Apple’s streaming video service, Apple TV+, launches this Friday, November 1st. Ahead of its launch, today the first reviews dropped for the service’s tentpole originals: The Morning Show, See, For All Mankind, and Dickinson. Overall the critical takes are extremely mixed: though I haven’t seen any reviews that are outright negative, and there are a few which are very positive, the majority of reviews seem to lie somewhere in-between those two extremes.
For All Mankind appears the best-received Apple series, with Dickinson perhaps the second most-praised; however, that may be due to the added pressure placed on The Morning Show and See as Apple’s top two draws. Though many reviewers found things to praise about each show, such as Jennifer Aniston’s strong performance in The Morning Show, and the incredible visuals of See, the majority of their critical emphasis was on the ways these series fail to live up to high expectations.
One common note struck by reviewers is that with most Apple TV+ shows, only three episodes per series were provided for review, which made it difficult to adequately evaluate each first season. Perhaps tellingly, For All Mankind had the most episodes screened for critics, and it’s the most-praised show.
Below is a roundup of excerpts from various reviews that help provide a good overview of what to expect from Apple’s first original series.
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On Friday, Apple Music’s Beats 1 debuted a new Zane Lowe show called New Music Daily featuring the best new music across several genres along with interviews and commentary designed to complement Apple Music’s playlist of the same name.
As described by Apple, New Music Daily is all about what is hot now:
Music moves fast. To keep up with hungry fans and tireless creators, Apple Music launched New Music Daily, our playlist for the latest and greatest must-hear songs from pop, hip-hop, Latin, and beyond. This show, broadcasting live on Apple Music every Friday, is the playlist brought to life: Hosted by Zane Lowe, it features interviews with today’s most important artists, sharp commentary, and, of course, all the new songs you need to hear right now.
The show streams live on Apple Music every Friday at Noon New York time and can be replayed later.
The inaugural episode of New Music Daily, which runs just over one hour, spotlights a wide range of music and interviews including appearances by Selena Gomez, Coldplay’s Chris Martin, and an excerpt from a longer interview with Taylor Swift that will be released next week. New Music Daily’s Apple Music page also includes excerpts of upcoming video interviews with Taylor Swift and Kanye West.
In an interview with People.com, Lowe, who is Apple Music’s global creative director, expanded on his vision for how the playlist and new show will work together:
Our New Music Daily playlist was built in the image of the artist and the fan. Music is constant and it’s in the hands of the artists now. Artists don’t want to wait anymore, and we wanted a really big playlist that reflected that sentiment and could do it quickly. I’ll be in the studio with artists and I ask when they’re putting something out and they’ll say, “I don’t know, in an hour?” We’ve been clearing that space for artists for years, and with New Music Daily as a live show we’ll continue to event-ize music, bringing an audience around shared listening moments, and reflecting the way artists want to release music on their own terms.
One of the consequences of streaming music services is that the release of an album is often not the way people hear the latest music from their favorite artists anymore. Instead, musicians release a steady stream of singles and EPs, only occasionally collecting them as full-length albums. It’s the kind of continuous change that demands a different approach to how new material is surfaced.
Having listened to the first episode of New Music Daily, it strikes me as a formula that will work. The playlist currently includes 85 songs, which is a lot. What Lowe’s new show does is provide context through his interviews and commentary that serve as an entry point into the larger playlist. By sending listeners to the playlist for the latest tracks from pop culture phenomenons like Swift and Gomez, New Music Daily can help spread awareness of lesser-known, emerging artists that included too.
You can check out the first episode of New Music Daily that aired Friday here.
In this week’s installment of the Shortcuts Corner, I share a custom Reminders-specific shortcut I’ve built to customize and enhance my daily experience with Apple’s task manager. Furthermore, I share a simple shortcut to quickly resume audio playback of any HomePod around the house and detail a new version of an old shortcut, which I’ve updated for iOS 13, made more flexible, and integrated with the rest of the system. Let’s dig in.
Apple today released the Apple TV app for Amazon TV devices, starting with the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and the older HD model. Support for Amazon Fire TV Cube, Fire TV (3rd generation penchant design) and some other models is coming soon.
The TV app experience on Amazon’s platform mirrors the functionality of the Roku app, which launched last week. Users can watch their purchased iTunes movies and TV shows, access Apple TV Channel subscriptions and watch Apple TV+ content when the streaming service launches on November 1st.
This isn’t a surprise, as the impending launch of Apple TV+ meant all previously-announced TV app platforms were likely to arrive before November 1st. Now that the app is available on Roku and Fire TV devices, plus Samsung TVs, the only platforms still waiting for support are smart TV sets from LG, Vizio, and Sony.
Last March, I sat down with Eli Hodapp at Blue Bottle Coffee in San Francisco. We were in town for the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC). For me, it was strange to be back in the environs of the Moscone Center for something other than WWDC. I felt a little like a fish out of water, and I sensed Hodapp did too, though for a very different reason.
You see, Hodapp had just announced that he was leaving as Editor-in-Chief of TouchArcade, after a decade of helping build it into one of the premier websites that covers iOS games. As a reader, I was sorry to see him go, but I was also eager to chat with Hodapp because what brought us together was the buzz surrounding the reason he left: GameClub.
GDC San Francisco 2019.
Hodapp and I are both from the Chicago area, but we’d never met before GDC. What led me to contact him was a column he’d written for gameindustry.biz about preserving the legacy of iOS games that had disappeared from the App Store, a topic that we’ve covered manytimes on MacStories and elsewhere in the past.
In the gameindustry.biz story, Hodapp explained why he left TouchArcade:
I’ve been incredibly vocal about preserving our digital history over the years, and it’s distressing to think how many great, historically important (and simply fun!) games have been lost. That reality is my prime motivation in stepping down from TouchArcade: to raise awareness of this problem.
Hodapp had joined GameClub as its VP of Business Development shortly before GDC to help build the library of 70 classic iOS games that are launching with the service today.
Over coffee, Hodapp and I discussed the state of gaming on iOS, game preservation, and, of course, GameClub. It was still very early days, but Hodapp articulated a clear vision of how classic iOS games could be resurrected in an economically viable way. As we chatted, Hodapp outlined the very thing GameClub is launching today: a service designed to reintroduce dozens of games to a new generation of iOS gamers without ads, manipulative In-App Purchases, or other gimmicks. The business model hadn’t been locked down yet, but if all the business and technical hurdles could be cleared, a subscription service was likely.
Shortly thereafter, GameClub launched a beta program to test games that it had already updated to work on modern iOS hardware and software. I joined immediately. I enjoyed playing some old favorites throughout the summer, and watching as the ranks of GameClub’s beta testers grew on Discord.
As I checked in periodically over the summer, it was clear that something about GameClub had struck a chord. For some gamers, it was the fatigue built up over many years from the constant barrage of ads and In-App Purchases. For others, it was the delight and nostalgia of rediscovering the first games they’d played on iOS. Even in those early days, it was clear that GameClub had tapped into something special by releasing a steady stream of classics and building a community of people that cared about them.
Now, after over seven months and many more beta-tested games, GameClub has launched, and I love it. Not only is the service brimming with many of my all-time favorite iOS games, but the GameClub app itself is a terrific way to discover new games and keep track of favorites. There’s a lot going on with GameClub, so let’s dig in.
Stephen got into an eBay bidding war with someone he knows and Federico helps his friends with Catalina, before coming clean about his new iPhone case. The group also considers Apple’s expanding line of audio products and Myke reviews the iMac Pro.
You can listen below (and find the show notes here).
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