Apple TV

Apple is bundling three months of free Apple Arcade access with every Apple Gift Card purchase. Best Buy is running an even better offer, bundling access to Apple Fitness+, Apple Music, Apple Arcade and Apple TV with an Apple Gift Card.

The best part? The offer applies to both new and returning subscribers. 

Apple TV has emerged as the streaming platform to beat this awards season, capturing half of the Best Drama series nominations at the 2026 Golden Globe Awards unveiled Monday — a remarkable achievement that signals the tech giant’s arrival as a major force in prestige television.

Three of the six nominations in the coveted Best Drama TV series category belong to Apple — the mind-bending workplace thriller Severance, the darkly humorous espionage drama Slow Horses and the breakout new sci-fi series Pluribus. That puts Apple ahead of streaming rivals Netflix and HBO Max, which each landed only one drama series nomination in the category.

The first trailer for Apple TV’s upcoming documentary series Born to be Wild means well, offering hope in the face of species extinction. But it leans so hard on baby-animal cuteness and human hero worship that I found it cloying. Nowhere does it acknowledge humans as a major cause of animal extinctions. The series itself most likely does, but we’ll have to see when it airs.

The emotional six-part documentary series debuts December 19. 

Apple’s efforts to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery to bolster the Apple TV streaming service ended in disappointment Friday, with Netflix emerging victorious in one of Hollywood’s most competitive bidding wars in recent years.

Netflix said Friday it will purchase Warner Bros. Discovery’s entertainment assets for $72 billion, outbidding Apple and other tech giants to secure one of the industry’s most valuable content libraries. The deal, far larger than any Netflix (or Apple, for that matter) has attempted to date, includes Warner Bros. studios, HBO and the HBO Max streaming service. Those assets would have dramatically transformed Apple TV’s positioning in the streaming wars.

For Black Friday 2025, Apple unleashed a promotion giving new and returning Apple TV subscribers a six-month subscription for $5.99 per month.

This Apple TV Black Friday deal slashes more than 50% off the regular price of $12.99 per month!

Additionally, Apple is offering a bundle deal with Peacock Premium/Premium Plus at a discounted rate. See all the details below. 

For many Apple TV owners, there’s still one kink to be worked out: the remote. The Siri Remote is all about being skinny and putting Apple’s AI assistant front and center. But some people prefer an alternative Apple TV remote with lots of buttons, like the recently upgraded Button Remote from Function101 (see our hands-on review).

Upgraded with Bluetooth connectivity in addition to infrared, it works with Apple TVs and more than a hundred other television brands. And you can get one for only $24.97. That’s just two-thirds the price of a replacement sixth-gen Siri Remote from Apple.

Apple used a giant glass Apple TV logo, colorfully lit and filmed in a studio, to create the new visual branding that will run before the streaming service’s shows.

The translucent logo seems to flip like the pages of a book, with colors changing all the while, in the mesmerizing video snippets.

“Many might assume the visual effects were made digitally, but in fact, it was all done practically using glass and captured in-camera,” Ad Age reported Wednesday.

A short behind-the-scenes video shows the extraordinary lengths the streamer and its storied ad agency went to create the striking visuals.

New Apple TV crime thriller Down Cemetery Road, based on British author Mick Herron’s debut novel, might not always match the fast-and-dirty fun of Slow Horses, the hit stablemate also derived from Herron’s work.

However, it offers enough intrigue, stellar performances (especially from star Emma Thompson) and dark humor to deserve your attention. 

Here’s why you should stream the eight-episode conspiracy thriller.

Ben Stiller, a driving force behind Apple TV hit workplace psychodrama Severance, now turns to a much more personal subject as a director: his famous comedian parents. His new documentary, Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost, begins streaming Friday on Apple TV. And it looks like it might prompt laughs as well as tears.

It seems Apple might buy Warner Bros. Discovery, the media and entertainment company that owns HBO, CNN and other high-profile properties. Apple reportedly expressed interest in acquiring parts of the company, particularly its extensive film and television library, as the media giant explores a potential sale, according to a report Thursday.

Such a deal would be a massive boost for Apple TV, adding depth to the streaming service’s catalog.

Update: As of Monday, you can sign up for the new Apple TV and Peacock bundle through the Apple TV app, by itself or as a discounted addition to an Apple One bundle. You can also sign up through NBCUniversal’s Peacock app or website.

A new streaming bundle will combine content from Apple TV and Peacock into a single subscription available starting Monday (October 20), the iPhone giant said Thursday. The partnership marks the first collaboration of its kind between the two entertainment companies. It offers customers access to both platforms’ content libraries at a discounted rate.

“We’re thrilled to introduce this all-inclusive bundle of incredible programming and to bring Apple TV’s beloved shows and movies to more viewers in more places,” said Oliver Schusser, Apple’s vice president of Apple TV, Apple Music, Sports and Beats. “From acclaimed originals to can’t-miss live sports, the Apple TV and Peacock Bundle unites the best of entertainment in a simple and seamless experience.”

