Follow Benjamin on Threads to keep up with his latest projects. Benjamin blogs about Apple news and rumors and posts insightful product and app reviews. Read his work on 9to5Mac and his personal blog.
Benjamin Mayo also creates apps for iOS as a professional indie developer and contractor; more details here. Email to discuss making your iOS project.
Follow @bzamayo on Twitter and follow @bzamayo on Threads.
Apple TV+ today premieres its latest drama series Surface, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw as Sophie. Sophie is suffering from memory loss, which she believes is caused from injuries sustained from a previous suicide attempt. But as she wrangles with amnesia, she discovers that the story she had been told may not actually be the truth.
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The Sky Go app is now available to download on Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K devices. Millions of UK Sky customers have been impatiently waiting for this to arrive for years.
Sky (parent company Comcast, who also released the similar tvOS Xfinity Stream app in the US last month) is the largest premium TV provider in the United Kingdom. The Sky Go app now allows the Apple TV to be used instead of needing the cable box, by streaming live channels over the internet at home and (as the name suggests) on the go.
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The highly anticipated adaptation of ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ from Martin Scorsese, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, is set to arrive in theaters and on Apple TV+ next year, according to a report by Deadline.
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Apple’s space drama For All Mankind announced today that the show has been officially renewed for season 4. Although rumors of a renewal have been swirling for a while now, the official news just dropped as part of the San Diego Comic-Con For All Mankind panel.
The critically acclaimed sci-fi alt-reality series is currently in the middle of airing its third season on the Apple TV+ streaming service.
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Apple TV+ is available through the TV app on Apple devices, many smart TVs, PlayStation, Xbox, Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and other platforms. The service also offers a rudimentary web experience to access Apple original TV shows and movies through a web browser, available at tv.apple.com.
Development on the website has been excruciatingly slow. For instance, the Up Next watchlist only came to the web-app a few months ago. Today, it gains another basic feature that people naturally expect from a streaming app: the ability to search for shows by name.
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Apple TV+ is adding another film to its roster, announcing that it has acquired ‘Causeway’ from A24. The film stars Jennifer Lawrence as a soldier trying to adjust to her new life after returning home. Causeway will be released in theaters and stream on Apple’s streaming service later this year.
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Apple TV+ today received 52 nominations for its content at the 2022 Primetime Emmy Awards. The recognition was led by hit comedy Ted Lasso and this year’s breakout sci-fi workplace drama Severance.
Ted Lasso was nominated for Outstanding Comedy Series again, following its awards sweep last year. Severance saw top-line recognition for Best Drama Series, Adam Scott as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, ad both John Turturro and Christopher Walken got Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series nominations.
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Russia has apparently demanded that Apple store user iCloud data relating to Russian citizens domestically. Apple has seemingly refused to comply, based on an Interfax news report (via Reuters).
The court fined Apple 2 million roubles (worth approximately $34,000) for non-compliance. Russian courts have increasingly clashed with (predominantly US-based) big tech companies over issues of content censorship and data control in the months since the country invaded Ukraine.
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The new MacBook Air with M2 chip is now available to order, with first units shipping to customers from Friday, July 15. The base model MacBook Air with M2 chip is priced at $1199, or $1099 for education buyers.
The new MacBook Air features the most significant design change to the MacBook Air line in a decade, with a uniformly flat enclosure, larger display and thinner screen bezels. Like the 2021 MacBook Pros, the front camera is now housed inside a display notch. The M2 chip powers improved CPU and GPU performance, approximately 20% faster than the already-fast M1 MacBook Air.
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Update: The store is back up and the new MacBook Air is now available to order.
The Apple Store has gone down ahead of the new 2022 MacBook Air with M2 chip going up for preorder in a few hours. The 13-inch MacBook Pro with M2 went on sale last month.
The new Air features the latest Apple Silicon core in an all-new design, eschewing the classic MacBook Air tapered edge chassis. The new Air adopts design cues from the 2021 MacBook Pro, with a flat exterior case style, thinner screen bezels, and display notch cutout housing the front camera …
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Apple today debuts a critically acclaimed true crime miniseries Black Bird. The TV show stars Taron Egerton, Paul Walter-Hauser, Greg Kinnear and Ray Liotta, and is available exclusively through Apple TV+. Black Bird is based off real events, first depicted in the autobiographical book In With the Devil.
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Apple today released the full trailer for the first full-length 3D animated feature film coming to Apple TV+. Luck is the first movie to be released as part of Apple’s exclusive deal with Skydance Animation.
