Aside from saying that Apple TV+ pulled in “millions of users” in its first week, Apple hasn’t shared any stats about how Apple’s streaming service is doing. Disney+, on the other hand, seems to be blowing away the competition.
Two months after Disney+ launched, its app has been downloaded close to 41 million times on the App Store and Google Play app store. In total, it has generated an estimated $97.2 million in user spending.
Apple TV+’s upcoming series Little America is pretty darn great. At least, if reviews aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is to be believed.
With the initial critic reviews in, Little America‘s current rating stands at a, well, flawless 100%. By contrast, previous Apple TV+ shows like The Morning Show were panned by early critics.
Lee Eisenberg, the co-creator behind Apple’s upcoming TV series, Little America, has inked a multi-year to create content for Apple TV+.
Apple already ordered a second season of Little America ahead of its premiere later this month. Now Eisenberg is one of the few creators to score an overall deal with Apple that will see him developing original TV and digital media projects exclusively for the iPhone-maker.
Apple Original comedy series Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet is coming to Apple TV+ on February 7. But before then, Mythic Quest is stopping off at the PAX South gaming expo in Texas, possibly for an early advance screening.
The Apple TV+ show was co-created by It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia stars Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day. It follows a team of video game developers as they work on an epic sequel to the biggest multiplayer video game of all time. Think Silicon Valley for the gaming world!
Apple TV+ is great. I think it’s done a whole lot right in the sub-3 months since it launched. But, right now, Apple TV+ is what Apple was to Microsoft in the 1990s. Sure, the quality is there, but it’s a tiny bit player next to the likes of Netflix and Disney+. To truly live up to its potential, Apple TV+ needs to make some big strides forward in 2020.
Here’s what I think needs to change.
Jason Momoa was the big star of the first season of See on Apple TV+, but he’s reportedly being joined by Dave Bautista, perhaps best known for playing Drax the Destroyer in the Guardians of the Galaxy movies.
An investigative reporter reconsiders whether she helped put an innocent man in prison in the Apple TV+ drama series Truth be Told. A featurette video with commentary from cast and crew of this ongoing show discusses what it means to reconsider something so important.
Watch it now:
Oprah Winfrey is stepping away from a new documentary based on the Time’s Up movement. The high-profile film will go ahead, with a premiere scheduled for the Sundance Film Festival this month. But it will no longer hit Apple TV+.
Oprah says she believes and supports the women featured in the documentary. But she feels the project is incomplete and says “it has become clear that the filmmakers and I are not aligned in … creative vision.”
Less than three months after Apple TV+ launched, it has picked up its first major awards win. At the Critics Choice Awards on Sunday, Billy Crudup won the Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series gong for his role as Cory Ellison in The Morning Show.
Crudup was up against Asante Blackk from This Is Us, Asia Kate Dillon from Billions, Peter Dinklage from Game of Thrones, and Tim Blake Nelson from Watchmen.
You may not have ever heard of him, but Apple TV+ has a lot riding on Michael Ellenberg.
As the executive producer of The Morning Show, Ellenberg’s unproven production company was the first to score a multi-season deal for Apple TV+. In a recent interview with Variety, Ellenberg discussed how ’90s morning TV shows inspired The Morning Show along with the pressure of developing two more shows for Apple TV+.
Rob McElhenney, co-creator of Apple TV+’s upcoming video game comedy Mythic Quest, says that Apple was “very helpful” in the creative process involved in making the show. But he noted that the company was more than willing to push back on issues it felt strongly about.
“Deference would assume we always know what we’re doing and when we walk into the room everyone should just be quiet,” McElhenney told Variety. “That is dangerous because then you have no opposition, and it doesn’t make for the best process.”
TiVo’s plans for an Apple TV app are “currently on hold,” according to an executive at the company. Speaking with TechHive, Ted Malone, TiVo’s VP of consumer products and services, described the promised app as being “in limbo.”
A spokesperson later said that this is because the company has, “re-prioritized several projects in order to focus on the launch of TiVo Stream 4K.” It sounds as if Roku and Fire TV apps may also be set to suffer a similar fate.
