If you received a free one-year subscription to Apple TV+ when you purchased an iPhone a year ago, the free period was supposed to end next month. However, Jason Snell of Six Colors reports that Apple decided to extend the free subscription until February 2021, presumably because some of the new shows that should have been available right now to entice you to renew your subscription are delayed due to the pandemic. Apple could have made this announcement on Tuesday at the next Apple Event; the fact that Apple released this news before then makes me hope that Apple has a huge list of exciting announcements on Tuesday and didn’t have room for this one. Here are the shows that I have watched so far on Apple TV+, listed roughly in order of how much I enjoyed them: (1) Ted Lasso, (2) For All Mankind, (3) Trying, (4) The Morning Show, (5) Mythic Quest, (6) Dickinson, (7) See, (8) Home. To be clear, I enjoyed all of those shows, even the ones near the bottom of my list, just not as much as the ones near the top. I also enjoyed Greyhound, the only movie I’ve watched on Apple TV+. And now, the news of note from the past week:
- I mentioned yesterday that I expect to lots of new apps released that are specifically designed with the widgets feature in mind. Filipe Espósito of 9to5Mac reviews one such app, an app called Hidgets that displays selected health data on your home screen.
- Here is another one. Brent Dirks of AppAdvice reviews Sticky Widgets, which adds sticky notes to your screen.
- On the other hand, I absolutely, positively, cannot in any way condone doing this to your iPhone screen with widgets.
- Chance Miller of 9to5Mac reviews the Wi-Fi Smart Lock from August, a smart door lock that works with Apple’s HomeKit technology.
- Michael Simon of Macworld reviews the Apple Watch Series 6.
- Nicole Wetsman of The Verge explains why Apple needed to get U.S. FDA approval for the EKG feature that it included with the Series 4, but not for the blood oxygen monitor that it included with the new Series 6.
- Tim Hardwick of MacRumors offers tips and tricks for the Apple Watch.
- In the latest episode of the Same Brain video/audio podcast, Justine “iJustine” Ezarik and her sister Jenna interview Apple’s Bob Borchers and John Temus to discuss the new iPads. I’m always amazed at the quality of the videos produced by iJustine.
- And finally, this post started with Apple TV+ so let’s end with it too. Here is a trailer for the upcoming Apple TV+ show The Snoopy Show. It brings back so many happy memories of me watching the Charlie Brown specials near the holidays that I’m a little bummed that my kids are too old to watch cartoons with me, so I’ll have to find some other excuse to tell myself that it is OK for me to watch a Peanuts show.