Wedbush Sees Apple Spending Billions for Live Sports
Image by Keith Johnston from Pixabay
Are you ready for some sportstball? Wedbush analyst Dan Ives thinks Apple is. Late last week, MacRumors outlined a note he wrote. According to Mr. Ives, Apple’s in an “aggressive hunt” for live sports to stream, and is “ready to spend billions” to get it. Quoting his note.
With Apple spending $7 billion annually on original content and having roughly $200 billion of cash on its balance sheet, we believe the company is gearing up to bid on a number of upcoming sports packages coming up for contract/renewals in future years. We note that upcoming sports packages potentially for bid over the next four years that Apple can be involved with (in some capacity/semi-exclusive) are: NFL (Sunday Night Ticket), Big Ten, Pac 12, Big East, Big 12, other NCAA sports packages (2024 timing), NASCAR, and the NBA/WNBA.
Ives’ thinking folds in nicely with a report last week from the New York Post. That indicated that Apple was in “serious talks” to broadcast Major League Baseball games, likely in a non-exclusive deal. That said, it’s hard to know whether Ives is hearing something similar to what the Post is hearing, or simply extrapolating from it.
Ives has a “Buy” rating on Apple shares. His price target on the shares is $200.
Bloomberg: Apple AR/VR Headset May Be Pushed to 2023
It may be time to stop talking about Apple’s anticipated AR/VR headset again - at least for a while.
Remember the start of 2021, when rumors flew fast and furious that Apple was on the verge of announcing a partnership to build a car? Then that partnership reportedly died, while news of another immediately took its place? All of this against the backdrop of Apple preparing a plant to build the blessed beast in the southeastern U.S? It was a heady time. But, as winter gave way to spring, big car stories sort of melted away. They went back to the usual cadence of “here’s who Apple hired,” “here’s who Apple lost,” “here’s how much Apple could make in cars, if…” It was the center of the Apple watching world to start 2021, fading back to another point to consider down the road.
I’m getting a sense of deja vu, only time with the headset. Though only a couple of weeks old, 2022 has been rife with stories of anticipation and expectation around Apple’s MR/VR/AR/XR thing (like here and here and here and here), though those stories are already… well, they’re not losing steam exactly, though they are getting tempered. Take the latest from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. Apparently citing secret so-and-sos, 9 to 5 Mac has Gurman saying:
The headset — a high-end device that blends virtual and augmented reality — was targeted for an unveiling at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference in June, followed by a release later in the year. But development challenges related to overheating, cameras and software have made it harder to stay on track, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private.
That could push the announcement until the end of 2022 or later, with the product hitting shelves by 2023, the people said.
I really want this thing to happen. And I really think it might be time to stop talking about it for a bit. We’ll see how the stories go.
Apple Allowing Third-Party Payments in Dating Apps in the Netherlands
A change demanded of Apple in the Netherlands is coming to pass. According to a headline from Engadget, “Apple will let dating apps in the Netherlands offer third-party payments.” Just ahead of the holidays we heard word that Dutch regulators would require Apple to allow dating apps to employ payments systems other than Apple’s own. Now, Engadget has Apple saying it will bow to the demand. Citing a report from Reuters, the piece says:
…Apple confirmed it would comply with orders from the Netherlands' Authority for Consumers and Markets forcing it to allow third-party payment systems in Tinder and other locally-offered dating apps. The regulator determined on December 24th that Apple had abused its market power by requiring its in-app purchasing platform, and gave Apple until January 15th to make the change if it wanted to avoid fines.
Though Apple is going along, the report says the Cupertino-company is also appealing the decision. Interestingly, the order from and action in the Netherlands only applies to dating apps. One wonders whether that will stay true going forward.
Apple Starts Payouts Process from Small Developer Assistance Settlement
Most developers who’ve tried to sell in Apple’s App Store over the past half-decade can now ask the company for money. Apple Insider says the Cupertino-company has set up a website to get funds to eligible developers as part of a lawsuit and App Store settlement. “The lawsuit originated in 2019,” according to the report:
…when a class of app developers sued Apple for alleged abuses of power like mandatory pricing and the annual App Store fee. In August 2021, Apple settled the lawsuit, which led to the creation of a $100 million fund for small developers.
The piece says eligible developers include those who “sold their apps for a price between 2015 and 2021,” and who made less than a million dollars each year in that timeframe. If that’s you, Apple Insider says you could claim between $250 and $30,000 from the fund's website. That went live Friday at SmallDeveloperAssistance.com.
