YouTube viewers are set to see a big drop in video quality worldwide in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Alphabet-owned streaming giant revealed that it will reduce the quality of all videos to standard definition starting today as a way to alleviate internet congestions due to more people having to shelter in place.
Disney+, the streaming service from the Walt Disney Company, launched in the early hours of Tuesday morning across the United Kingdom and six European countries, but at reduced bandwidth and video quality after a government request to ease the strain on broadband networks.
Cult of Mac confirmed that the Disney+ app and service are available on the Apple TV App Store in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria and Switzerland.
In tvOS 14, Apple reportedly plans to give parents new controls over what their children watch on Apple TV devices. The tvOS update also will give parents the ability to control the amount of time their kids spend watching Apple TV content, according to a report published Monday.
Israeli website The Verifier also renewed speculation that Cupertino will announce a new 128GB Apple TV streaming device later this year. And it could come with a new Apple TV remote design.
Apple TV+ has launched a surprise interview series with former talk show Oprah Winfrey talking about the global coronavirus pandemic. In its first episode, Winfrey spoke to actor Idris Eba, one of several celebrities to test positive for COVID-19.
The series – entitled “Oprah Talks COVID-19“- debuted Saturday, with little production value for a quick-to-air show. Winfrey’s first installment features FaceTime interviews with Elba and his wife, Sabrina Dhowre.
Netflix is stepping up to help people affected by the COVID-19 pandemic by creating a $100 million fund that will go to support production and other workers in the industry.
The moves comes after production on nearly all major TV shows and movies has come to a grinding halt as more states and cities in act stay-at-home mandates.
Mired in scandal and plagued by delays, the debut fiction film purchased by Apple TV+ is finally here to stream, just in time for everyone in America to be trapped with little else but their TVs.
The Banker, starring Anthony Mackie and Samuel L. Jackson, likely won’t top many best-of lists this year. It’s too slight, though neither does it embarrass itself in the telling of a compelling true story about overcoming discrimination in a racist world.
Following a request to streaming services to switch from high definition to standard in an effort to reduce the strain on the internet, indications were Friday that Apple has followed suit of other major services and slowed down its Apple TV+ streaming service.
Cult of Mac has confirmed through two Apple TV users – one in Great Britain and one in southern France – that the quality of content on Apple TV+ has been lowered. Subscribers described the differences as primarily fast-moving content that is slower to refresh, heavily compressed and more pixelated.
The Apple TV+ reboot of Amazing Stories started with a warning most viewers likely heeded: The show is going to be maudlin, and it will broadcast its emotional and dramatic beats from a mile away. Thankfully, having thrown down that gauntlet, the threat turned into a promise worth keeping. Each episode has been an improvement on the pilot.
“Dynoman and the Volt,” the third episode of the series, has quite a lot to recommend it. Enough, in fact, that it becomes easy to overlook its obvious storytelling and only half-earned poignancy.
After a brief theatrical run to make it eligible for awards season, Apple TV+ movie The Banker made its debut on the streaming service Friday.
The movie, 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. To get around discriminatory Jim Crow-era laws, they hire a white man (played by Nicholas Hoult) to be the face of their business, while they pose as a chauffeur and janitor.
Trapped indoors with nothing to watch during the COVID-19 quarantine, or just sick of your usual streaming options? Apple TV+ harbors a day’s worth of exciting and compelling programming to finally dig into.
For anyone looking for an excuse to finally give the streaming service a try, here’s a guide to some standout shows. Not every Apple TV+ series is a slam dunk, but there are hidden gems waiting to be binged during these uncertain times.
Apple documentary Beastie Boys Story won’t debut on Imax screens on April 2 as planned. The COVID-19 pandemic is shutting down too many theaters.
But the Spike Jonze biopic about the classic rap group will debut on the Apple TV+ streaming service April 24 as scheduled.
One of the easiest ways to pirate movies and TV shows is back just in time for the great stay-at-home coronavirus quarantine party of 2020.
Popcorn Time, the legendary app that was basically a Netflix for privacy, announced its return Tuesday on Twitter, saying its newest build, called “Love in the Time of Corona Version 0.4,” is available for download.
Grab it while you can.
Apple employees at the company’s Culver City offices may have been exposed to COVID-19 after an employee tested positive for the virus. Culver City is Apple’s entertainment hub where much of the work on Apple TV+ and Apple Music is done.
The second episode of the redesigned Amazing Stories finds its legs with a story of a track star caught between life and death.
If showrunners Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz have anything even a fraction as good as this up their sleeves for the rest of the season, Amazing Stories might prove the strongest of Apple TV+ shows, considering its short episode order.
Apple has suspended all filming of Apple TV+ projects currently in production, according to a published report Friday.
The shows include the science fiction series For All Mankind, the Stephen King miniseries Lisey’s Story, the science fiction drama See, the TV drama The Morning Show, the psychological horror television series Servant, and the Isaac Asimov sci-fi series Foundation.
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A second Apple TV+ production has taken a COVID-19-related hiatus. Apple and Skydance Television closed the set of Foundation, an adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s science fiction trilogy.
A new episode of Apple TV+ original series Amazing Stories landed Friday. This installment, titled “The Heat,” is the second of five in this first season of Steven Spielberg’s rebooted sci-fi anthology series.
Apple’s description reads as follows: “Tuka and Sterling are best friends whose bond transcends the physical world as they follow their dreams after tragedy strikes.”
Apple reportedly signed the contracts it needs to keep streaming songs from the biggest labels. However, there supposedly was no mention in the agreements of an “Apple Prime” that would bundle this company’s music and video streaming services.
The cast and crew of The Morning Show will halt production for two weeks over concerns about the coronavirus outbreak.
The break is a precaution and not because of possible exposure. The series studio, Media Res, and Apple made the decision together, according to reports.
Ahead of its debut on Apple TV+ April 24, Apple has dropped the official trailer for Beastie Boys Story, its upcoming feature length documentary on the pioneering American hip hop group.
Beastie Boys Story is directed by Spike Jonze, the music video, feature film and documentary director who first worked with the band on the music video for Sabotage.
Oscar-nominated actress Uma Thurman will join the Apple TV+ family as the star of a new thriller called Suspicion.
The drama series, which does not have a release date, is based on an award-winning series in Israel called False Flag, the rights of which Apple purchased last year.
Amazing Stories, the Apple TV+ reboot of Steven Spielberg’s 1980s show about all things fantastical, bafflingly kicks off with a limp romantic fantasia. One can only hope that the dull opening episode, a rote time-travel story titled “The Cellar,” does not prove representative of what will follow.
Spielberg created the anthology series Amazing Stories in 1985. It was one of a handful of shrewd moves that, calculated to do so or not, turned his crowd-pleasing style into a brand. Cupertino clearly wanted to capitalize on Spielberg’s reputation as a storyteller. Regrettably, the reboot’s first episode does little but remind us that we’d rather be watching one of his movies instead.
Peloton and other workout apps could soon get some fresh competition from Apple in the form of a new fitness app that runs on Apple Watch, iPhone and Apple TV.
MacRumors revealed this week that Apple is working on a special project code-named “Seymour” that will serve up a series of workouts and other fitness-related videos that users can download and complete to improve their health.
Arturo Castro, a switch-hitting actor adept at both comedy and drama, will join Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the upcoming Apple TV+ drama series Mr. Corman.
Gordon-Levitt signed with Apple last September to write and play the lead character, Josh Corman, an elementary school teacher. Castro will play his roommate.