The rumor mill has been quiet as of late regarding Apple’s plans to disrupt the TV industry. But now Recode is reporting that Apple is in talks with programmers about doing its own Internet-based TV service for cord-cutters.
Similar to the way Dish’s Sling TV bundles channels together at an attractive cost, Apple would design its own experience around delivering content without the use of traditional cable companies.
LAS VEGAS — The first full day of CES if starting to wrap up and if there’s one trend starting to emerge, it’s that there are no trends. Nowhere was this more apparent than Samsung’s keynote, where the company threw everything and the kitchen sink into its announcement of new home appliances, a vacuum, a Virtual Reality service called Milk, a cute portable SSD, and of course, one of the craziest TVs we’ve ever seen.
Dropping ridiculous TVs has become something of a tradition for Samsung at CES, and this year is no different with the SUHD S9W TV that’s touted as ‘the most seductive TV ever made.’ It’s just too bad you’ll never get to use their beautiful gimmick.
A great TV commercial will often be remembered for a lot longer than the product it’s trying to sell, so it’s no wonder companies spend hundreds of millions every year in pursuit of that one ad that will be a huge success. Some of the best ads we’ve seen this year come from the likes of Budweiser, P&G, Save The Children, and of course, Apple — and you’ll find them in the roundup below.
A lot of TV happens every day, and it’s understandable if you can’t watch all of it. Maybe you have a job or read or something. But now, the holidays have given you the gift of several days off with nothing to do but open presents, eat and watch television, so you might as well make up for lost time.
Here are five TV shows you should cram into your face like so much Christmas goose before you have to go back to work.
The death of cable TV bundling is nearly upon us, as signaled by HBO’s announcement today that it will offer an internet-based streaming subscription in 2015.
“That is a large and growing opportunity that should no longer be left untapped,” said HBO CEO and chairman Richard Plepler. “It is time to remove all barriers to those who want HBO.”
That’s big news in an industry that has been incredibly resistant to disruptors like Apple. And the Apple TV specifically stands to gain immensely from this shift towards Hollywood finally selling premium content unbundled.
Widget, widgets, widgets. Boy, have we got some widgets for you. And text. Plain text. Plain old text, turned into a calculator. And widgets. Did I mention those? Weather widgets. Battery widgets. And yes, text widgets.
Read all about these new widgets and other new apps in this week's App Watch.
In an amazing twist of celebrity, Community star and rapper Donald Glover has gotten to voice Miles Morales, the Ultimate Spider-Man, in the Disney XD animated series.
As it’s Glover that was the original inspiration behind the alternate universe Spidey, written by comics star Brian Michael Bendis, this is a treat for fans and the actor himself.
“That’s the great part about the Spider-Man costume: He can be anybody,” Glover told USA Today. “Spider-Man could be a girl. Spider-Man could be an old man. You don’t know. So I just tried to be as me as possible, because you’re always just going to bring it back to yourself when you watch the show.”
Check out the clip below as Peter Parker (voiced by Drake Bell) meets Miles Morales, voiced by Glover.
Preacher, based on the ultra-violent and incredibly profane comic book series from Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon at Vertigo, is a not-so-safe bet. That’s why we’re super-glad that AMC (The Walking Dead) has picked up this amazing look at American culture and its obsession with big guns, Christianity and hyper-masculinity, all filtered through a Texas setting. The show reportedly will debut in 2015.
Halt and Catch Fire isn’t Silicon Valley where the presence of a woman in a skirt sends the coders into a tailspin. This is the dying cry of the zipless f**k, before everyone got spooked about AIDS. This is hot neon, the smell of the soldering gun on a circuit board, and the deep empty place inside that drives creative people to do crazy things, think different, and meet each other where the metal meets the code.
Unfortunately, dismal ratings may possibly keep the show, whose plot hinges on a rag-tag group of misfits reverse engineering the IBM PC around the same time Woz & Jobs were busy home-brewing in the garage, from being picked up for a second season.
You can watch Halt and Catch Fire, named for the machine code (HCF) that was able to cause a computer to stop working, on AMC or iTunes.
We feel so strongly about this retro-tastic show (Coleco! Pong! Texas Instruments!) that we put up a petition to save it. Here’s why you should sign:
In some ways, this pick has already been made for us. As the previous page demonstrated, for a show that’s apparently about nothing, people sure do want to see Seinfeld make an appearance on Netflix. Although it did dip in quality after co-creator Larry David left, at its apex no other comedy can come close to matching the triumph of Seinfeld. Hopefully Jerry is right, and this will find its way to Netflix ASAP. With classic moments in virtually every episode, this show is the stuff binge-watching was invented for.
It’s definitely trailer week, especially for comic book and other genre movies, but here’s one for an upcoming DC television show based on the Vertigo property, Hellblazer. The show will cover the exploits of a certain John Constantine, supernaturally sensitive wizard-type who wears a trench coat, smokes incessantly (in the comics, at least) and does smart-ass battle with the angels and demons who plague us mere mortals.
The trailer really brings on the horror tropes: the creepy bugs on the wall revealing a scary message, the creepy flat-affect kid with the sharp knife, the broken-neck demon in a human body shot. You know, all the hits.
Check out the trailer below for all the creepy footage from what could be the best comic book show of the upcoming season.
TV isn't always a meritocracy. With that in mind, here are our picks of five shows that were canceled way before their time, and five more we wish would vanish into a black hole, never to be seen again.
Which ones made the list? Check out the gallery above to find out.
Did we miss out your favorite hidden TV gem, that was taken from us before it had the chance to find its audience? Or did we want to send a show you love off to the Sarlacc pit that is TV hell? If you have strong thoughts on this topic let us know what they are in the comments below.