Apple TV+ Posts 13-Minute “The Tragedy of Macbeth - Making the Film”
I’m not usually big on “behind the scenes” or making of stuff where modern movies are concerned. I think that’s because so much of what happens on a lot of modern film happens on computers. That is not to take away from the films. For me personally though, it takes a way of bit of the “behind the scenes” interest.
Did you watch The Tragedy of Macbeth this weekend? Yes, part of me wishes I’d seen it in the theatre. At the same time, I’m happy to still be COVID free. The film is stunning. Well acted. Beautifully designed. Beautifully shot. It’s available now on Apple TV+. If you head over to YouTube, you can also watch a 13-minute featurette, “The Tragedy of Macbeth — Making the Film.” I think that’s another reason the “behind the scenes” things leave me flat. You usually get two-to-five minutes. 13-minutes on this, I’m gonna say it, masterpiece. Takes from casting, from production design, from costuming, from photography, from the visual effects director, because yeah - there’s tons of computer stuff in this film, even if it doesn’t look like it. I thought the film was striking. The “making of” is fascinating. As mentioned earlier - The Tragedy of Macbeth is available now on Appel TV+. You can catch the “making of” video below.
JP Morgan Expects “Modest Beat” for AAPL in Q1 and Strengthening FY22
Lots of moving parts when considering Apple’s upcoming earnings report. Apple 3.0 ran part of a note from JP Morgan analyst Samik Chatterjee on Thursday, considering a few factors.
First, he expects Apple to beat the Street’s expectations for the recently ended holiday-quarter, though it will be a “modest beat,” in his estimation
Working in the quarter’s favor, an iPhone 13 cycle that’s “tracking better than investor expectations”
Keeping the beat “modest,” headwinds warned against on Apple’s last earnings call. While Apple did not offer guidance for the quarter on the call, it did say that supply constraints that cost Apple about $6 billion in the September-quarter would be larger in the December-quarter.
What Chat-Man’s really excited about, though, is the current quarter. Headed into the holidays, a lot of analysts said they weren’t worried about any missed iPhone sales due to supply constraints since people who couldn’t get them in the December-quarter would go ahead and pick them up in the March-quarter. He expects playing catchup to work for Apple this quarter and for the rest of FY22.
Mr. Chatterjee has an “Overweight” rating on Apple shares. His price target on the shares is $210.
Counterpoint: iPhone Takes Top Spot in China for Sixth Straight Week
iPhone is crushing it in China right now - so says a new note from Counterpoint Research. The market tracker issued a release on Thursday, saying that Apple’s communicator was the top phone in China for the sixth-week running. “With the release of the iPhone 13,” the piece says, “Apple has taken the top spot in sales in China and has maintained the number 1 position excluding the brief period during Singles Day.”
According to Counterpoint, the base model iPhone 13 is leading sales, followed by iPhone 13 Pro Max, then iPhone 13 Pro. The report indicates that the 13-line isn’t just outselling other phones, it’s outselling previous iPhones as well. The firm says “initials sales of the iPhone 13 series in China exceeds sales of its predecessors.” And where it falls down, iPhone 12 takes up the slack. Counterpoint says, “The relatively lower starting price [of iPhone 13] at its release in China helped boost sales, as well as the new camera and 5G features.” The firm goes on to say that Lucky 13’s success “is also followed by the strong performance of the iPhone 12, contributing to an increase in Apple’s overall sales.”
Tom Kang, Research Director at Counterpoint is quoted in the release, saying:
Apple’s only true competitor in China till now was Huawei and it is now facing serious production issues due to (…) US sanctions. Apple is likely to continue its high performance in China, until other competitors catch up in both brand and quality.
Evercore’s Daryanani Ups Apple Target on AR/VR Anticipation
Evercore analyst Amit Daryanani has raised his price target on Apple shares, and invited investors to play “What if…?” Apple 3.0 ran part of a note he wrote on Thursday, reiterating a call made by Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty late last year. She argued then that it was time for investors to factor in augmented reality, virtual reality, and Apple Car when considering the company’s future prospects. Now, Ad-Rock is speaking similarly, at least where AR and VR are concerned. Quoting his note:
We think investors continue to underappreciate AAPL’s potential to innovate and enter new markets where they can leverage and scale AAPL’s unique platform and vertical integration capabilities. AR/VR have become a hot topic post FB’s pivot to the metaverse, but AAPL has been working on AR/VR solutions for the last 4+ years and we expect the hype into a formal launch in late 2022 to serve as a catalyst to the stock price.
