Bozoma Saint John on stage at an Apple event in 2016. Photo: Apple
Bozoma Saint John, the former head of global consumer marketing for Apple Music, is joining Netflix as its new Chief Marketing Officer, Deadline reports.
Saint John joined Apple with the Beats acquisition in 2014. She left Apple in 2017 to join Uber as its Chief Brand Officer, before jumping to Endeavor to become its CMO.
The man who brought “Defending Jacob” to Apple TV+ will develop more shows for the new streaming service. Photo: Apple
The writer, director and showrunner of Defending Jacob reportedly agreed to a long-term deal to make additional shows for Apple TV+. Their first collaboration went so well that Mark Bomback signed a exclusive agreement with Apple.
You can get up to $20 free. Photo: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
Apple is running another awesome promotion that offers shoppers free money when they top up their Apple ID. Simply add funds to your account before July 10 and you’ll get 10% extra. Here’s how.
Who says politics needs to be nasty? Image: Apple TV+
It might seem totally impossible in 2020, but upcoming Apple TV+ documentary Boys State makes politics look fun. The first trailer, which Apple released Tuesday, introduces some of the real-life young men who engage in an annual Texas tradition that’s basically summer camp for citizens.
Greatness Code asks six sports legends to describe their career-defining moments. Photo: Apple
Greatness Code on Apple TV+ offers interviews with sport legends from Lebron James to Alex Morgan to Usain Bolt. It debuts next week, and the trailer released Monday gives a sneak peek.
Losing Alice, coming to Apple TV+ later in 2020, takes the viewer through Alice‘s conscious and subconscious. Photo: Apple
To ensure Apple TV+ has new shows for later this year, Apple revealed on Friday that bought the international rights to Losing Alice, an eight-episode series the company calls “a neo-noir psychological thriller.”
Apple has already ordered a second season of Central Park. Kristen Bell likely won't be in it, though. Image: Apple TV+
Kristen Bell is dropping out of Apple TV+ animated musical comedy series Central Park, the popular Good Place star announced on social media Wednesday. Bell starred as Molly Tillerman in all 13 episodes of the first season of Central Park. The show debuted last month on Apple TV+.
Bell, whose character on the show is mixed race, said that she is stepping back so as to allow the character to be played by an actor whose race matches that of the character.
Phil Lord and Chris Miller, shown here at San Diego Comic-Con, created a a genre-mixing murder comedy for Apple TV+. Photo: Gage Skidmore/Wikipedia CC
A couple of TV industry virtuosos are reportedly prepping an unusual comedy for Apple TV+. Phil Lord and Chris Miller will create The Afterparty for this streaming service. It about a murder seen from a variety of viewpoints, each in a different film genre.
Sharper than ever. Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac
YouTube videos available in super-sharp 4K can finally be enjoyed on Apple devices this fall. Not only will 4K content be available on Apple TV, but also on iPhone and iPad, according to the first iOS 14 beta.
Foundation on Apple TV+ will be a mix of Star Wars and Game of Thrones. Photo: Apple/Skydance Television
Apple is turning Isaac Asimov’s sci-fi classic Foundation into a series. And today it released a “teaser” trailer full of stunning visuals to give the world its first glimpse of this epic.
CEO Tim Cook and other Apple executives handled the tough job of a WWDC 2020 keynote without an in-person audience. Screenshot: Apple
Apple rose to the challenge of holding a keynote for its annual Worldwide Developers Conference in an empty auditorium Monday. A range of executives took the wraps off operating system upgrades for Mac, iPhone, iPad … the whole swath of Cupertino’s devices.
The presentation went surprisingly well, considering that the COVID-19 pandemic prevented the presence of the usual odd mix of highly enthusiastic Apple employees and professionally skeptical journalists.
TvOS 14 brings some impressive new features to Apple TV. Photo: Apple
Apple showed off improvements coming to Apple TV during the WWDC keynote Monday, as execs detailed changes coming in tvOS 14.
The biggest tweak in the next-gen Apple TV operating system is platform-wide picture-in-picture. This means that users can continue playing Apple TV games or using fitness apps while also screening a movie, watching live sports or keeping tabs on the news.
Glen Henry and his daughter, one of many subjects in the enthusiastically weightless Dads. Photo: Apple TV+
Apple TV+ secured another handsomely produced, blandly pleasant, absolute mediocrity when it purchased Bryce Dallas Howard’s feature documentary debut, Dads. What’s Dads about, you ask? Why dads, of course. Next question.
Up until now, Apple TV+ hasn’t been the most cautious content provider. Apple execs lavished money on a lot of utter nonsense with enormous price tags because they seemed to aesthetically fit in with the rest of the company’s design scheme. Home, Central Park, See — none of them are good television, but they’d look good testing TVs on a showroom floor, which seems to be the prevailing ethos for a lot of the Apple TV+ purchases.
Dads, released Friday just in time to remind you to forget Father’s Day, is much the same and quite a bit less.
