Apple TV+ - page 74

Carmi Zlotnik, the former Starz president of programming, is teaming up with Apple TV+.

Zlotnik has reportedly inked an exclusive producer deal with Apple just days after it was revealed that he’s stepping down from Starz’s top role.

A free year of Apple TV+ goes to everyone who buys a new iPhone, Mac or iPad. But time to sign up for this deal is running out for those who made their purchase just before the launch of Apple’s streaming video service.

Apple TV+ is adding Damages and Bridesmaids star Rose Byrne to its growing stable of stars. The streaming service is reportedly “preparing to give a series order” to a new series titled Physical, starring Byrne.

The show, which will blend comedic and drama elements, is set in a 1980s SoCal beach community. Rose Byrne plays a housewife who finds new fulfilment in the world of aerobics.

According to Tim Cook, users won’t see any ads on Apple TV+ anytime soon. Or ever.

“For the TV+ business, we feel strongly that what that customer wants is an ad-free product,” Cook said during Tuesday’s record-breaking Apple earnings call. Considering how much money Apple could rake in from advertising, that’s leaving a lot of cash on the table. But it’s also completely the right thing to do.

Ruslan Meshenberg made the jump to Apple TV+ after leaving Netflix, a top rival of Apple’s new streaming service. As the former VP of Productivity Engineering, he brings years of experience to a platform that’s still getting off the ground.

Apple TV+ shows are drawing plenty of attention, according to a market-analysis firm. Six of the ten most popular streaming series premiering last quarter were reportedly made by Apple.

Executives at AT&T have quickly learned that building a streaming service to compete with Apple TV+ and Netflix isn’t going to be cheap. During the company’s latest earnings call, AT&T revealed that it has already lost $1.2 billion during the creation process of HBO Max that is set to launch this May.

Apple just can’t stop touting its surging revenue from subscription services. But when it comes to Apple TV+ subscriber numbers, Cupertino is keeping suspiciously quiet.

“2019 was a historic year” for Apple’s services business, CEO Tim Cook said Tuesday during the company’s latest record-smashing earnings call. He then went on to drop specific numbers about services like the App Store and Apple Pay. But when it came to new services like Apple TV+, Cook kept things decidedly vague.

Cook loves to reiterate that Apple TV+ serves as a creative place for the world’s best storytellers. And the story he’s masterfully spinning about the streaming video service is a great big mystery.

The first Apple earnings report of 2020 was a smashing success that shattered most of Apple’s previous records. Thanks to shockingly strong iPhone sales and a surging wearables business that is bigger than the Mac and the iPad, Apple managed to surpass even the most optimistic expectations.

Apple CEO Tim Cook held a call with investors after the numbers came out to dive deeper into the impressive quarterly results. Cook dished on everything from the success of Apple TV+ and problems with AirPods Pro supplies to the Wuhan coronavirus affecting China. If you didn’t get a chance to join the call, don’t worry, Cult of Mac has you covered with all the need-to-know info.

Boys State enjoyed standing ovations at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend. And Apple liked it so much, it bought the rights to this political coming-of-age story.

Apple’s first earnings report of the decade is barely 24 hours away, and Wall Street is praying for another historic quarter.

After defying gravity for the last 12 months, Apple’s soaring stock price suffered its biggest single-day loss in more than six months today. Tuesday’s Q1 2020 earnings, which will cover sales from the 2019 holiday season, could provide the jolt AAPL shares need to start jumping up the charts again. However, certain hot topics — and what Apple says about them — could signal a downturn ahead.

Everything on Apple TV+ today was released in the past few months. But Apple is reportedly in talks to buy MGM, which would bring a catalogue of classic and modern movies to the iPhone maker’s streaming video service.

Apple just dropped a brand-new trailer for its original live documentary on the Beastie Boys.

Beastie Boys Story is scheduled to hit Apple TV+ on April 24. It will feature stage shows with Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz, and is directed by Spike Jonze, who first collaborated with the band on the music video for Sabotage.

A new analyst report suggests 33.6 million customers were ready and waiting to subscribe to Apple TV+ before its November launch and estimates that number could grow to 40 million subscribers by the end of this year.

If accurate, the numbers from TV industry market analyst Ampere Analysis would put Apple TV+ ahead of Hulu and Disney+, and already at more than 50% of Netflix in the United States.

Apple TV+ had its quietest week yet in terms of new shows, with (to the best of my knowledge) zero new programming uploaded Friday.

Apple Originals Servant, Truth Be Told, The Morning Show, See and For All Mankind have now concluded. All eight episodes of Little America debuted last week. And with seemingly nothing new on the calendar until Mythic Quest arrives on February 7, it could be a quiet few weeks on the Apple TV+ front.

Servant is deliberately creepy, and what the characters are eating is an important part of setting that tone. A video by Apple TV+ explains how what’s being cooked and eaten expresses the emotions of the characters in this psychological thriller.

Watch it now:

Apple Originals series Little America was rejected by a multiple networks before it finally found a home on Apple TV+. That’s according to the show’s executive producer Kumail Nanjiani.

“We pitched to a bunch of different places, and the truth is some of these more traditional outlets that have been around for decades, were a little hesitant about the show,” Nanjiani told Forbes.

Oprah Winfrey today revealed more details on her decision to not bring a high-profile documentary to Apple TV+ about alleged sexual misconduct by Russell Simmons.

She’s adamant that she still supports the women bringing the allegations, but wanted to do more investigation before releasing the documentary. And broaden its scope, too.

Apple TV+ is currently enjoying a rather lengthy spell without competition from Disney+ in Europe. But that’s going to be cut short after Disney today announced it will expand earlier than planned.

Jennifer Aniston earned a Screen Actors Guild award for her portrayal of embattled news anchor Alex Levy in The Morning Show.

The former Friends star, who also co-produces the Apple TV+ show, won for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series. Aniston beat out Olivia Coleman of The Crown and Jodie Comer of Killing Eve.

No less than seven new shows will debut on Apple TV+ before the middle of this year. There’s Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories reboot, a thriller starring Chris Evans, a mystery, two comedies and a pair of multipart documentaries.

And Apple says an animated comedy by the creator of Bob’s Burgers will launch this summer. Here’s a rundown of the other new Apple TV+ shows coming in early 2020.

A documentary series dubbed Dear… will profile internationally recognized leaders in a unique way: each will feature letters written to the subject of the biopic by people whose lives they’ve changed. That’s the source for the name of the series, which is headed for Apple TV+ in a few months.

Meryl Streep, the greatest actress of her generation, is finally teaming up with Apple.

Apple revealed today that Streep will lend her vocal talents to the company’s animated Earth Day short film, Here We Are: Notes for Living on Planet Earth. The roster also includes vocal performances by Chris O’Dowd, Jacob Tremblay, and Ruth Negga.

Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus is coming to Apple TV+.

The Veep alum signed her first-ever multiyear content deal, which will see the actress both develop and star in TV shows and other content exclusively for the iPhone-maker.

After a draught of new content on Apple TV+ over the holidays, the streaming service got 5 hours and 15 minutes of new shows to watch this week. Apple debuted all 8 episodes of its Apple Originals series Little America.

The critically acclaimed anthology series tells true stories of immigrants in America. It was developed by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon, writers of The Big Sick, and former US Office writer and producer, Lee Eisenberg.