Apple TV - page 72

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:

After a bumpy start, the Apple TV+ reboot of Amazing Stories headed off in an agreeable direction. Between its heart-on-the-sleeve emotional core and the very modern, depressive look at the deflation of the American dream, this is a show that understands why people need to believe in the impossible today.

Episode 4, titled “Signs of Life,” might not be a perfect hour of television. However, it’s got its heart in the right place. And a host of excellent elements make its story beats hit with extra force.

The latest episode of the Steven Spielberg executive produced sci-fi anthology series Amazing Stories is available to check out on Apple TV+.

The fourth of five standalone episodes, “Signs of Life,” tells the story of a teenager who struggles to reconnect with the stranger that is their mother after she awakens from a six-year coma. It landed on Apple TV+ Friday morning.

If staying at home saves lives during the coronavirus pandemic, then binging on TV is your civic duty.

Networks and streaming services are stepping up to help us sacrifice, offering loads of free programming for any device while we wait out stay-at-home orders. Much of what we’re about to tell you in this guide to free streaming is available on a variety of platforms, from Apple TV to the iPhone, iPad, Macs and smart TVs. Chances are good you’ve already got everything you need to take advantage of these freebies.

Apple TV+ is about to get an all-new murder mystery show that will have viewers questioning how far they would go to defend their innocent children. The first official trailer for the upcoming murder mystery series Defending Jacob landed on YouTube Thursday ahead of the show’s release next month and it looks absolutely riveting.

Starring Chris Evans, Defending Jacob is about a small-town assistant district attorney whose family life is upended when his teenage son is accused of murder. While Evans is billed as the top actor for the series the first trailer reveals he’s surrounded by some other incredibly talents actors, such as J.K. Simmons and five-time Tony Award nominee Cherry Jones.

Watch the tension-filled first trailer right here:

It’s a surprise to no one that video streaming services are seeing big surges in demand while everyone is stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic. But it seems Apple TV+ is missing out.

While the likes of Netflix, HBO Now, and Disney+ have seen sharp increases in subscribers in recent weeks, according to a new report, the number of people turning to Apple TV+ has hardly risen at all.

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.