You don’t need an MLS Season Pass to watch the Major League Soccer playoffs this year. The games in the Audi 2025 MLS Cup Playoffs are available to anyone with a subscription to the Apple TV streaming service.

This includes Lionel Messi and Inter Miami CF kicking off a best-of-three series against Nashville SC this Friday.

F1: The Movie with Brad Pitt as a racer will make its streaming debut on Friday, December 12, following the film’s record-breaking theatrical run, Apple said Monday. And the announcement came with a surprise twist: Apple TV+ gets rebranded as simply “Apple TV” (no “+”) with what the company called a “vibrant new identity.”

It remains to be seen how vibrant the identity is, but it’s the same exact name as the Apple TV hardware and the Apple TV app. Maybe they meant “confusing new identity.”

Everybody’s favorite gaming service, Apple Arcade, expanded its library Thursday as four new exclusive games joined. We knew they were coming — and now you can play them. That brings the subscription service’s catalog to over 200 ad-free games, Apple said.

Here are the latest additions: Play-Doh World, a creative digital playground; Worms Across Worlds, the newest entry in the beloved strategy series; Let’s Go Mightycat!, a whimsical puzzle adventure; and Everybody Shogi, a colorful take on the traditional Japanese board game.

Apple is gearing up for a blockbuster year, with a packed product roadmap that spans nearly every category in its lineup. From an iPhone redesign to upgrades for the Mac, iPad and Apple Watch families, the next twelve months promise a steady stream of hardware refreshes, software milestones and perhaps a few surprises.

Whether you’re a casual user or a die-hard fan, here’s a look at every major Apple product expected between now and next summer.

March 21, 2007: Apple launches the Apple TV, a gleaming-white set-top box with a remote control, for bringing iTunes media to the living room.

Unfortunately, the device lacks key features needed to make it a killer entertainment system. It’s something of a missed opportunity for Apple.

Netflix content started showing up for the first time in the Apple TV application. Until now, the streaming behemoth refused to cooperate with Apple’s app that displays content from a variety of services.

Netflix’s new integration with Apple TV appears to be still rolling out, so it’s not yet available to all users.

Update: A Netflix spokesperson now says integration between the streaming service and the Apple TV was just a mistake.

You can use your iPhone (or even your Apple Watch!) as a remote for your Apple TV. It’s a convenient feature when you’ve lost the remote in the couch cushions. (You can use your iPhone to help find it as well.)

Even if your remote’s not gone missing, sometimes it’s sitting on the table way over there and you don’t want to interrupt a show by asking for someone to pass it to you. Or maybe, someone is intentionally hogging the remote and you want to pause the video yourself. Either way, it’s really easy to do from an iPhone or an Apple Watch.

You’ve got to love a computer, gaming and TV setup with a big external display that’s so efficiently arranged it barely even takes up any desk space. Today’s featured MacBook Pro workstation manages the feat by mounting a big smart TV as a display on the wall, along with a pegboard for peripherals storage. But the MacBook setup with wall-mounted display took some pretty serious DIY skills, described below.

iPhone and Mac get all the attention — and the annual upgrades — but you can expect a trio of Apple products that haven’t been improved in years to get some love from Cupertino in 2025.

Fans of some of Apple’s secondary devices rejoice: Rumors point to new versions of Apple TV, AirTag and HomePod in the coming months. If you’re an AirTag user, it’s important to stay updated with the latest AirTag firmware update to ensure optimal performance.

Apple’s significant expansion of its smart home lineup in 2025 should include new HomePod and HomePod mini models. The company plans to introduce both a display-equipped HomePod and a refreshed HomePod mini amid a renewed focus on the smart home market.

As usual, you can expect Apple to emphasize quality audio as well as airtight security. Here’s what to expect from HomePod and HomePod mini in 2025.

December 27, 2010: Almost four months after the second-gen Apple TV’s debut, Cupertino says it has sold 1 million of the streaming video devices.

The news shows that Apple’s set-top box is gaining momentum. However, Apple’s PR move — which included a preemptive press release issued on December 21 that said Apple “expects sales of its new Apple TV to top one million units later this week” — is also a low-blow shot at competitor Roku, which recently said it planned to hit the 1 million unit mark by the end of 2010.

Apple will switch to its in-house “Proxima” WI-Fi and Bluetooth chip on its devices starting next year. The chip will debut on the Apple TV and HomePod mini next year.

By 2026, Apple will bring its in-house Wi-Fi and Bluetooth module to the iPad and Mac.

iOS 18.2 will make searching on Apple Music and Apple TV much easier with natural language support. This means you can use natural language to describe and search for TV shows or music you are looking for.

The revamped Photos app gained support for similar search capabilities with the iOS 18.1 update.

The culmination of a Major League Soccer postseason filled with upsets and comebacks, the MLS Cup championship unfolds Saturday as LA Galaxy hosts the New York Red Bulls. And you can watch the MLS Cup final for free on various Apple TV platforms via MLS Season Pass, the streamer said Thursday.