You don't even need the newest Apple TV (but you do need an iPhone with Face ID). Image: Apple
Apple just added a brand-new feature to Apple TV that works with your iPhone to color calibrate your TV. It’s really simple to use and the results can be terrific. What’s more, you don’t need the newest Apple TV.
The new Color Balance tool is available on Apple TV models released in 2015 or later. Here’s how to use it.
In the season 2 finale, the fate of the moon rests on Gordo's unlikely shoulders. Photo: Apple TV+
The Russians have taken over the moon! The second season of Apple TV+ space soap For All Mankind ends with bloody faces, broken marriages, uncertain futures, and a whole boatload of moon crime.
If you’re wondering if any of it’s handled well, read on. But you know the score by now, don’t you?
From App Store to Apple Music, every Apple platform is going all-in on Earth Day. Photo: Apple
Today is Earth Day and, to celebrate the occasion, Apple’s introduced a plethora of “Earth Day programming” across its various platforms, including the App Store, Apple TV+, and Apple Watch. For today, at least, no matter where you go for your Earth Day reminders, Apple’s got you covered.
Penguins too fill us in on The Year Earth Changed Photo: Apple TV+
Ninety-four-year-old David Attenborough is a beloved institution — and he may have helped Apple rack up one of its biggest viewership wins for Apple TV+ thus far.
According to Deadline, the Attenborough-narrated The Year Earth Changed documentary special is the most-viewed documentary currently on Apple TV+ in the United States. That’s ahead of high profile titles like Beastie Boys Story, Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, and Bruce Springsteen’s Letter to You.
We finally got our first legit look at an AirTag, but that was just the beginning! Photo: Apple
Wow, that was the speediest, most jam-packed Apple event in recent memory.
It was so quick-moving, we all got whiplash. There was barely time to catch your breath between announcements: Here’s a new purple iPhone. Fuggedaboutit, here’s a new Apple TV, and new AirTags. Oh, and hers’s new iMacs — and iPads!!
In an hour, Tim Cook and Co. managed to introduce a raft of products with dozens of new features and technologies while dazzling us with some pretty jaw-dropping promo videos.
Once again, the prerecorded format worked well. The promo videos in Tuesday’s “Spring Loaded” event looked super. They hit us with a great mix of head-spinning effects and angles, humor and product placement.
Here are some thoughts and initial reactions to some of the major announcements:
Man, that was one powerful presentation. Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
It’s 4/20 and Apple’s big iMac and iPad Pro launch event was a total trip. The new Mac desktop comes in a rainbow of colors, and the M1 processor in the latest tablet will blow you away. And there’s AirTag too, at long last.
Grab some snacks and get ready to find out what the new products mean for Apple users and for the company’s future.
This show might be tense in another time line. Photo: Apple TV+
This week on For All Mankind, Russians are blockading the moon and Ed Baldwin’s going up to set ’em straight. Can old-fashioned American ingenuity prevent the reignition of the Cold War?
Be honest, are you even watching Apple TV+’s alt-history space race show?
The astonishing docuseries about Earth's tiniest inhabitants is back and as cute as ever. Photo: Apple TV+
Two of Apple TV’s big nature shows just returned back for their second seasons mere months after they debuted. Tiny World is the cuter of the two. Its micro look at a macro world remains charming, cute and sometimes despairing and gross, but never so much you couldn’t show it to kids.
Season 2 of Apple's nighttime nature doc delivers amazing new delights. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ docuseries Earth at Night in Color delivers a fresh batch of majestic nighttime sights, cruel natural phenomena and fascinating perspectives in its second season, which premieres today. The show didn’t quite reinvent the nature documentary wheel, but it still offers a welcome retreat from the horrors of 2021.
David Attenborough and penguins teach us about the unexpected positive side effects of the pandemic. Photo: Apple TV+
A nature special and a cautionary tale, The Year Earth Changed delivers a whole mess of qualified good news that you’re going to wish didn’t come with so many strings attached to it. An engaging, largely drone-shot 45 minutes of TV, the new Apple TV+ documentary about the environmental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic won’t change your life. But it will make you feel slightly better about having just spent the last year indoors.
How did lockdown change the world for wildlife? David Attenborough will answer all. Photo: Apple
It’s a busy day for Apple TV+ — with plenty of new material to watch on the Apple streaming video service. In addition to a new episode of For All Mankind, there is a plethora of new nature documentaries, narrated by some big names, and more.
Here’s what Friday, April 16 has in store for subscribers.
Two scientists study humpback whale communication in Fathom, exclusively on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ landed the rights to Fathom, a documentary about the quest to unravel the mystery of why humpback whales sing. And maybe even how we can communicate with them.
