Ahead of Earth Day on April 22, Apple TV+ debuted Friday a new animated short movie titled Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth. Featuring an impressive cast of voice talents including the much celebrated Meryl Streep, Chris O’Dowd, Preacher‘s Ruth Negga, and Room‘s Jacob Tremblay, the half-hour animated short is available to watch for subscribers right now.
Apple TV+ also debuted a new show about spectacular houses around the world.
More people are watching Apple TV+ now that they are staying home to avoid the coronavirus, according to a market-analysis firm. Plus, this streaming service has a couple of strong shows that have increased viewership.
Oprah Winfrey is set to host a conversation about how COVID-19 has impacted black America during an Apple TV+ special that will be available for free.
The special, “Oprah Talks COVID-19 – The Deathly Impact on Black America”, will air Tuesday, April 14, at 11 p.m. and stream on AppleTV+ and OWN.
Check out the teaser:
Comcast is jumping into the streaming wars this week with an early preview of Peacock that gives customers access to over 15,000 hours of movies and TV shows from NBCUniversal. Peacock isn’t set to launch to the public until July, but if you’re an Xfinity X1 or Flex customer, you can get a taste of service starting on Wednesday, April 15, 2020.
The alternative rock band The Mowgli’s joined the muppets of Apple’s TV’s Helpsters to explain how to correctly use “if” and “then” in a sentence. And not through a boring lecture, but through a song.
Watch a video of them rocking some grammar rules now:
HBO reversed its plans Friday to drop support for second- and third-generation Apple TV units saying it would extend its policy until May 15.
In a comment to Cult of Mac, the company said it would continue support for the older devices “a few additional months.”
Apple TV+ could become the home of Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese’s next major film.
Scorsese’s project, Killers of the Flower Moon, is reportedly looking to find a new partner to produce or distribute the film after Paramount Pictures balked at the estimated $200 million budget.
Apple followed various other streaming services Thursday, making a handful of its original Apple TV+ shows and movies available for free to anyone with an Apple ID.
Dickinson, Little America, Servant, For All Mankind, Snoopy in Space, Helpsters, Ghostwriter and The Elephant Queen are available now in the United States. In many other countries, the free Apple TV+ streaming begins April 11. It remains unknown how long the shows will be available at no charge.
Apple has yet to announce official numbers for Apple TV+ subscribers, but Wedbush analyst Dan Ives think he has some answers. According to Ives, Apple’s streaming video service currently has between 30 million and 40 million subscribers.
However, he says the “vast majority” of these Apple TV+ subs are unlikely to be paying $4.99 per month. Instead, they’re taking advantage of the year’s free subscription thrown in because they bought a new iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV. The analyst says he’s confident that things could pick up, though.
Disney+ is catching up quickly to Netflix’s total number of paid subscribers thanks to the services’ recent launch in Europe and India.
The Walt Disney Company revealed today that it has almost hit its paid subscriber goal nearly four years early as it just passed the 50 million subscriber mark this week. The news comes just five months after Disney+ launched in the US.
True-ish crime show Home Before Dark, about an intrepid cub reporter who’s always late to class, is the latest Apple TV+ streaming option available to quarantined Americans. Is it any good?
Here’s a quick guide to the pleasures of the show.
HBO on Wednesday confirmed its HBO Go and HBO Now services will drop support for second- and third-generation Apple TV units this month. Users will no longer be able to stream starting April 30.
The change is being made “in order to provide the best streaming experience,” the company said. There are other ways to enjoy these services on older Apple TV boxes, however.
A growing number of third-generation Apple TV owners are experiencing errors when attempting to watch YouTube content.
It seems the problems occur when watching certain videos, while others play just fine. One user who contacted Apple was told that the problem is on Google’s end — not with Apple TV.
Netflix finally made it possible to keep your personal profile private from other people using your account with a new update today that lets users create individual pins.
The new feature is part of a larger update that improves on parental controls, allowing content to be filtered based on age and other criteria. If you have kids and don’t want them to have access to your profile and the content on it, or you just got a roommate who always messes up your “Continue Watching” queue, you’ll find the new pin feature to be extra useful.
