The Black Widow lawsuit continues to rev up (sorry, not sorry).Image: Marvel Studios
The covid-19 pandemic has gone a long way in forcing Hollywood to change the way it looks at movie releases, for good or ill—and how adapting to that change doesn’t always work out amicably. As Disney continues to try and settle its ongoing legal battle with Marvel’s Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson behind closed doors, however, CEO Bob Chapek has spoken about how the case shows how the studio, and industry at large, needs to adapt to the times.
Deadline reports that Chapek publicly addressed the situation with Johansson—who is suing Disney for an alleged breach of her contract regarding the simultaneous release of Black Widow earlier this year at theaters and as part of Disney+’s “Premier Access” service—during Goldman Sachs’ 30th annual Communacopia Conference. But while Chapek wouldn’t directly name Johansson or even her lawsuit (one that, after disparaging it as a move trying to take advantage of a poor studio worth $122.18 billion during a global pandemic, the studio is now looking to settle privately), the CEO did acknowledge that the last few years have changed the way studios should be approaching deals with talent.
“We’re in a moment of time where films were envisioned under one understanding about what the world would be, because frankly it hadn’t changed much,” Chapek said. “Remember, those films were made three or four years ago; those deals were cut three or four years ago. Then they get launched in the middle of a global pandemic where that pandemic itself is accelerating a second dynamic, which is this changing consumer behavior. So we’re sort of putting a square peg in a round hole right now where we’ve got a deal conceived under a certain set of conditions, that actually results in a movie that is being released in a completely different set of conditions.”
Chapek’s right in that it goes beyond the impact the pandemic has had on Hollywood and the theater industry to show the pace at which moviemaking has changed—it’s not just hybrid releases that have come along, but the platforms those releases are happening on in the first place as well. Four years ago services like Disney+, HBO Max, Apple TV+, and Paramount+ were still all big ideas in the works, let alone services that would suddenly become the major debut platforms for tentpole blockbusters for the studios behind them. The move toward studio-owned streaming and the desire for audiences to stay at home to limit the spread of a deadly virus created a one-two punch that not even a force like the House of Mouse could’ve predicted and prepared for when deals for movies like Black Widow were first being drawn up.
But that’s only an excuse in that no one, Disney or otherwise, could’ve seen the state of 2020-2021 coming. It doesn’t excuse the way Disney went about first trying to address Johansson’s grievances, nor does it address what the studio’s going to be doing going forward in this new normal. But Chapek at least paid lip service to what should probably be a basic concept for Disney at this point: it should be doing right by the people who work for it. “Ultimately, we’ll think about that as we do our future talent deals and plan for that and make sure that’s incorporated. But right now we have this sort of middle position, where we’re trying to do right by the talent, I think the talent is trying to do right by us, and we’re just figuring out our way to bridge the gap,” Chapek concluded. “Ultimately we believe our talent is our most important asset, and we’ll continue to believe that, and as we always have, we’ll compensate them fairly per the terms of the contract that they agreed to us with.”
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I’d say maybe don’t say that your aggrieved movie stars have a “callous disregard” for the times in which we live is a good starting point for believing those stars are your most important asset, but then again, I’m not worth $122.18 billion, so what do I know.
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I spy… an iPhone with no notch. Screenshot: Apple TV+
Apple TV+’s Ted Lasso is about a folksy American football coach hired to help a stumbling British soccer club, but gadget nerds were buzzing about something else spotted in last Friday’s episode: a potentially notch-free iPhone 13.
The cast of Ted Lasso is frequently seen using Apple products within the show, but eagle-eyed viewers noticed something unusual in a scene where a character whips out her iPhone to check a message. As you can see in the photo above, there was no notch in sight. The back of the phone appears to be an iPhone 12, but the front doesn’t have the distinctive notch we’ve all come to love and respect with no animosity whatsoever. The phone also appears to have the same default wallpaper used in iOS 14.
That appears to be an iPhone 12 from the back. Rebecca’s face is Apple right now. Image: Apple TV+
Apple is notorious for its secrecy, so it seems unlikely that this is a deliberate signal that the notch is disappearing from the iPhone 13. That said, it’s been rumored for months now that the iPhone 13 would have a much smaller notch or a hole-punch selfie camera. However, a completely notchless display isn’t believed to be in the cards for this year’s iPhone. It’s also possible that this was an unintentional goof during the post-editing process. After all, there are several close-up shots of iPhones within the same episode where the notch is visibly present. Though users on Twitter did seem to spot more than one instance of the notchless phone, so who can say?