It’ll premiere on Apple’s streaming service this summer.
Skydance Animation produced Blush about a stranded astronaut meeting an ethereal visitor. Coming soon to Apple TV+. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple and Skydance Animation teamed up to create Blush, a short film about a stranded astronaut. It’s written and directed by Joe Mateo, whose credits include Big Hero 6 and Prep & Landing.
The upcoming film is the first in a multiyear partnership to create animated movies and shows for Apple TV+.
Apple TV+ will release Louis Armstrong’s Black & Blues, giving an in-depth look at the musician’s life and legacy. Photo: Apple
Apple’s streaming service green lit Black & Blues: The Colorful Ballad of Louis Armstrong. The documentary film promises a “definitive” look at the musician’s life and legacy built on the filmmakers’ access to never-before-seen materials.
It’ll be the latest production of Ron Howard’s Imagine Documentaries, along with Apple Original Films.
The next Apple product-release event will happen April 20. Invites went out Tuesday morning for the virtual “Spring Loaded” event, just hours after Siri leaked the date.
Naturally, Apple didn’t announce what’s on the agenda. But rumors point to multiple new iPads, as well as the possibility of next-gen AirPods, a faster Apple TV and the long-awaited debut of AirTags item trackers.
Knives, it turns out, are no substitute for an Apple Pencil. Photo: Ed Hardy/Cult of Mac
Lisey’s Story, an Apple TV+ series based on a 2006 Stephen King novel, will debut on Apple TV+ on June 4. It’s about the widow of a famous author who discovered a passageway to a parallel dimension that inspired his work.
Unlike many screen adaptations of King’s work, the horror master himself wrote the scripts for Lisey’s Story. The eight-part series stars Julianne Moore and Clive Owen. J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions produced the show.
Apple TV+ has some impressive quality control. Photo: Apple
Apple TV+ may be only a bit-player in the streaming wars, but on a pound-for-pound quality basis, it could actually be outperforming its competitors.
That’s according to a new study by Self Financial, which compared TV and movie data from Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu and Apple TV+ to find out which offered the best quality viewing experience.
Mythic Quest session two starts in May, and things are going well. Too well. Screenshot: Apple TV+
Mythic Quest season two is right around the corner, and Apple TV+ whet everyone’s appetite Monday with a fresh trailer. In the upcoming episodes, the game developers face the pressure of building a critical expansion pack, and some people are handling the stress far, far too easily.
Apple TV+ is looking to ramp up its investment in original movies, and has hired a former WarnerMedia executive to help it, according to The Information.
The report cites “two people familiar with the situation” as saying that Apple wants to “beef up its original film production” to better compete in the streaming stakes.
Apple's got an intriguing concept for a next-gen smart home device. Photo: Apple
Apple is working on a new smart home product that would combine Apple TV, a HomePod speaker and a camera for FaceTime or Zoom-style video conferencing, Bloomberg reported Monday.
The company “has been a laggard in the smart-home space, but [this] versatile new device in early development could change that,” according to the story, which describes the in-development product as “Apple’s most ambitious smart-home hardware offering to date.”
Things are not going well, either on Earth or in space. Photo: Apple TV+
In this week’s episode, Apple TV+’s alternate-history space show For All Mankind finally gets to the big, violent “what if?” it’s been building to all season. Is it too late to make any of the fireworks they’ve seen saving go off in spectacular enough fashion to save a dreary second season?
Season two is nearing its completion. Photo: Apple TV+
It’s a relatively quiet Friday for Apple TV+, with just one single episode of a new show on Apple’s streaming television service. Fortunately, that show is the entertaining space-age alternative history For All Mankind, now approaching the end of its second season.
Episode 8 of 10 is titled “And Here’s to You.” The preview reads: “Gordo returns to space. Molly faces an unsettling new reality. Aleida confronts her first major hurdle at work.” If you’ve not yet tuned in, this may be your chance, with just a couple of weeks to go until the finale.
“Everlight” is a bonus pre-season Mythic Quest episode premiering in April. It takes a funny look at returning to work after the pandemic. Photo: Apple TV+
Fans of Mythic Quest won’t have to wait until May for season two of the comedy series to return to Apple TV+. A special pre-season episode will debut Friday, April 16.
It will explore the challenges the quirky characters experience returning to their office after the COVID-19 pandemic. Anthony Hopkins will have a voice role.
Despite being an Apple TV+ production, a surprising amount of Wolfwalkers was hand drawn or painted. Image: Apple
A new behind-the-scenes video on the making of Wolfwalkers shows that much of the animated movie was sketched and painted the traditional way. Kind of surprising — one might think an Apple TV+ film would be an intensely computer-driven production.