CBS has found a novel way to continue filming its TV show All Rise during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The courthouse legal drama will film a virtual episode using FaceTime, WebEx and Zoom from the actors’ homes making it the first primetime show to be filmed while still practicing social distancing.
Take your mind off the coronavirus pandemic with our latest installment of Apple trivia. This time we focus on Cupertino’s kick-ass wearable. Yes, it’s 10 things you probably didn’t know about Apple Watch. For more diversions, read our latest reviews of Apple TV+ shows: The Amazing Stories season finale and promising new mystery Home Before Dark.
If you must dwell on COVID-19, how about a timely how-to? Learn how to make your own DIY mask (thanks to clever instructions from a legendary Apple coder). Get the low-down on that project as well as more Apple news, how-tos and reviews in this week’s free issue of Cult of Mac Magazine.
Download it from the iOS App Store now. Or get the week’s top stories below.
Amazing Stories’ season finale “The Rift” serves as a case study into the rebooted show’s highs and lows. With its five-episode run complete, the ways in which the Apple TV+ anthology series succeeded — and the ways it failed to cohere — become more obvious than ever.
“The Rift” was directed by Mark Mylod and written by Don Handfield and Richard Rayner (co-creators of History Channel’s Knightfall). However, the episode takes more cues from executive producer Steven Spielberg than nearly any of the preceding entries, to both its detriment and its occasional benefit. The real MVP of the piece, however, is the perpetually underrated Kerry Bishé.
Based on the real-life exploits of preteen reporter Hilde Kate Lysiak, who was a published journalist before she had all her teeth, Apple TV+’s new series Home Before Dark is an exciting and endearing new offering.
The streaming service released all 10 episodes of the show’s first season Friday. The first three brisk episodes build a strong case for the show’s quick renewal. And they also reveal Home Before Dark’s tiny hero, Brooklynn Prince, as a certified star.
Apple TV+ has debuted all 10 episodes of Home Before Dark, its new drama inspired by the real-life reporting of 9-year-old journalist Hilde Lysiak.
The mystery series stars child actress Brooklynn Prince, best known for The Florida Project, alongside Jim Sturgess (Cloud Atlas) and Abby Miller (Justified).
The second season of Helpsters debuts on Apple TV+ on Friday, April 3. A music video starring Ne-Yo with helpful muppets gives a sneak peek of what’s coming to this educational children’s show.
Watch it now:
Apple’s websites for the U.K. and France were on Thursday updated to display COVID-19 advice from the government.
Large featured sections on their homepages remind visitors of the official advice related to the coronavirus pandemic. In the U.K., this includes the same National Health Service (NHS) video that can be found in the App Store.
Amazon is making some huge changes to how it handles rentals and movie purchases for its Prime Video app on Apple devices.
Starting today, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV users can rent or buy movies and TV shows on Amazon Prime Video without being directed to a website first to avoid Apple’s tax on in-app purchases.
Apple is gearing up to celebrate Earth Day 2020 later this month with an all-new animated film and the greatest actress of her generation, Meryl Streep, has lent her voice to the project as the narrator.
The first trailer for Apple’s Earth Day show, Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth, landed on YouTube this morning and it looks like it will be something kids and adults fall in love with. The only thing more soothing in the trailer than Meryl’s voice is the cozy animation style that strikes a balance between being super detailed and approachable at the same time.
Check it out:
A photographer claims the production company behind the Apple TV+ series Amazing Stories committed “flagrant copyright infringement” by re-creating an image of his for the show’s intro.
Adrian Murray, of Louisville, Kentucky, alleges an image of two boys opening a glowing chest at about the 45-second mark of the intro is derivative of a work he created with his two sons in 2018.
Anyone considering adopting children may want to rethink about going through the entire process after watching the first official trailer for the new Apple TV+ series, Trying.
Created in partnership with BBC Studios, Trying follows a British couple who want to have a child together more than anything. After finding out that they’re physically incapable of conceiving a child, the two decide to adopt, setting them on a wild ride of challenges as they try to convince an adoption panel that they would make great parents.
Watch the hilarious first trailer here: