Apple May Have Cancelled This Apple TV Screensaver
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When Apple unveiled tvOS 18 during the “Audio & Home” presentation at its June Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), it promised three new screensavers would be coming to the Apple TV. Now, it looks like one of those may not be coming — at least not anytime soon.
This year’s tvOS update represents the first time we’ve seen a new category of screensavers since the Apple TV first began running tvOS in 2015. While the aerial screensavers are stunning and have been updated numerous times over the years with new types of scenery, it’s still considered a single “screensaver” that simply shows a lot of different content.
So, the announcement that tvOS 18 was adding not one but three new types of screensavers was pretty significant. These were to include Portraits, Snoopy, and TV and Movies.
However, Portraits was the only one that arrived in tvOS 18.0. As the name suggests, this is a substantially enhanced version of the photo screensavers that have been available from the earliest days of Apple’s set-top box. However, rather than just pulling up static photos with a few basic effects, Portraits uses machine learning to select appropriate pictures and apply a bokeh effect and clock. Apple has been rolling out this style to its devices over the past four years, starting in 2021 with the Portrait Apple Watch face in watchOS 8, followed by the new iPhone Lock Screens in iOS 16 in 2022 and the iPad in 2023 in iPadOS 17. Now, it’s the Apple TV’s turn.
The other two screensavers were a bit more straightforward. Snoopy was inspired by the watchOS 10 Watch Face, bringing animations of everyone’s favorite beagle and his feathered friend up to their various antics on the big screen. TV and Movies promised to provide scenery from Apple TV+ originals; it was never entirely clear what types of imagery Apple would offer up, as the only example shown at WWDC was a space scene from Foundation.
Those last two didn’t make the cut for tvOS 18.0 or even 18.1. Shortly after the first major tvOS update landed in September, Apple quietly updated its website to note that the Snoopy and TV and Movies screen savers weren’t coming until “late 2024.”
That timeline hinted at tvOS 18.2. However, it still took until last week’s third beta for Snoopy to make an appearance, but even then, TV and Movies was conspicuously absent.
Now, it seems Apple has made another subtle update to its website. The footnote on the Apple TV Page that previously said, “Snoopy and TV and Movies screen savers coming late 2024. Snoopy and Portraits screen savers available on Apple TV 4K (2nd generation and later)” now reads:
Snoopy screen saver coming late 2024. Snoopy and Portraits screen savers available on Apple TV 4K (2nd generation and later).
Interestingly, the TV and Movies screensaver is the only one of the three that doesn’t require a 2021 or later Apple TV. It’s also notable that Apple hasn’t just removed the reference in the footnote; as first reported by iCulture and shared by MacRumors, between November 7 and November 17, Apple scrubbed all mentions of the additional screensaver from its site (the Foundation image disappeared sometime after November 7 to be replaced by Snoopy, but references to “TV and Movies” remained until after November 14).
While it’s impossible to say if Apple still plans to release a TV and Movies screensaver, it doesn’t look promising. If it was still on the books, it’s unlikely Apple would have erased it from existence as it could just as easily have updated it to say “early 2025.” This suggests that it’s not coming in the foreseeable future.
What’s more mysterious is what went wrong. While it’s easy to assume licensing issues are at play here, that would be unusual as Apple planned to limit the screensaver exclusively to Apple TV+ content, which it ostensibly owns all the rights to. We say “ostensibly” because contractual agreements and copyright laws can be very complicated, so there’s a slight possibility that Apple’s rights don’t include the ability to turn portions of its original films and TV shows into screensavers. After all, Apple may bankroll these productions, but other studios and actors are still involved. Snoopy is also under the Apple TV+ banner, but the beagle doesn’t exactly have agents and lawyers who can complain about his likeness being used in a screensaver.
Another possibility is that Apple simply couldn’t put together enough curated content to make for a compelling screensaver. Scenes from Foundation are stunning, but Apple presumably wanted this screensaver to represent a cross-section of its original shows and films. It’s hard to imagine any scenes from Apple shows like The Morning Show, Slow Horses, or even the very popular Ted Lasso that wouldn’t feel odd presented as a screen saver, and based on the image from Foundation that Apple used in its demo, it was going for scenic photos and not just snapshots of favorite characters and moments.