CGI is actually used quite heavily in Ted Lasso, mostly during scenes where the fictional football club AFC Richmond plays their matches in crowded stadiums. (You can check out a neat video over at The Mary Sue to see how extensive those visual effects shots can be.) Viewers are also convinced in various corners of the internet that Brett Goldstein, the actor who plays the cantankerous Roy Kent, is also somehow a completelyCGI character as part of a broader Apple conspiracy. The latter is obviously a bit out there, but given that CGI is a part of the show’s DNA, it’s not entirely implausible that perhaps an editor got a bit too heavy-handed by accident.
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Whether it’s a cheeky nod or a complete gaffe, it’s not as if we’ll have to wait too long to see what the iPhone 13 will look like. The phones are rumored to go on sale on Sept. 17, meaning we should be getting word about an iPhone launch event in the coming weeks.
Andrew Scott and Lily James star in The Pursuit Of LovePhoto: Robert Vigalsky/Amazon Studios
The Favouritedid what Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinettefailed to do—inspire a revolution in period piece aesthetics. Since Yorgos Lanthimos’ oddball royal court dramedy swept the Oscars, Apple TV+’s Dickinson, Hulu’sThe Great, Autumn de Wilde’s Emma, and Greta Gerwig’s Little Womenhave all found success in injecting contemporary style and a modern sensibility into the standard historical drama template. And for its first episode, at least, Amazon Prime Video’s interwar drama The Pursuit Of Love follows suit. When young British cousins Linda Radlett (Lily James) and Fanny Logan (Emily Beecham) meet their neighbor Lord Merlin (Fleabag’s Andrew Scott), the eccentric aristocrat is introduced in a fantasy sequence that channels ballroom culture by way of glam rock. Set to T. Rex’s “Dandy In The Underworld,” the glitter-filled scene filters a late 1920s experience through a distinctly modern visual language in order to make this meeting of minds feel as alive as it would have to its characters. It’s an exhilarating mix of style and substance.
It’s just a shame the rest of the show can’t keep up that level of verve. After the premiere launches the series with visual flair and a unique point of view, the next two episodes slowly devolve into more standard period piece fare. Despite its initial promise of quirky innovation, The Pursuit Of Love is mostly anchored by the familiar building blocks of a BBC co-production: sumptuous costuming, gorgeous cinematography, and strong performances. Based on Nancy Mitford’s 1945 novel of the same name, the show can only intermittently keep its spark of originality alive. The Pursuit Of Love oftenstruggles to blend its kitschy comedic sensibilities with its more dramatic beats—although it’s a joy to watch when it does.
Set between 1927 and 1941, The Pursuit Of Love centers on the divergent experiences of its two female leads. Plain, pragmatic Fanny (Beecham) was given a good education but has a natural timidity and a desire not to rock the boat that sets her on the path towards a conventional life of mid-20th-century womanhood. Linda (James), meanwhile, is a beautiful, free-spirited rebel who “lives in a world of superlatives.” Her stern father (Dominic West, hilarious and terrifying) believes women shouldn’t be educated and raises his children in what amounts to a glamorous prison at their wealthy country estate. That leaves Linda both woefully naïve and desperate to escape, which sets her on a series of complicated romantic entanglements that come to define her tragicomic life. Love may be her religion, but she’s worshipping at a fickle altar.
The three-episode series is adapted and directed by Emily Mortimer, who also has a small role as Fanny’s mother “The Bolter,” the responsibility-averse serial monogamist that Fanny and Linda define their lives against. Mortimer zeroes in on the “either/or” limitations put on upper class women in this era: They can be dutiful wives and mothers with social respectability but not a whole lot of fun or freedom (“the stickers”). Or they can put their own needs before that of their spouses and children, carving out a sense of independence but losing their social respect in the process (“the bolters”). Fanny and Linda’s friendship is defined by the way they alternately fear and crave what the other has. As in her previous series, Doll & Em, Mortimeris interested in complex relationships between women. Linda and Fanny share both an aspirational intimacy and a toxic co-dependency, which Mortimer allows to ebb and flow in realistic and compelling ways.
