Apple TV - page 68

There’s a reason this review only has one image in it: Apple TV+ doesn’t have any more press pictures for this show. Why? Because why should it? This paper-thin passel of hagiographies isn’t worth promoting.

Greatness Code, which debuts July 10, isn’t a show so much as it’s an investment in the big star athletes being interviewed. To say no to the project would have meant scuttling potential relationships with some of the biggest names in sports. But to admit it’s worth your time seems a bridge too far.

Tom Hanks is here to rescue a cargo convoy from the Nazis — and presumably you from your free time. His new movie, Greyhound, is being released straight to Apple TV+ this Friday after COVID-19 scuttled the film’s theatrical release. This means there’s nothing between you and some old-school, flag-waving thrills.

In fact, Greyhound is the very definition of old school. There’s no fuss, no muss: just a man, his crew and some German U-boats hiding out in the gray fog of World War II, ready to pounce on American soldiers.

The latest lightweight Apple TV+ crowdpleaser comes from producer J.J. Abrams, songwriter Sara Bareilles and writer Jessie Nelson. Little Voice, which debuts on Apple’s streaming service on July 10, hits every single beat you expect — and none you don’t.

There’s little chance you won’t experience precisely the emotional journey and reaction you’re anticipating just from looking at the show’s promotional materials.

If you wanna watch a scrappy, model-beautiful singer finally find her voice with help from a supportive and kooky family of zany outsiders, and then live her dream of being a star, then yeah, come on in.

Tom Hanks made a few not-so-flattering comments about the “Apple overlords” in an interview about his new World War II movie Greyhound. The film, which was originally supposed to launch in theaters, was pulled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, it will premiere on Apple TV+ this Friday.

In an interview with The Guardian, Hanks describes the shift to Apple TV+ as “an absolute heartbreak.” He also spills the beans on one of Apple’s slightly unusual requests for his press interviews.

So far, the Apple TV+ shows affiliated with Oprah Winfrey (or approved by her) represent some of the streaming service’s safest offerings. And her spirit, to say nothing of her face, is all over the inspiring series Dear…

Each episode focuses on a single celebrity and the moving fan letters they receive highlighting the star’s impact on regular people. A such, it takes the form of part-biography, part-tribute to its famous subjects.

Dear… certainly does not stand out as one of the most hard-hitting journalistic exercises you’ll see. But as puff pieces go, the episodes prove both persuasive and reasonably inspiring. The show plays like a MasterClass with lessons about community building and standing up for yourself.

Apple TV+ reportedly made big inroads while users were stuck home during the coronavirus lockdown, a recent study by Parks Associates claims.

The research firm notes that more than two in five U.S. households with broadband have trialed a streaming video service during lockdown. A surprisingly large 8% of households have trialed four or more. Among new subscribers to TV streaming services, Apple TV+ was sampled by 27% of households, the report states.

The real-life story of Peter, whose saga of escaping slavery made headlines around the world in 1863, is being made into Emancipation, a film starring Will Smith and directed by Antoine Fuqua. Apple TV+ reportedly bought the worldwide rights for more than $120 million.

Deadline, which broke the news, called it the “largest film festival acquisition deal in film history.”

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 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.

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.

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.

That might sound nerdy and dry, but the first promo spot crackles with energy. It feels almost like a mashup of Election, Dazed and Confused and Napoleon Dynamite (with a little bit of Little America and, hopefully, Meatballs, thrown in to spice things up).

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.

Watch it now:

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

Watch it now:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.