Apple today marked the close of an historic 2019 for its Services businesses following its biggest ever year so far.
The introduction of Apple Arcade, Apple Card, News +, and TV+ helped ensure Services continued to reach new heights. They also mean Apple goes into 2020 with “incredible momentum.”
Apple finally unveiled the official trailer for its first major comedy series Mythic Quest: Raven’s Banquet and so far it appears the wait has been worth.
Co-created by It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia stars Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day, Mythic Quest follows a team of video game developers hellbent on creating an epic sequel to the biggest multiplayer video game ever made. Mythic Quest‘s cast is packed with hilarious actors playing nerds with big egos that could turn it into the perfect successor to Silicon Valley which just aired its last episode.
Prepare to laugh your socks off:
Academy Award winner Patricia Arquette has signed up to star in Severance, a new thriller on its way to Apple TV+, according to a new report.
Arquette will be directed by Ben Stiller. The pair worked together on Escape at Dannemora, a limited series for Showtime, for which Arquette won another Golden Globe, before her most recent TV role as Dee Dee Blanchard in the acclaimed true crime drama The Act.
Amazon is ramping up its expansion of the Fire TV platform in 2020 by making the streaming media platform available in automobiles and other third-party products.
The company revealed this morning that Fire TV now has over 40 million active users and its coming to even more devices. More than 150 Fire TV Edition devices across multiple product categories will be available by the end of 2020 and everyone from BMW to VOXX Automotive jumping onboard.
LG Electronics used the CES 2020 stage this morning to flaunt a 2020 lineup of more than a dozen new televisions with 4K and 8K displays along with a new Apple TV app.
Imagine watching your Apple TV+ shows on an 88-inch 8K OLED smart TV that is just a penny shy of $30,000.
Haven’t seen The Morning Show on Apple TV+ yet? With all 10 episodes of the first season of the flagship Apple Original now available to watch, Apple has released a behind-the-scenes video intended to sell new viewers on checking out the series.
And, you know, potentially to help get the show in front of the eyes of TV and film award season voters, too. Check out the video below.
Apple’s first night at the Golden Globes didn’t go exactly as Tim Cook may have hoped — with none of the nominations for Apple TV+ show The Morning Show resulting in award wins. Adding insult to injury, returning host Ricky Gervais quipped that Apple used sweatshops to make its products. And even drew parallels to terrorist group ISIS.
CEO Cook was in attendance for the ceremony.
It’s Friday, which means, among other things, that it’s new Apple TV+ episode day; providing hours of fresh viewing to while away the first weekend of 2020.
Or, rather it would be if the well of new Apple TV+ shows wasn’t already running weirdly dry. Just 53 days since launching, Apple TV+ this week gained just two new episodes of shows — a total of 74 minutes of new content. That’s MacBook Air thin.
Forner HBO chief executive Richard Plepler has signed a five-year deal with Apple to make original feature films, documentaries and television series for Apple TV Plus.
Plepler was at HBO for 27 years and played important roles in the rise of original programming at the network.
In a new video, the creator and a star of Dickinson discuss how this Apple TV+ series uses events from the life of a 19th Century poet to discuss problems women still face.
Watch it now:
Apple TV+ could find itself shut out of Russia if it turns out be a big success, a new report claims.
A law that restricts foreign ownership in video streaming services to a 20% stake would kick in if Apple TV+ reaches 50% of Russian video streaming users.
Apple TV+ had its sparsest Friday since the service launched, with just two new episodes rolling out for the holidays.
Last week saw the season finales for The Morning Show and For All Mankind. That left just Servant and Truth Be Told to get new episodes this week.
It’s the last Friday before the holidays, and appropriately enough, two of Apple’s most popular Apple TV+ Originals are wrapping up. On Friday, Apple debuted the season finale for both The Morning Show and For All Mankind.
There are new episodes of both Servant and Truth Be Told as well. That’s plenty to keep you entertained between frantic bits of last-minute shopping!
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