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The main problem with The Pursuit Of Love is that it very much feels like a novel condensed into a limited series form—not least of all because of Fanny’s near-incessant narration throughout the series. The focused first episode gives way to a jam-packed second installment that weaves its way across England before hopping to 1930s Hollywood, a refugee camp at the border of the Spanish War, and eventually Gay Paree. The supporting characters are thinly sketched, while the relationship between Fanny and Linda battles for screen time with Linda’s various romantic conquests. The Pursuit Of Love either needed more episodes to explore its decade-long story or Mortimer needed to be a little more judicious in what she cut from the source material.
It doesn’t help that Linda is like a cross between Downton Abbey’s Lady Rose andMamma Mia! Here We Go Again’s Donna Sheridan, with a dash of War And Peace’s Natasha Rostova. This isn’t just a part James could play in her sleep, but one she basically already has. Though James effortlessly zings between flirtatious fun and deep melancholy, she’s missing a spark of freshness as this “Bright Young Thing,” especially when she has to spend the entire first episode playing a teenager. It’s yet another element of familiarity that weighs down The Pursuit Of Love. While the show’s focus on female friendship and feminist themes is appreciable, it’s not all that radical to see a British period piece center on relationships between beautiful, upper class white women—as much of James’ own career can attest.
Instead, the most relevant themes that emerge from The Pursuit Of Love are about what it’s like to live at a time when it feels like the world is about to end. With war in Europe imminent, Linda initially tries to find purpose in communism only to eventually bury herself in a frivolous life of shopping and luxury instead. “She was possessed by a calm and happy fatalism,” Fanny explains in voiceover as Linda meets the rise of fascism by purchasing yet another new outfit. It’s not entirely unlike the way we must all figure out how to cope in the current face of climate change, a global pandemic, and yet another rise in fascism. Like the glam rock montages and wry Wes Anderson-inspired cutaways, Linda’s glamorous nihilism adds a spiky edge that occasionally jazzes up The Pursuit Of Love’s classic period piece formula with something new.
If iOS 14 was a visual overhaul that gave you full control over how your iPhone looks, iOS 15 is a logistical one that gives you full control over how your iPhone behaves, which in turn will change how you use it.
Let me back up: Many of us feel like our phones have way too much power over us, with their constant dings and buzzes and red badges that signify just how many alerts are beckoning our attention away from other, more important things happening in our actual lives. And Apple clearly recognizes that people are unhappy with the amount of time they spend on their iPhones, which is why iOS 15 is packed with features that allow you to more carefully curate your experience with this glass-and-metal safety blanket/albatross. These features put you in the driver’s seat—they won’t work for you unless you put them to work—but once you take the wheel, so to speak, you’ll have a much more balanced relationship with your phone. Or at least that’s the goal.
I’ve been spending some time with the iOS 15 beta, which is now available for the public to install, and as a detail-oriented person who spends many hours of her day on her iPhone and would like to cut back, using new features like Focus and Notification Summary to customize every part of my phone experience definitely sparks joy. iOS 15 is not without its irritations (more on my Safari fury later), but it brings some welcome changes.
This preview isn’t meant to be a thorough evaluation of every single new feature—we’re still in beta, and some things will change before the official launch this fall. But this is a sneak peek of how it feels to use iOS 15 every day, and if you’re feeling brave and want to give it a try, now you can install it, too. The usual caveat applies: It’s best not to install beta software on a device you rely on, though I’ve found iOS 15 stable so far and have been using it with the iPhone 12 Pro I use daily.
Cool? Cool. Here’s what it’s like to live with iOS 15.
Ending Notification Overload
My Notification Summary bundles alerts I don’t need to see right away.Photo: Caitlin McGarry/Gizmodo
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I hate notifications. But I love notifications. In my many years of iPhone use, I’ve whittled down the number of apps I allow to send me alerts. I try not to check Twitter after work, for instance, and it may take me ages to respond to a reply or a DM because I keep those notifications turned firmly off. But this also means I miss things that are timely. Apple’s new Notifications Summary feature gives me more granular control, so instead of feeling like I have to choose between all notifications or none at all, I can turn alerts back on for relevant apps and instead choose to have them bundled in one summary at a given time (or multiple times) throughout the day. It’s strange how such a little thing can make you feel a lot more in control of your brain.
