding probably isn’t the first actor you’d think of to play Dick Turpin, the legendary British highwayman. But that’s what will make his upcoming Apple TV+ series a mix of comedy and action.
Apple TV+ subscribers can now watch It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. It’s easy. Photo: Apple/Cult of Mac
Nothing says springtime is here like a visit from the Easter Beagle. Snoopy and his friends are back in It’s the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, showing now on Apple TV+. Watch now to enjoy this and many other Peanuts holiday specials on Apple’s streaming video service.
CODA, Slow Horses and Severance are popular because they are some of the best streaming shows available. Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
CODA, Severance and Slow Horses all showed up in this week’s top 10 most-watched movies and TV shows. Each is from Apple TV+, and they show the streaming service has become a strong competitor against Netflix, Hulu and Disney+.
Perhaps this will silence any lingering doubts about Apple’s foray into film and TV.
Slough House's reject spies get into some serious business this week. Photo: Apple TV+
Slow Horses enters the thick of its spy games this week in an excellent third episode. Jackson Lamb is in Dutch with M15 chief Diana Taverner just as she screws up an important operation — and implicates him and his whole team at Slough House, the reject pile of the British intelligence service.
As a result, they enter into a sleazy bargain to clean up the mess together. Of course, nothing’s ever as easy as it seems when your business is underhanded espionage. The pace and the tension ratchet up for a marvelous little installment of this new spy show on Apple TV+.
Minha Kim delivers an exceptionally strong performance in this week's episode. Photo: Apple TV+
Pachinko, the new Apple TV+ series based on the book by Min Jin Lee, arrives in Japan and returns to Korea in this week’s episode.
Solomon and Sunja become amateur detectives in search of a lost woman and a missing grave site. Houses become homes, and countries swallow each other up in the search for identity. No one’s exactly happy, but the characters muddle their way toward something like peace with the worlds they’ve left behind.
All along the way, this epic show continues to impress.
Nothing can withstand Jared Leto. Photo: Apple TV+
WeCrashed, the Apple TV+ show about overhyped co-working startup WeWork, starts to bring the walls down around founder Adam Neumann this week. As his wife, Rebekah, demands more and more of the pie for herself, Adam keeps screwing up important meetings and losing his standing among his investors and cheerleaders.
The wheels are about to come off — and the only one who can’t see it is Adam. Now, if only any of this were remotely as compelling as the directors and writers deemed it, it would be a lot more exciting to tune into the fifth episode of a show about how supposedly terrible investment banking is that nevertheless revels in all the resulting excess.
This is the perfect ending to an exquisitely emotional show. Photo: Apple TV+
The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, the Apple TV+ series based on the book by Walter Mosley, winds down with a somber closing chapter. Ptolemy has one last score to settle before his memory leaves him for good and Robyn is once more on her own.
The only thing left for him to do in this breathtaking finale is leave the world a better place than he found it.
Ptolemy Grey has been an odd six hours of TV: part science fiction parable, part brutal historical memoir, part comment on race relations and changing mores, and part beautiful family/relationship drama. It perhaps had a little trouble keeping every single element in even proportions. But for every little misstep or fumble, there are dramatic beats, performance notes, shots, cuts and scenes that are worth twice a regular TV show’s whole season.