Here we have a selection of apps and gadgets, clothes and toys to help you follow along and enjoy the show. The only thing we haven’t included is streaming app, because broadcast rights vary from country to country. Our workaround is to watch on TV or listen on the radio. Or do it like the Brazilians and head to your local bar.
As a huge fan of Vertigo Comics’ Hellblazer, about hard-bitten wise-cracking paranormal detective John Constantine, I’m warily excited about the upcoming TV series on NBC. Wary because of the totally off-base movie of the same name. Excited because, well, it looks like they got a bunch of things about the character and universe in which he lives “right.”
“I think as with the source material,” says series lead Matt Ryan in an interview with IGN, “there’s so much to draw from in terms of the character and the balance of humor and wit and dark and gritty. It’s great, because John has this kind of real sarcastic, ironic British wit. It’s funny, but at the same time it’s serious and dark and gritty. It’s got it all, I think.”
At first glance, the trailer (below) looks like the show creators understand more of the character than the 2005 movie starring Keanu Reeves ever did, including emo angels, a world-weary John Constantine and his famous trench coat.
When the walls and pottery starts shaking in spooky ways, newlyweds Donna Johnson and Carol-Anne decide to call the Paranormal Investigation Team, or P.I.T. This ragtag team of ghost busters, led by Connor, the lovelorn managing director, must prove themselves as professionals to keep the gig, and save the day.
This new web series, part of geek-favorite Felicia Day’s Geek & Sundry media collective, is surprisingly well written and acted, and is as well-produced as any new TV show, even though it’s only on the web.
The first episode (embedded below) shows a lot of promise and anyone with an interest in geeky television shows about ghosts and goofy nerds should take a look.
Other than its top notch TV series, HBO also has some great documentaries. Even though Katrina hit nearly a decade-ago, Spike Lee's When the Levees Broke is one of HBO's best, showcasing how New Orleans residents' lives were completely upended by the death, disease and devastation that followed the storm's wake.
It’s time to cancel your cable subscription. The best TV shows, movies, and documentaries have landed on Amazon Prime thanks to a deal with HBO that unleashes the networks’ exceptional collection of content to the Internet for the first time ever.
Starting today Amazon Prime users can catch up on entire seasons of HBO’s top shows by streaming them to your Mac, iPhone, or iPad at absolutely no extra cost. It’s an unprecedented treasure trove of greatness that required an HBO GO subscription to access until today when it was finally set free for the first time ever.
HBO has been reluctant to embrace a paid-streaming model that would cut its ties to lucrative cable subscriptions, but the move is a sign that a top-down approach could be on the way as HBO adds its GO app to Amazon Fire TV and other services.
The entire HBO lineup isn’t available quite yet, but the company says shows like Veep and The Newsroom will be added once they pass their third seasons, making them available for the low-cost of a $79 annual Amazon Prime subscription.
Here are five shows you should start binging on today.
TeeVee, my go-to TV episode listings app, has just gotten a super-useful update: calendar integration. Now the app not only keeps you updated about airing TV shows via push notifications, it can also integrate them right into your calendar.
For telly addicts in the U.K., the free TVCatchup app for Android and iOS makes it easy for them to watch live TV channels while they’re on the go. But thanks to an ongoing legal dispute with a number of public service broadcasters, the app’s developers have been forced to pull popular feeds, including ITV and Channel 4.
Amazon is gearing up to launch a new set-top box that hopes to compete with the Apple TV and other video streaming devices this holiday, The Wall Street Journal reports. It’s understood the device is small and resembles a Roku, and it will run apps and provide content from a variety of sources, including Amazon’s own Prime service.
Cable industry veteran and former CableLabs executive Jean-François Mulé became an engineering director at Apple last month, and he’s hard at work on “something big.” His appointment comes just weeks before Apple is expected to unveil its latest Apple TV, and at a time when the Cupertino company has been working hard to improve the $99 set-top box.
But is Mulé part of something a little more exciting?
The Hulu Plus apps for Android and iOS have today been updated with support for Google Chromecast. You’ll find a new ‘Cast’ button within the app that will stream your favorite shows to your television with the help of the $35 dongle.
Thanks to all of Jony’s changes with iOS 7, every app developer in the world is hurrying to finish their iOS 7 overhaul. Twitter is busy at work on their update too, except rather than just making everything flatter with shimmering gradients, Twitter plans to introduced a new feed dedicated to everything about TV, according to AllThingsD.
Twitter’s not just focusing on aesthetics for the iOS 7 redesign, as the company wants to make its mobile apps more appealing for casual users. According to AllThingsD, the new TV feed will become a big part of Twitter’s pitch to connect to new users:
Syfy announced today that its iPhone and iPad apps have merged into one mega-nerd monster app called Syfy Now.
The new app now gives both iPhone and iPad users access to full episodes of favorite Syfy shows, with new episodes available the day after they air. You can add new shows to a watchlist to view episodes later or track a season, and Syfy Now syncs your watchlist across multiple devices via iCloud, so can pick up where you left off with any series on any device.
A cable subscription is required to view all the shows, but there are a select number of full episodes and clips you can still view without it.
The free app is available now in the App Store.
You can’t get music videos on MTV anymore, but that doesn’t mean the 60-inch TV strapped to your wall can’t get jiggy with Beyonce and Katy Perry’s newest music vids. VEVO announced today that it has added full AirPlay support to its iOS app, allowing users to stream audio and video to an Apple TV.
Just about every major tech company is working on two untapped product categories right now: wearable technology and streaming television over the internet. Apple is trying to draw in TV networks with advertising incentives, and even Intel is working on its own TV service.
It should come as no surprise that Google has been in talks with media companies about streaming premium TV over the internet. The company has reportedly demoed its new product to cable executives, but it’s still up to the networks to jump on board.