Setting it up is simple: Tap Settings, then Notifications, and at the top, you’ll see a new option to create a Scheduled Summary. From here, you can choose what times of day you want to receive summaries. I receive summaries at 7:15 a.m. when I’m doing my usual pre-work phone scroll, 12 p.m. when I’m eating lunch, and 5:45 p.m., as I’m ending my workday and before I exercise. You can also customize which apps are bundled in the summary and which can break through and deliver alerts immediately. The new feature helpfully shows you which apps send you a shit-ton of notifications throughout the day to help you make an informed decision as to how often you really need to see those alerts. I want to see breaking news app notifications and Slack messages, but I don’t really need Postmates and Uber Eats to get through immediately (no matter how good those discount codes are).
I can’t say for certain whether the Notification Summary is cutting down my phone use—my weekly Screen Time reports are still disconcertingly hostile. But another iOS 15 feature goes further than the new summary does, and while I’m still figuring out how to make it work for me, Focus offers a dramatic shift in the way I use my phone.
Narrow Your Focus
You can access Focus by swiping down from Control Center.Photo: Caitlin McGarry/Gizmodo
The concept behind Apple’s Screen Time feature, which lets you see which apps suck up most of your time and exactly how many hours you have them open, is a good one. But god, it just makes me feel so guilty. You can give yourself time limits for specific apps or categories of apps, and while I honestly tried to abide by them for a while, I confess I began to ignore them and finally turned them off. Now I just get the depressingly consistent weekly reports. Yes, I realize four hours is a lot of time to spend on a phone. No, I’m not sure how to minimize that!
Well, Focus might be the answer. Like the Notification Summary, Focus gives you granular control over how you interact with your phone by focusing on alerts. Sure, I often mindlessly scroll Instagram of my own accord, but usually, it’s because I received a meme and the next thing I know I’ve spent another five minutes trying to find a suitable meme to respond with. The last thing I want to do is get caught up in an Instagram scroll-cycle when I’m trying to focus on work, so my new thing is a Focus profile specifically customized for boosting my productivity.
Focus gives you so much control over how your iPhone demands your attention.Screenshot: Caitlin McGarry/Gizmodo
You can set up Focus in two ways: Either from Settings, or by swiping down from the top-right of your home screen to bring up the Control Center. From there, you’ll see a new Focus setting. Tap it, and you can toggle on Do Not Disturb, switch to a specific Focus profile, or set up a new one. My “Work” setting is basically designed to allow notifications from apps I’m already using on my desktop (Slack, Gmail, Airtable, etc.). I also allow text messages through from a curated group of people. Everyone else gets a canned “I’m busy” response (though you can choose not to send this notification). Folks not allowed through can choose to send the message anyway, so it’s delivered “quietly.” I also set up a “Vacation” profile, because I know myself and I will absolutely check my work email and Slack while I’m on PTO if I receive any pings from those apps.
As part of Focus, you can set up custom home screens that banish all other apps. I spent an honestly ridiculous amount of time setting these up and painstakingly curating the apps that I wanted to see on my Work vs. Vacation home screens. My Work home screen has news headlines, of course, and small widgets devoted to Spotify and Weather (I am usually Team Giant Weather Widget, but I’m trying to be more practical). Quick access to apps I use constantly to get my job done, like Gmail, Slack, Voice Memos, and Notes, also earn placement on the Work home screen. My Vacation profile, meanwhile, is where Weather really shines. I banish email from that home screen and bring Instagram back.
I want to say all this has been useful, and maybe that’s true. Given that I’ve been using my Apple devices a lot to test out the new beta features, I can’t say for certain that my post-beta life will have less screen time—it’s the nature of this job. But I can say that this feature is far more useful than Screen Time, because it allows you to curate your distractions instead of punishing you with frankly rude notifications for feeding into them. Sometimes all you need to do is reframe the narrative, you know?
Fun With FaceTime
SharePlay on the iPhone is perfect for listening to music with friends.Photo: Caitlin McGarry/Gizmodo
FaceTime is getting a long-overdue upgrade with features people actually want instead of… the ability to replace your face with a Memoji. (That’s cool and all, I guess, but come on.) The overhauled FaceTime is a welcome change, even if a year or so later than we all would’ve preferred.
Let’s start with SharePlay, which is Apple’s version of a watch and/or listening party. While most of us were living under lockdown during the pandemic, I regularly watched shows simultaneously with friends, but it didn’t really feel like we were together. Sometimes we chatted on the phone while streaming something, or sometimes we listened to new albums and texted about them, but there was something missing. SharePlay lets you bring videos and music from supported apps into your FaceTime call, so you can watch or listen together while also seeing your loved ones’ faces and hearing their commentary.
How it works: After you hop on a FaceTime call, you can pop out of FaceTime and open an app that supports SharePlay (currently only Apple’s apps, with a slew of third-party options coming soon). At the top of the app screen, you’ll see a notification that you can immediately enable SharePlay. You can also start playing content without first activating SharePlay, and you’ll receive a prompt to play the content for just yourself or with your FaceTime contact(s). It’s incredibly easy to turn on, and there’s no lag whatsoever—when streaming a video in Apple TV+ with a friend across the country, we chatted while the video played, and I could both hear him clearly and see the video.
I really love this feature. I prefer it specifically on the iPad, at least when it comes to watching videos (more on that in my iPadOS 15 deep dive coming soon), but it’s also great on the iPhone, where you can quickly share your screen to browse a Safari page together or pop open Apple Music to dissect a new single from a fave artist.
As mentioned, the feature is currently only supported on Apple apps like TV+ and Apple Music, with more services coming when iOS 15 officially rolls out to the public. Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, MasterClass, NBA, TikTok, Twitch, ESPN+, and Paramount+ are all on board. And with the SharePlay API, I expect that to expand. Your friend will also have to have a subscription to the service you want to use together, at least for Apple’s premium apps—there’s no getting around it. You also can’t screenshot or record content from within an app while using SharePlay. But the good news is that if someone takes a screenshot (which will be of your face and a blank screen), you’ll receive a notification instantly. You’ll also be notified when someone adjusts the playback, and you can adjust it, too.
I really prefer a bigger screen for watching videos, but once my nieces figure out that they can FaceTime and watch YouTube with their friends simultaneously, they might never leave their rooms. YouTube doesn’t currently support SharePlay, though you can technically use the screen-sharing feature to share whatever you want. It’s not as elegant a solution as in-app SharePlay support, but it gets the job done.
Android Joins the FaceTime Party
FaceTime has a slew of other new features, but aside from SharePlay, the second-biggest deal is being able to create a link to a FaceTime call. I can’t begin to count the number of times I’ve tried to coordinate a video call with friends or colleagues where we have to figure out which platform to use. FaceTime is a natural choice for those of us with iPhones—it’s far less cumbersome than Zoom, that’s for sure—but those on Android phones and PCs can’t jump in. That’s changed, and it’s really, really great. You can now create FaceTime links and share them out to anyone, no iPhone required. You can even schedule FaceTimes, though one weird hiccup is that you can’t schedule one directly from the FaceTime app. Instead, you have to hop on over to the Calendar app and create an invitation before being able to create a FaceTime link.
FaceTime’s Android look on a Pixel is very iOS.Screenshot: Florence Ion/Gizmodo
But otherwise, it’s totally seamless. I sent a calendar invite with a FaceTime link to my colleagues Victoria Song and Florence Ion, one of whom is using iOS 15 and the other an Android phone, and while the notification was a bit more seamless for Victoria on iPhone, Flo received an email with a link that she was able to hop into using her Pixel’s web browser—she just had to give FaceTime permission to use her phone’s mic and camera. As the creator of the FaceTime link, I received notifications when both Flo and Victoria requested to join the call; simply being invited and having the link didn’t allow them instant entry, which is a useful privacy feature.
Flo reported that using FaceTime on Android was a breeze. As a die-hard Android user who will never switch to iPhone but sometimes feels the Green Bubble Blues, she plans to use the new feature with her iPhone-toting family and friends—and I’m glad iOS is extending this olive branch to Android to avoid leaving anyone out.
New Safari Creates Problems to Be Solved
OK, so now that we’ve run through all the good in iOS 15, we need to talk about the… not-so-good. Safari, I’m lookin’ at you.
Do you see how the new Safari address bar bounces around? It’s distressing!Gif: Caitlin McGarry/Gizmodo
Safari’s redesign in iOS 15 is drastic. It’s the little things. It’s the big things. It all adds up to a really annoying experience that challenges my muscle memory on a near-constant basis. I have similar grievances with Safari in macOS Monterey and iPadOS 15, but using Safari on the iPhone is irritating in unique and specific ways—so far.
Let’s go over what’s changed: First, Apple has moved the address bar to the bottom of the screen. This makes it easier to tap on it when using your phone with one hand, sure, but after entering an address or a search query, the bar shoots back up to the top of the screen to make room for the keyboard. Press enter and it drops back down to the bottom. It’s weird, I hate it, and I’m still not used to it—and I have pint-sized hands that in theory should actually benefit from this placement.
