Get ready for Apple TV: streaming service UK launch
The Apple streaming service, Apple TV+ UK launches this autumn with a slew of stars including Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Oprah Winfrey
Apple TV shows: Jennifer Aniston stars in The Morning Show
Watch out, Netflix, Apple is about to launch its own rival TV streaming service: Apple TV+. It arrives on devices worldwide on Friday 1 November.
And it's starting off at a competitive price: £4.99 a month after a seven-day free trial, which is half the price of Netflix. Also, the family sharing option means that up to six people can use the same account (the Netflix limit is four). Apple TV+ will be available via the Apple TV app on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iPod touch, Mac and other platforms including online at apple.com/uk/apple-tv-plus/
But can this new service offer enough compelling programmes to tempt viewers?
The Brains Behind the Fiction
Apple has pulled together an array of excellent creative talent to front their original content. Eminent filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, JJ Abrams, Sofia Coppola and Ron Howard are all involved.
'With Apple TV+, we are presenting all-original stories from the best, brightest and most creative minds, and we know viewers will find their new favourite show or movie on our service,' said Zack Van Amburg, Apple’s head of Worldwide Video.
The Morning Show
Apple release date: 1 November
Reese Witherspoon (Big Little Lies) stars in yet another female-led drama with a sparkling A-list cast, alongside Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell, in The Morning Show, a newsroom satire examining the workings of a daytime TV show.
The series is loosely based on CNN journalist Brian Stelter's book Top of the Morning, detailing his experiences as a correspondent.
Read more
Dickinson
Apple TV release date: 1 November
Two Emily Dickinson film biopics have been released in the last few years, showing two completely different personalities. In Terence Davies’ A Quiet Passion, she's reclusive, shy, and anxious; while in last year's Wild Nights with Emily, she's flamboyant, exciting, and one half of a steamy romance with her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert.
Dickinson, starring Hailee Steinfeld (Pitch Perfect 2, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) as the revered 19th-century poet, looks to take the latter approach. The trailer doesn’t reveal much, but shows a much more extroverted Dickinson: dancing, arguing and spending some very wild nights in horse-drawn carriages.
Read more
For All Mankind
Apple TV release date: 1 November
What would have happened if the USSR had won the Space Race in the 60s, and planted the Red Banner on the moon’s surface? Such alt-reality questions are posed by Battlestar Galactica writer Ronald D Moore, who tries to unravel what might have been.
In the trailer, we see the losing Americans looking down in the dumps, especially Joel Kinnaman (Hanna) who plays esteemed astronaut Edward Baldwin. But Nasa tries to find ways to get one up on the Soviets, which includes creating an all-female astronaut team, building structures on the Moon, and preparing missions to ‘Mars, Saturn, the stars, the galaxy’.
See
Apple TV release date: 1 November
Instead of hiding in the shadows after the catastrophic Serenity, writer Steven Knight bravely returns to the genre with See.
Starring Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones, The Lego Movie 2) and Viola Davis (Widows), this post-apocalyptic series imagines a tribal world where everyone is blind. But when twins are born with the ability to see, their lives are threatened by a tribal queen who believes sight to be evil.
Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories
Apple TV release date: 2019
Spielberg is bringing back his 80s TV series Amazing Stories. Named after a sci-fi comic of the 20s, it's an anthology series with one 'amazing story' for each episode. Very little has been revealed, but Spielberg announced that one episode involves a WWII pilot who flies into a different time.
Apple + Oprah
Apple TV release date: 1 November
Oprah Winfrey is making a couple of documentaries for Apple. One, called Toxic Labor, is about workplace harassment, and the other is a multi-parter tackling mental health.
She's also hosting another iteration of Oprah’s Book Club, a regular show for discussing books – which was originally a segment on The Oprah Winfrey Show and continued on her website. Oprah made a surprise appearance at the Apple event and claimed her book club would be ‘the biggest, the most vibrant, the most stimulating book club on the planet’.
Other Shows
Little Voice is a New York-based series from JJ Abrams and singer Sara Bareilles, which follows a female musician working her way up in the music business.
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V Gordon, co-writers of The Big Sick, are making an anthology series inspired by the lives of immigrants in the US. It's called Little America.