It’ll help extend iOS in the analyst’s estimation, “and importantly,” he says it’ll extend the App Store “from iPhone to the VR world.” On the conservative side, if Apple’s anticipated mixed reality headset only does as well as Apple Watch, “it could contribute $18.1B to sales,” in Daryanani’s estimation. Taking a bullish view, if it’s as big a success as AirPods, the headset could add $38B in sales.
Worth noting - that is only some of what Evercore’s expecting this year. In addition to the headgear, Daryanani’s also expecting a third iPhone SE this quarter, iPhone 14 later this year, and who knows what else. With that, he reiterated his “Outperform” rating on Apple shares. He also raised his price target on the shares from $180 to $210, as he sees “wearables becoming an important growth vector.”
iOS 14 Security Updates Stop as iOS 15 Adoption Lags
A strange bit of turnabout for iOS. A piece from Apple Insider says uptick for iOS 15 is lagging behind its predecessors, while a piece from MacRumors says Apple may be shoving things along. First, let’s hit 15’s standing.
According to Apple Insider, iOS 15 is currently installed on 72% of iPhones made in the last four years. Not bad, though it is behind the last two operating systems. At the same time during its release, iOS 13 was on 77% of compatible iPhones made in the prior four years, while last year’s iOS 14 was on 81%.
What’s changed? The way Apple Insider sees it:
It's likely that the reduced adoption rates are because of a change in Apple's update stance. The company is no longer forcing users to install the latest operating system version to gain important security updates.
Well, it wasn’t requiring that, though it seems now that it may be. That MacRumors piece mentioned earlier says Apple is “more aggressively pushing iOS 14 users to upgrade to iOS 15.” This it seems to be doing by removing the option to upgrade security features without updating the whole OS. “When iOS 15 launched,” says the report:
…Apple said that iOS offered a “choice between two software update versions,” pledging to offer security updates for those who opted to stick with iOS 14.
Yeah, it looks like they’re done with that. Last fall, one could choose to move to iOS 15 or just download security components for iOS 14. Now MacRumors says, that option “appears to have been eliminated with the launch of iOS 15.2.” The report says:
Apple did not reintroduce the remain on iOS 14 option in the iOS 15.2.1 update that came out [this week], which seems to be a clear sign that Apple is now expecting people to upgrade. iPhone users who want to have the latest security protections must now update to iOS 15.
The week started with folks jumping to conclusions around Private Relay. Makes me loathe to say “this is a thing Apple has done.” It does seem to be a thing that’s happening, though. One hopes the company will offer clarification at some point.
Attack of the App Store Clones
Apple’s Weeding Out Wordle Knock-Offs in the App Store
Copying and an accusation of copying in the App Store. Starting with the copying - have you played Wordle? Wordle is a daily, online word game. Kind of like “Master Mind,” if you remember that. You get six chances to figure out the five-letter word of the day. CNET says “hundreds of thousands of people” are playing. No log-ins. No subscriptions. No ads. No wonder copycats copied it.
How do you know which one’s fake? If it’s in the App Store, it’s fake. Wordle happens in the browser and doesn’t cost anything. Meanwhile CNET says, “[t]he Wordle wannabes range in price with some costing $1 or $2, while one version had an annual subscription of $30.”
The piece says Apple’s been killing the clones, but more keep coming. Search the App Store for “Wordle” and you’ll find several games that steal the gameplay or steal the gameplay and the name. My favorite one is “Wordle - Word Puzzle- A Free Word Game with a Twist.” It costs $1.99, which - you’ve got to admit, is a “twist” for a “free word game.”
PUBG Wants Free Fire Extinguished
As for the copycat accusation, Cult of Mac says “PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds” (PUBG) publishers Krafton and PUBG Santa Monica are suing Apple and Google over “‘Free Fire,’ a battle royale game developed by Garena Online.” According to the PUBG peeps, “Free Fire uses several copyrighted aspects of PUBG, including its game structure, in-game items, equipment, and locations.” They’ve asked Apple and Google to pull the alleged knock-off from their respective stores, though both companies have declined. And so, the piece says:
[Krafton and PUBG Santa Monica] are now suing Apple and Google in a bid to force their hands. Their lawsuit also calls for damages, and for Free Fire gameplay videos and a live-action dramatization based on the game to be removed from YouTube.
