Clicker for Netflix Puts Netflix Controls on the Touch Bar

Clicker for Netflix is a cool Mac app that lets you control Netflix right from your Touch Bar. Launch Netflix right from the Dock, control it with the Touch Bar, use Picture-in-Picture to watch while multitasking, prevent trailers from auto-playing, auto-resume your last played video, automatically skip the video intro, automatically advance to the next episode, hide the “Who’s Watching?” popup, and remove the Netflix Originals row. The Touch Bar controls include play/pause, jump back 10 seconds, jump forward 10 seconds, go to the next episode, enable/disable closed captions, and launch Picture-in-Picture. It requires macOS 10.10 Yosemite or higher. Get the app for US$5.

Beyoncé's Coachella Performance Coming to Netflix

Over the weekend Netflix announced Beyoncé’s Coachella performance will be coming to the service on April 17.

…a trailer that dropped today promises the special, called Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé, will be “interspersed with candid footage and interviews detailing the preparation and powerful intent behind her vision, [the movie] traces the emotional road from creative concept to cultural movement.”

Sign up for 4 Months of DirecTV Now, Get a Free 4K Apple TV

DirecTV Now is offering customers a free 4K Apple TV when you prepay for four months of service.

4K Apple TV (32 GB): Ends 4/30/2019. New sub’s only. Must prepay first four months of service at full price. Requires minimum $50/mo. subscription before taxes. Device and prepayment are nonrefundable. New subscribers only. Online orders will be shipped via FedEx ground to address provided. Allow 1-2 weeks for delivery. Offer limited to 1 per DIRECTV NOW account; 2 per shipping address. Not combinable with select offers. 4k HD not avail. w/DIRECTV NOW.

Watch 2019 March Madness on Apple Devices

Roger Fingas put together a brief guide to watching the 2019 March Madness tournament on your Apple devices.

For college basketball fans, the NCAA’s March Madness tournament is nigh — 2019’s games run March 19 through Apr. 8. Here’s how to follow along on an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV if you’re not watching on cable or satellite.

Hulu Free Plan Lowers to $5.99 Per Month

The Hulu free plan price is going from US$7.99 to US$5.99/month. However, its Live TV plan is increasing to US$44.99. [Hulu Pause Ads Have Arrived] Hulu Free Plan Reduction The company announced the change last month as a response to Netflix’s price increase. The changes went into effect yesterday. Existing subscribers will see their bill…

How Netflix Makes the World Smaller With International Culture

An opinion piece by Farhad Manjoo caught my eye. He writes how, instead of Netflix exporting American culture, it shares international culture with everyone.

Despite a supposed surge in nationalism across the globe, many people like to watch movies and TV shows from other countries. “What we’re learning is that people have very diverse and eclectic tastes, and if you provide them with the world’s stories, they will be really adventurous, and they will find something unexpected,” Cindy Holland, Netflix’s vice president for original content, told me.

Mr. Manjoo also mentions the difference between Netflix and other tech companies. Netflix sells subscriptions, not advertising. I think this is an important difference, in case foreigners get a negative impression from our typically garish ads.

Remember Bandersnatch? Netflix Saved Your Choices

Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch is a choose-your-own-adventure game that went viral. As it turns out, Netflix saved the choices you made.

He found that Netflix is tracking the decisions its users make (which makes sense considering how the film works), and that it is keeping those decisions long after a user has finished the film. It is also stores aggregated forms of the users choice to “help [Netflix] determine how to improve this model of storytelling in the context of a show or movie.”

This doesn’t seem like a huge issue to me. This is standard analytics the platform keeps.