Apple has also buried pretty much every option behind a menu next to the search bar. For instance, the reload button is gone—you have to tap on the More menu and then tap again to refresh a page. You can pull down on a webpage to refresh it, too, but first, you have to scroll up or tap at the top of the screen to jump back up, and this is an extra step that won’t be intuitive for most people. That menu is also where the Reader view option now lives—again, not a thing that most people will figure out quickly. It seems like a sure-fire way to confuse folks, with no real benefit.
Now let’s talk about Tab Groups, a new Safari feature I actually love. On my iPhone, I usually keep open pages to a minimum just because they’re too unwieldy. Now that I can keep them organized, well, I’ve been going wild. I have a group of tabs devoted to a place I want to travel to, another group of tabs for work-related articles I swear I will read later at some point, and another for clothes I plan to buy once the world fully reopens and I have to toss the jeans I haphazardly turned into cut-off shorts without really thinking that through. Tab Groups sync to your other devices to keep you organized. Some of you are tab freaks—I’ve seen an honestly unhinged amount of open tabs on a person’s iPhone before, so I know it to be true—and the good news is that there are theoretically an endless amount of Tab Groups you can create. (If you somehow hit the limit, congrats, and please e-mail me to say how many.)
I’ve been using this new Safari for a while now, and I still can’t figure out what problems its design changes are solving. Safari was good before. Some of its new features, like Tab Groups, are actually useful. But the address bar, the reload button, the needless complexity—I really hope this is all fixed before iOS 15 officially rolls out.
Messages, Maps, Weather, and More
There are so many little things I love about iOS 15, and I’ve barely scratched the surface. Here’s a quick rundown of other features making my life much easier:
Shared With You: A new Messages feature surfaces links and photos from your texts and puts them in easily discoverable places where you’ll actually remember them, like your Photos app for shared images or the Safari homepage for web links.
Live Text: Apple’s new Camera feature that lifts texts from photos is, I believe, some form of wizardry. It’s so damn fast. If you’re using an iPhone XS or later, point your camera at anything with text on it—a magazine, a sign, a document—and you can capture, copy/paste, look up, or translate words directly from the camera preview. You can also select text from an existing photo, even ones you haven’t taken yourself. And if you’re in a blank text field, you can use a new keyboard camera option to capture text and paste it into the field. (This is super useful when it comes to entering things in Notes.) I absolutely love this feature.
Weather: Apple brought the best features from Dark Sky over to the iOS Weather app, and I love it. I live in Los Angeles, so the more granular forecasts will probably be more useful for people in cities with actual seasonal variety, but I like the new design just the same.
Maps: I’m a Google Maps kind of person, but the new Apple Maps looks damn good. It’s incredibly detailed, and the improved driving directions are definitely welcome.
There are some features that are still not available to try out yet, like adding driver’s licenses to the Wallet app, and others I’m still diving into. But overall, iOS 15 will be a meaningful upgrade—despite Safari—for those who want to regain some semblance of power over technology.
Roku’s newest Voice Remote Pro (left) next to a previous generation of Roku remote.Photo: Catie Keck/Gizmodo
If you go all-in on Roku’s new Voice Remote Pro, you may end up getting one sans the Apple TV+ button seen in marketing materials.
When I was shipped a Voice Remote Pro last week, the one I received had four streaming buttons on the wand: Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, and Sling TV. But marketing images for the Pro depicted the remote with the Hulu button scooched over on the bottom row and an Apple TV+ button in place of a Sling shortcut. The discrepancy was initially spotted by Zatz Not Funny!, and Roku confirmed to Gizmodo that the remote with the Apple TV+ button will take a minute to begin shipping.
“The button transition on the Roku Voice Remote Pro will take a few months but in the meantime customers can use their voice to program a personal shortcut button to launch their favorite channels,” a spokesperson said.
Indeed, a pair of programmable buttons are one of a handful of great things about the Voice Remote Pro, which is also rechargeable. In addition to its “find my remote” and hands-free features, personalized shortcut keys will allow Apple TV+ subscribers to get around this hiccup fairly easily. The button issue will, however, likely be annoying to anyone who is not a Sling subscriber but is a paying customer of Apple’s service.