Apple Outlines Terms of Employee Bag Check Settlement
Eight-years in the making, it looks like Apple’s finally ready to pay employees for time lost standing in line. All the way back in 2013, employees of Apple Retail in California sued Apple for its bag check. Basically, if you brought a bag to work, management or security or somebody had to check that bag before employees left for the day.
It make sense. You wouldn’t want any hardware strolling off. The problem, the way the employees saw it, was they had to clock out before their bags were checked. Few people to check bags versus a large number of bags to check meant a lot of people standing around for a decent amount of time at the end of each shift. That’s time that was required of them, though for which they were not being paid.
Probably prompted by the lawsuit, a piece from MacRumors says Apple dropped the bag check policy six-years ago. Still, the suit raged on until 2020, when the piece says “the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that Apple needed to pay the employees for the time they had spent in bag searches.” Last year, MacRumors says:
Apple and lawyers for the Apple employees in California reached a settlement last year and in November, asked a judge to approve it. Apple has agreed to pay nearly $30 million, and the more than 14,000 workers involved in the lawsuit will receive payments based on the individual shifts worked. Current and former employees will be receiving emails and letters from Apple with specific information about their potential payment amount.
Details about the settlement can be found on Apple’s site.
Apple TV+ Announces Civil War Era Documentary Series “Lincoln’s Dilemma”
Man, Apple’s really getting into the whole Abe Lincoln thing, huh? Last week we heard word that Apple had ordered a limited series about the hunt for Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. Now, the Cupertino-company has announced the documentary series “Lincoln’s Dilemma.”
Based on the book Abe: Abraham Lincoln in His Times by historian David S. Reynolds, a press release on the production says the docu-series “is a 21st century examination of a complicated man and the people and events that shaped his evolving stance on slavery.” The release goes on to say:
…the series features insights from a diverse range of journalists, educators and Lincoln scholars, as well as rare archival materials, that offer a more nuanced look into the man dubbed the Great Emancipator. Set against the background of the Civil War, “Lincoln’s Dilemma” also gives voice to the narratives of enslaved people, shaping a more complete view of an America divided over issues including economy, race and humanity, and underscoring Lincoln’s battle to save the country, no matter the cost.
Bill Camp will give voice to Abraham Lincoln. Leslie Odom Jr. will do the same for Frederick Douglass. Jeffrey Wright will serve as narrator. All four episodes of “Lincoln’s Dilemma” hit Apple TV+ on Friday 18 February, just ahead of Presidents Day.
Apple TV+ Titles Nab Five Writers Guild Award Nominations
Image via WGA on Twitter
More award nominations for Apple TV+. Mid-week we heard word of the 13 Screen Actors Guild Award noms for Apple’s TV and movie offerings. Now, a piece from iMore says titles from Apple’s streaming service have picked up five nominations for this year’s Writers Guild Awards.
According to the report, “The Morning Show” is up for Best Drama Series. “Ted Lasso” is up for Best Comedy Series. “The Problem with Jon Stewart” has been nominated for Best Comedy/Variety Talk Series. A single episode of “The Morning Show” titled “La Amara Vita” has also been nominated, as has a single episode of “Helpsters.”
The 74th Writers Guild Awards will be held on Sunday 20 March.
Wall Street Analysts Track Pluses for iPhone
Lots of good tidings for Apple from analysts on Wednesday - largely tied to iPhone. Investors Business Daily had word of a few comments from analysts, starting with Raymond James analyst Chris Caso. According to Mr. C., checks of the iPhone 13 supply chain indicate that “production bottlenecks have now been solved.” Specifically, Apple’s apparently getting plenty of camera modules and power components that had limited supply. The analyst says he and his think constraints started easing early last month, “likely providing Apple with more supply than expected, and therefore providing an upward bias to (December-quarter) estimates.”
News of supply chain improvements bode well for the current quarter, in Caso’s estimation. iPhone sales usually get a boost from Chinese New Year. Now, it seems, there will be enough to go around.
Caso has an “Outperform” rating on Apple shares. Tip Ranks puts his price target on the shares at $185.
Loop Capital Markets analyst John Donovan is liking what he’s seeing in terms of iPhone’s average selling price. Folks are flocking to Pro models and models with more storage, in his estimation. Both of those factors drive up iPhone’s cost, and he thinks other analysts and investors are missing that. The way he sees it, everyone else is off by about 10%. Consensus has iPhone ASP coming in at $817, while Donovan and Co. think the actual ASP is closer to $900.
Loop Capital has a “Buy” rating on Apple shares. The firm’s price target on the shares is a sort of soggy $165.
In a note to investors from Goldman Sachs analyst Rod Hall agrees with Caso and Donovan on iPhone availability, though not on Apple sentiment. A piece from Apple Insider has rowdy eyeing availability of both the iPhone and Apple’s latest MacBook Pros. First, on the phone, Hall sees lead times for the iPhone 13 line at one-to-two days across most regions, with iPhone 13 Pro Max a notable exception. Here in the states, would-be buyers are still looking at a four-day wait for that one, while the wait is three-days on other parts of the planet. The report says that is “likely because of the model's popularity.”
Waits Remain for MBPs
Moving to the Mac, Apple’s M1 Pro and M1 Max machines are still playing hard to get. The piece has Hall indicating that:
At a global average, lead times for the 14-inch model stand at 25 days, an increase of six days. For the 16-inch MacBook Pro, lead times expanded by a day to 20 days.
Sound as all of that sounds, Hall’s still not feelin’ it. He’s got a “Neutral” on Apple shares and a price target of $142. Apple shares closed Wednesday at 175-and-a-half.
IDC and Canalys: 2021 Saw Serious Growth for Mac
Image via Apple
13 JANUARY 2022 - Growth for Mac beat the tar out of growth for the wider PC industry for the end of 2021 and for the year as a whole. So say numbers from a couple of market trackers.
First up - IDC. That firm had Mac shipments up eight-and-a-half-percent last quarter versus the same quarter a year earlier. That’s way better than the one-percent growth seen by the whole category, though that comparison’s a bit squishy. Both Dell and ASUS beat Apple’s growth, according to IDC. The category was actually dragged down by Lenovo, HP, and Acer - each of which saw sales decline.
Pulling back for the full year, Apple looks to have done much better. A piece from Cult of Mac on IDC numbers for the whole year shows Mac shipments growing 22% last year versus the year before. “That’s the highest annual growth rate of any computer maker,” according to the firm. The market as a whole saw shipments grow just under 15% last year, according to IDC.
Writing up numbers from IDC competitor Canalys, Engadget says, “2021 was a very good year for the PC market.” If so, it was twice as good for the Mac. According to Canalys, PC shipments grew 14.6% from 2020 to 2021. For the same period, Mac sales grew 28.3%.
App Annie Tracks Insane Growth for Apps in 2021
Fun fact about me: I like technology. Still, there are some new numbers from mobile analytics firm App Annie that kind of freak me out. CNET wrote up some of the App Annie stats for last year. “In the top 10 markets,” says the piece:
“the average time spent on mobile devices was 4.8 hours a day in 2021, (…) an increase of 30% from 2019.”
In the U.S., consumer spending on mobile games was $27.3 billion last year. That is up from less than $6 billion in 2020.
In these socially distancing days, spending on dating apps passed $4.2 billion worldwide. That’s up 52% from “pre-pandemic 2019.”
70% of our time on mobiles “was spent on a social media or photo/video app, according to the report.”
“…consumers logged a record 3.8 trillion hours on their mobiles in 2021 and downloaded some 230 billion apps, spending $170 billion (an increase of nearly 20% from the year prior).”
And here’s the one that really freaked me out. The piece says, “The average American spent 4.1 hours a day on mobile devices in 2021, (…), but watched only 3.1 hours of TV.”
That’s 7.2 hours. Out of 24. No way Apple’s anticipated mixed reality headset will be for “bursts” of communication.
A Fix for the Private Relay Problem
The Private Relay problem between T-Mobile USA, Apple, and customers of both may not be as sinister as originally thought. Giving this the quickest of recaps, earlier this week, 9 to 5 Mac ran a piece that said T-Mobile/Sprint had shut down or was in the process of shutting down the Private Relay feature for its customers in the U.S. That day, T-Mobile said the only people unable to use Private Relay were people who’d set up some sort of filtering service through the carrier. Then the next day, T-Mobile said, “turns out there’s a bug in iOS 15.2 that’s turning Private Relay off.”
Guess who wasn’t happy about that. MacRumors ran a piece Wednesday that Apple saying there was no bug introduced in iOS 15.2. At the same time, Apple sort of came to T-Mobile’s defense. In a statement to MacRumors, the Cupertino-company said:
iCloud Private Relay is an innovative internet privacy service that allows users with an iCloud+ subscription to connect to the internet and browse with Safari in a more secure and private way. We have rolled Private Relay out in beta and it's available in most countries around the world. No carrier partners have blocked their users from taking advantage of Private Relay.
That would be the defending T-Mobile part. As for defending itself, Apple went on to say:
No changes were made to iCloud Private Relay in iOS 15.2 that would have toggled the feature off. Users are encouraged to check their Settings to see if Private Relay is enabled on their device or for a specific network.
T-Mobile, by the way, sort of backed off of its 15.2 bug talk. Apple Insider had the “uncarrier” issuing a statement on Wednesday, saying:
Apple doesn't change customers settings when they update to iOS 15.2… Customers may see an error message if they previously toggled iCloud Private Relay or Limit IP Address Tracking off in their cellular Data Options Settings.
Apple’s talk of a “specific network” and T-Mobile’s mention of “Limit IP Address Tracking” gets us closer to what’s actually been going on. It turns out users who want to enable Private Relay have to enable “Limit IP Address Tracking” as well. That one’s buried in Cellular Data Options, under Cellular in Settings on an iPhone or (I assume) a cellular enabled iPad.
If you would like to hear a bit more about this week’s back and forth and the (seemingly) temporary solution, that’s one of the topics on this week’s edition of “The Checklist by SecureMac.” You’re looking for Checklist No. 262 - General Mayhem and Private Relay. That’s Checklist No. 262, available where you get podcasts.
Apple Releases Bug Fixing, Security Updating iOS/iPadOS 15.2.1
News of a security update tied to HomeKit. Cult of Mac ran a piece Wednesday saying that Apple had released iOS 15.2.1 for iPhone and iPod touch, along with iPadOS 15.2.1 for iPad. Because, d’uh.
Listed features are few and small. According to Apple’s release notes, the updates contain bug fixes, including:
Messages may not load photos sent using an iCloud Link
Third-party CarPlay apps may not respond to input
There’s more under the hood, though. According to the Cult:
The security notes say that the update also takes care of a bug in which “processing a maliciously crafted HomeKit accessory name may cause a denial of service.” Give a smart home gadget a super-long name and iPhones and iPads that connect to it can be rendered completely unresponsive.
Free and easy - the update is available through Settings on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. Ran it on my iPhone and had no trouble. Please, go and do likewise.
New Betas of Apple Operating Systems Out to Developers
Image via Apple’s Public Beta Site
Progress progresses on future OSes. iDownloadBlog ran a piece Wednesday saying that the third betas of iOS 15.3, iPadOS 15.3, watchOS 8.4, and tvOS 15.3 were out to developers. Don’t be surprised if they turn up for Apple’s public beta testers today. If you’re wondering where the love is for the next macOS update, it’s not late. I am. On Tuesday, MacRumors ran a report saying that the second beta of macOS Monterey 12.2 was out to developers. By Wednesday, that piece had been updated to say that it was also out to the public testing crew.
Apple TV+ Performers Nab 12 SAG Award Nominations
Image via SagAwards.org
The endless awards season continues. That is what endless things do. Apple issued a press release Wednesday, announcing the Cupertino-streamer’s 12 Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award nominations. Not on the list, Tom Hanks. On the list, “Ted Lasso.” Dedicated to performers, the website for the awards says 13 are presented:
…for the outstanding performances of the year in film and television (…) The awards focus on both individual performances as well as on the work of the entire ensemble of a drama series and comedy series, and the cast of a motion picture.
Apple productions garnered three nominations in the film category and nine for TV - all divided among four titles.
On the film side, CODA picked up two nominations - one for “Outstanding Performance by a Cast” and one for Troy Kotsur for Male Actor in a Supporting Role. The third film nomination went to Denzel Washington - Male Actor in a Leading Role for “The Tragedy of Macbeth,” which - oh my goodness, I just remembered, starts today on Apple TV+.
On the TV side, “The Morning Show” picked up four of Apple’s nine nominations:
Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series - Billy Crudup
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series - Jennifer Aniston
Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series - Reese Witherspoon
And do I need to tell you which series picked up the other five TV nominations? Do I? Do I really? The other five nominations went to “Ted Lasso.” Jason Sudeikis and Brett Goldstein will have to fight it out for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series. Hannah Waddingham and Juno Temple will do the same for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series. Meanwhile the whole cast was nominated for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series.
This year’s Screen Actors Guild Awards are set for Sunday 27 February.