Anthony Mackie, left, and Samuel L. Jackson star in The Banker. Photo: Apple TV+
To mark Juneteenth, a holiday to celebrate the official end of slavery in the U.S., Apple has made its original Apple TV+ movie The Banker available to watch for free.
The movie, which is based on a true story, stars Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson as Bernard Garrett and Joe Morris, two of the first black bankers in the United States. At a time when discriminatory Jim Crow-era laws were in effect in the U.S., the pair hired a white man (played by Nicholas Hoult) to portray the face of their business, while the pair posed as a chauffeur and janitor.
Next week's virtual WWDC looks like a doozy. Image: The CultCast
This week on The CultCast: We discuss our WWDC 2020 hardware and software predictions, and there’s a lot to say. Plus: A new leak details a next-generation iPhone with dual displays; the new 5600M MacBook Pro GPU is an absolute monster; and Apple’s back-to-school promo is back for the summer, but with an interesting twist.
Our thanks to Squarespace for supporting this episode. Easily create a beautiful website all by yourself, at Squarespace.com/cultcast. Use offer code CultCast at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
Days before WWDC kicks off, Apple had shuttered its Apple Events app on tvOS, instead folding it into the Apple TV app, streamlining the process of finding and watching Monday’s keynote event.
The wording on the app confirms that, “Apple Events is now part of the Apple TV app.” Using the app, you can watch both current and past Apple special events.
Wolfwalkers will offer amazing animation to Apple TV+ subscribers. Photo: Cartoon Saloon
The studio that created Oscar-nominated The Secret of Kells will bring its latest animated feature to Apple TV+ before the end of 2020. Wolfwalkers is set in medieval Ireland, and tells the story of two girls who transform into wolves.
Tehran is a spy thriller starring Israeli actress Niv Sultan. Photo: Apple
Apple has reportedly picked up international broadcasting rights for Tehran, a spy drama about a young Israeli agent trying to destroy an Iranian nuclear reactor.
The eight-episode Israeli series, created and written by Moshe Zonder (Netflix’s Fauda), could be coming to Apple TV+ very soon.
Apple TV+ isn't the place to go if you're all about quantity. Photo: Apple
When it comes to how much content you get for your dollar, Amazon Prime Video is the best value VOD (video-on-demand) service and Apple TV+ is the worst, claims movie and TV search engine Reelgood.
At a time when new streaming services are launching all the time, the company ran the numbers to compare the likes of Netflix, HBO Max, Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, and Apple TV+. Unsurprisingly, Apple TV+ doesn’t fare too well.
Apple on Friday dropped its first trailer for Dads, a new documentary headed to Apple TV+ ahead of Father’s Day.
Described as a “joyful exploration of contemporary fatherhood,” the film features the likes of Will Smith, Judd Apatow, and Conan O’Brien. It promises rare home-movie footage, hilarious anecdotes, and more.
Instead of theaters, Tom Hanks’ WWII movie Greyhound will debut on Apple TV+. Photo: Apple
Greyhound, written by and starring Tom Hanks, was originally headed for theatres. But the World War II film set in the Atlantic changed course to be an Apple TV+ exclusive.
Apple announced Thursday that the drama, with Hanks portraying a navy captain struggling to get a convoy through submarine-infested waters, will debut Friday, July 10.
Death kindly stops to visit Emily Dickinson in an award-winning Apple TV+ drama/comedy. Photo: Apple
The Peabody Awards declared on Wednesday that Dickinson on Apple TV+ is one of “the most compelling and empowering stories released in broadcasting and digital media during 2019.”
Apple hopes the service will boost sales. Photo: Apple
Apple Card users could soon be offered interest-free payment plans for iPad, Mac, AirPods, and more, one report claims.
Sources say Apple is planning to roll out the new service, which will make many of its pricey products more accessible, in the coming weeks. Users will be able to spread the cost of their purchase over as many as 12 months.
Starring Oprah Winfrey, Spike Lee, Lin-Manuel Miranda, and, err, Big Bird. Photo: Apple
Dear…, a 10-episode docuseries profiling the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Steinem, Spike Lee, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Big Bird (!), and others, has debuted on Apple TV+. The show focuses on telling the story of “game-changing icons” and how they have inspired individuals around the world.
All 10 episodes are available to watch today, rather than the one-episode-per-week rollout Apple employs for its top drama series. The executive producer of Dear… is Emmy and Peabody Award-winner R.J. Cutler of The September Issue documentary fame.
There aren’t a huge number of Apple TV+ subscribers now, but that’s going to change. Photo: Apple
Apple‘s streaming video service hasn’t taken the world by storm. But an analyst predicts strong growth in coming years will push Apple TV+ to over 100 million paid subscribers by 2025.
Samik Chatterjee from J.P. Morgan points out the service’s catalogue keeps getting bigger, with Apple willing to invest plenty of money to continue that trend.