A marketing image depicting an Apple TV+ shortcut button on the new Voice Remote Pro.Image: Roku
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It’s unclear why the button was depicted in marketing materials and why the change appears to have happened so late in the game. But it does indicate that Roku has doubled down on its initiative to win over Apple users, even for a service that’s fairly new to the space and still working to build up a substantial library of originals.
Roku has aggressively expanded support for Apple users who opt for its streaming devices over Apple’s own set-top boxes, which are significantly more expensive than many of Roku’s devices. Roku finally introduced AirPlay 2 and HomeKit support on its 4K devices with the Roku OS 9.4 update, and its inclusion of the Apple TV+ button directly on its remotes further demonstrates the company’s willingness to target Apple users.
But it does appear that marketing materials jumped the gun a bit. So if an Apple TV+ button is a make-or-break upgrade requirement for you, it looks like we may have to wait a few months before we’ll start seeing it become widely available.
Tina Fey and Meredith Scardino’s comedy series Girls5evawas one of the more high-profile announcements of Peacock’s first wave (because it was co-created by Tina Fey and has a pretty famous cast), and now we finally have our first look at the series. Girls5eva, as you might be able to guess from that name, is about a ‘90s girl group that suddenly gets renewed relevance when a rapper samples their one hit, inspiring them to reunite and plan a comeback. The girls are played by Sara Bareilles, René Elise Goldsberry, Paula Pell, and Busy Philipps, making this Bareilles second big TV project in the last couple of years and second big TV project for a fledgling streaming service (she did the music for Apple TV+’s Little Voice and appeared in the series as herself).
Girls5eva will premiere on Peacock on May 6, and you can see a trailer for it below this.
Apple’s tinkering with AR, VR and MR.Photo: Mladen Antonov / AFP (Getty Images)
While the rumblings over Apple’s planned venture into augmented reality, virtual reality and mixed reality have been getting louder recently, we now have a series of dates for these devices by prognosticator Ming Chi-Kuo, a good source with a reliable track record on all things Apple.
In a research note with TF International Securities obtained by MacRumors, Kuo stated that Apple will release an MR helmet type product by 2022, an AR glasses type product by 2025 and an AR contact lens type product by 2030-2040. The Apple prognosticator didn’t have a lot to say about the Apple contact lenses, stating that the lenses will bring electronics from the era of “visible computing” to “invisible computing.” He added that there is “no visibility” for the product as of now.
“We predict that Apple’s MR/AR product roadmap includes three phases: helmet type by 2022, glasses type by 2025, and contact lens type by 2030–2040,” Kuo wrote, per MacRumors. “We foresee that the helmet product will provide AR and VR experiences, while glasses and contact lens types of products are more likely to focus on AR applications.”
When it comes to Apple’s MR headset, though, Kuo had a lot more to say. In terms of size, the analyst stated that several prototypes of Apple’s mixed reality headset weighed between 0.4-0.6 pounds (200 to 300 grams). However, Apple’s apparent goal is to reduce the weight to between 0.2-0.4 pounds (100-200 grams), which would make the company’s headset a lot lighter than many existing devices.
It will also be portable, Kuo stated in the report, and have independent computing power and storage. Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean that it will be truly “mobile,” like an iPhone, at least at first. Kuo stated that he expects the new helmet to improve its mobility as technology improves.
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The analyst also added weight to the rumor that Apple’s headset will be equipped with sophisticated micro OLED displays. The company is working with Sony on this, he said, which is in contrast to previous reports that stated Apple was working with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. With the micro OLED displays and several optical modules, the headset will be able to provide a “see-through AR experience,” as well as a VR experience.
Now here’s the thing, why should you buy Apple’s MR headset when there are a lot less expensive options to choose from?
“Although Apple has been focusing on AR, we think the hardware specifications of this product can provide an immersive experience that is significantly better than existing VR products. We believe that Apple may highly integrate this helmet with video-related applications (e.g., Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, etc.) as one of the key selling points,” Kuo wrote.
He stated that Apple’s mixed reality headset is expected to cost around $1,000 in the U.S.
As far as Apple’s AR glasses go, which are expected to provide an “optical see-through AR experience,” the Apple prognosticator expects a 2025 launch at the earliest. We’ll see if that pans out, as Kuo said he doesn’t think there’s a prototype for this product yet.
All in all, those are some exciting predictions from Kuo. Now let’s remember, although he is a noteworthy source, not everything he predicts comes true. If it is true, though, these Apple devices could change the game for AR and VR if they’re good.