And M Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Glass) returns to television with his new psychological thriller, Servant, the plot of which has been kept super secret. Rupert Grint stars.
Apple TV+ launches worldwide on Friday 1 November 2019
And it's starting off at a competitive price: £4.99 a month after a seven-day free trial, which is half the price of Netflix. Also, the family sharing option means that up to six people can use the same account (the Netflix limit is four). Apple TV+ will be available via the Apple TV app on iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, iPod touch, Mac and other platforms including online at apple.com/uk/apple-tv-plus/
But can this new service offer enough compelling programmes to tempt viewers?
The Brains Behind the Fiction
Apple has pulled together an array of excellent creative talent to front their original content. Eminent filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, JJ Abrams, Sofia Coppola and Ron Howard are all involved.
'With Apple TV+, we are presenting all-original stories from the best, brightest and most creative minds, and we know viewers will find their new favourite show or movie on our service,' said Zack Van Amburg, Apple’s head of Worldwide Video.
The Morning Show
Apple release date: 1 November
Reese Witherspoon (Big Little Lies) stars in yet another female-led drama with a sparkling A-list cast, alongside Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell, in The Morning Show, a newsroom satire examining the workings of a daytime TV show.
The series is loosely based on CNN journalist Brian Stelter's book Top of the Morning, detailing his experiences as a correspondent.
Read more
Dickinson
Apple TV release date: 1 November
Two Emily Dickinson film biopics have been released in the last few years, showing two completely different personalities. In Terence Davies’ A Quiet Passion, she's reclusive, shy, and anxious; while in last year's Wild Nights with Emily, she's flamboyant, exciting, and one half of a steamy romance with her sister-in-law Susan Gilbert.
Dickinson, starring Hailee Steinfeld (Pitch Perfect 2, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse) as the revered 19th-century poet, looks to take the latter approach. The trailer doesn’t reveal much, but shows a much more extroverted Dickinson: dancing, arguing and spending some very wild nights in horse-drawn carriages.
Read more
For All Mankind
Apple TV release date: 1 November
What would have happened if the USSR had won the Space Race in the 60s, and planted the Red Banner on the moon’s surface? Such alt-reality questions are posed by Battlestar Galactica writer Ronald D Moore, who tries to unravel what might have been.
In the trailer, we see the losing Americans looking down in the dumps, especially Joel Kinnaman (Hanna) who plays esteemed astronaut Edward Baldwin. But Nasa tries to find ways to get one up on the Soviets, which includes creating an all-female astronaut team, building structures on the Moon, and preparing missions to ‘Mars, Saturn, the stars, the galaxy’.
See
Apple TV release date: 1 November
Instead of hiding in the shadows after the catastrophic Serenity, writer Steven Knight bravely returns to the genre with See.
Starring Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones, The Lego Movie 2) and Viola Davis (Widows), this post-apocalyptic series imagines a tribal world where everyone is blind. But when twins are born with the ability to see, their lives are threatened by a tribal queen who believes sight to be evil.
Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories
Apple TV release date: 2019
Spielberg is bringing back his 80s TV series Amazing Stories. Named after a sci-fi comic of the 20s, it's an anthology series with one 'amazing story' for each episode. Very little has been revealed, but Spielberg announced that one episode involves a WWII pilot who flies into a different time.
Apple + Oprah
Apple TV release date: 1 November
Oprah Winfrey is making a couple of documentaries for Apple. One, called Toxic Labor, is about workplace harassment, and the other is a multi-parter tackling mental health.
She's also hosting another iteration of Oprah’s Book Club, a regular show for discussing books – which was originally a segment on The Oprah Winfrey Show and continued on her website. Oprah made a surprise appearance at the Apple event and claimed her book club would be ‘the biggest, the most vibrant, the most stimulating book club on the planet’.
Other Shows
Little Voice is a New York-based series from JJ Abrams and singer Sara Bareilles, which follows a female musician working her way up in the music business.
Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V Gordon, co-writers of The Big Sick, are making an anthology series inspired by the lives of immigrants in the US. It's called Little America.
And M Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Glass) returns to television with his new psychological thriller, Servant, the plot of which has been kept super secret. Rupert Grint stars.
Apple TV+ launches worldwide on Friday 1 November 2019