Luck centers on Sam Greenfield, the unluckiest person in the world. But her fortune changes when she finds the Land of Luck, a secret factory which manages all the lucky and unlucky moments that happen in the world. Sam’s adventure includes meeting up with some amazing mythical creatures, including a talking black cat, a dragon, and everything in-between. See the trailer below …
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Happy 4th July for those that celebrate! If you aren’t meeting up with people in person this year, you can use iMessage to send some virtual fireworks celebrations …
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About three months after the Mac Studio launched, Apple has now started selling the model on its refurbished store. Priced at $1799, Apple is offering a $200 discount compared to buying the same model as a brand new unit.
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In a rare move, Apple today launched a special Apple Store promotion in the United States. You can now buy either the Apple TV 4K or Apple TV HD and get a $50 gift card with your purchase. The price of the Apple TV box is unchanged; $179 or $149 respectively.
Customers looking for raw value for money will probably still prefer a sub-$50 streaming stick from competitors like the Amazon Fire Stick, however. A $50 gift card is nice assuming you were planning on buying an Apple TV already, but be aware you only have two weeks to take advantage of the deal.
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Apple TV+ is coming to San Diego Comic-Con for the first time. The company announced today it will be holding panels for Severance, For All Mankind, Mythic Quest, as well as a “storytellers of Apple TV+” roundtable featuring producing talent from For All Mankind, Invasion, Mythic Quest, See, and Foundation.
Apple is also hosting a special Severance experience event for con attendees. At the Hard Rock Hotel, attendees will be induced into Lumon industries and taken through a tour of their first day as a severed worker.
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The Apple TV set-top box has gained a significant new app to its roster today. Comcast today released the Xfinity Stream app for tvOS, supporting Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD devices.
The app’s launch was first teased back in October 2021, when a partnership between Apple and Comcast also brought Apple TV app to Comcast cable boxes.
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At WWDC, much of the attention was on the fancy next-generation CarPlay Apple previewed, but those experiences won’t appear in cars for several years.
Near term, something new for CarPlay in iOS 16 is the addition of new supported app categories for “fuel and driving tasks,” according to the iOS 16 feature preview page. A report from Reuters today says that some gas station chains are already preparing to take advantage of this and allow drivers to pay for fuel through the car’s infotainment center.
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In 2020, Apple overhauled its gift card system with a new singular Apple Gift Card that can be used for hardware purchases at the Apple Store, or digital Apple services and software purchases in the App Store.
This unified gift card came to Canada and Australia in 2021. And today Apple Gift Card is now available in Europe, including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and more (first spotted by iCulture).
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When beta 1 of iOS 16 and iPadOS 16 dropped earlier this month, based on code findings and wording on Apple’s official feature preview website page, it seemed that the iPad will no longer be a supported device to act as as a HomeKit home hub.
However, in a new statement to The Verge, Apple says this isn’t correct. Apple says iPads can continue to be home hubs in iPadOS 16 “with no loss of functionality”. However, you won’t get any new functionality either …
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Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo released some interesting information on Twitter today. Kuo said that his latest supply-side surveys are indicating that Apple has been unable to develop a custom 5G modem of its own, in time for the 2023 iPhone series (iPhone 15).
Due to the apparent development delays, Kuo believes that Apple will resort to using Qualcomm modems for the 2023 iPhones once again. Previously, Qualcomm executives had warned investors that it expected to lose up to 80% of the Apple business by 2023, as Apple planned to use its own chips instead.
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Apple TV+ debuted its new comedy series Loot last week, starring Maya Rudolph. Following the premiere, Apple has also announced that it has struck a deal with Rudolph’s production company Animal Pictures.
Animal Pictures is headed up by Rudolph, Natasha Lyonne and Danielle Renfrew Behrens. Other notable output from Animal Pictures includes Russian Doll on Netflix.
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Apple has released a company statement in response to today’s decision by the Supreme Court to overturn Roe vs. Wade, which paves the way for states to make abortion illegal.
Apple said it supports employee’s rights to make their own choices about their reproductive health. It reiterated that its company health benefits include paying for out-of-state travel for procedures, if care is unavailable in their own state.
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Apple continues to release new titles to its streaming service, Apple TV+. This week, Apple TV+ premieres the first three episodes of new original comedy TV show ‘Loot‘. Loot stars Maya Rudolph as the divorced wife of a tech billionaire, now $87 billion wealthier.
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