It's officially time to believe in Ted Lasso again. Indeed, with season 4's debut episode being something of an overly-long prologue to the main event, this week's chapter will see the titular soccer coach finally get to grips with managing AFC Richmond's newly-formed women's team.

As I mentioned in my Ted Lasso season 4 review, you'll have to wait for episode 3 to meet most of the team. Nonetheless, you'll be introduced to at least one new character in Tanya Reynolds' Alice Chilton, and be reunited with a host of other familiar faces, including Brett Goldstein's Roy Kent and Brendan Hunt's Coach Beard.

In short: there's a lot to look forward to ahead of this week's entry — so, when will it be released?

What is the launch time for Ted Lasso season 4 episode 2?

Titled 'Curioser and curioser!', the second episode of Ted Lasso season 4 should premiere at 6pm PT / 9pm ET on Tuesday, August 11 in the US and Canada.

As I noted in my Ted Lasso season 4 episode 1 release guide, the show was expected to return at 12am PT / 3am ET on Wednesday, August 5. However, this season's first installment actually dropped at 6pm PT / 9pm ET the evening before (i.e., Tuesday, August 4). As such, we can expect future episodes to drop every Tuesday night in North America at 6pm PT / 9pm ET.

As for other nations, here's when you should be able to catch season 4 episode 2 on Apple TV:

• US — Tuesday, August 11 at 6pm PT / 9pm ET
• Canada — Tuesday, August 11 at 6pm PT / 9pm ET
• UK — Wednesday, August 12 at 2am BST
• India — Wednesday, August 12 at 6:30am ISY
• Singapore — Wednesday, August 12 at 9am SGT
• Australia — Wednesday, August 12 at 11am AEST
• New Zealand — Wednesday, August 12 at 1pm NZST

When do new episodes of Ted Lasso season 4 come out?

As I mentioned above, based on when last week's episode actually aired, new installments of the Apple TV Original should launch on one of the world's best streaming services every Tuesday in the Americas and every Wednesday in other territories.

If every subsequent episode follows suit, here's when this season's other chapters will be released:

• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 1 — out now
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 2 — August 11/12
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 3 — August 18/19
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 4 — August 25/26
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 5 — September 1/2
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 6 — September 8/9
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 7 — September 15/16
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 8 — September 22/23
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 9 — September 29/30
• Ted Lasso season 4 episode 10 — October 6/7

Light spoilers follow for Ted Lasso season 4 episodes 1 to 4.

Ted Lasso is back — and so, too, is Apple TV’s hugely popular sports comedy-drama. Three years after the final whistle was seemingly blown on the hit show, it returns not just as a continuation of where its third season left off, but also as a narrative and character-based evolution by way of a squad rebuild.

Even with its new line-up and the multi-year gap between seasons, though, Ted Lasso season 4 is a triumphant return to winning ways for the fan-favorite series — and I say that as someone who didn't dislike its divisive third season as many others did.

Home is where the heart is

Three years have passed since Ted (Jason Sudeikis) ended his AFC Richmond journey with the men's team and returned to Kansas to spend more time with his son Henry (Grant Feely). When season 4 reunites us with the eponymous soccer coach, we learn he's given up on the game entirely and now works as the assistant manager of a local grocery store.

A surprise visit from old friends — Richmond owner Rebecca Welton (Hannah Waddingham), Director of Football Operations Leslie Higgins (Jeremy Swift), and Keeley Jones (Juno Temple), now serving as chief marketing officer for the club's new women's division — soon has Ted questioning his current lot in life, though.

The reason? They want him to manage Richmond's newly founded women's team, work the same magic that he did with their male counterparts, and establish a similar culture of excellence that'll last well past his tenure in the dugout.

Of course, this being the latest chapter of the beloved Apple TV show, it's not a spoiler to reveal that an at-first reluctant Ted eventually accepts their offer. After all, it would be an incredibly short season if he didn't.

Nevertheless, although this is a significant, life-changing choice for Ted, episode 1 spends far too much time grappling with the proposal laid at his feet — so much so, in fact, that I worried it would derail the series' return before it had really begun.

Indeed, with the bulk of episode 1's runtime spent on exploring Ted's inner struggle before its inevitable resolution, this season's premiere feels like a largely superfluous prologue to the main event of Ted actually becoming a Richmond native once more.

That's not to say this narrative set-up isn't necessary, because it's the biggest decision Ted has faced since he left Richmond in the first place. Showing him wrestle with himself over whether he should take charge of Richmond's women's team, and deal with his loved ones' not-so-subtle nudges to do so, then, is a worthy storytelling exercise.

Nonetheless, an insightful subplot where Higgins learns about the Negro Baseball Leagues and Ted's inner conflict notwithstanding, I couldn't help but feel that season 4 episode 1's story could've been condensed and avoided the extraneous plot filler that drags out his prospective homecoming.

We're not in Kansas anymore

Once season 4 properly gets underway in its second episode, though, it's like the show has never been away, nor missed a beat. Indeed, it effortlessly slips back into the purposeful stride that underpinned its first two electrifying seasons and parts of its third — again, a season I still largely enjoyed.

There's a satisfying air of familiarity as Ted — and, by proxy, the audience — reunites with the pillars of the AFC Richmond community, too. Rebecca, Keeley, and Higgins aside, other well-known faces like Roy Kent (Brett Goldstein) and Coach Beard (Brendan Hunt) welcome us and Ted back in typically eccentric fashion, and further emphasize the continuity between the show's past and its latest chapter.

By virtue of Ted managing Richmond Women, season 4 also represents a new era for the acclaimed series. With that comes a whole line-up of fresh faces — the first of which we're introduced to is diligent but emotionally cold soccer coach Alice Chilton (Tanya Reynolds).

Initially resentful of Ted for pipping her to the top job and Rebecca for not even considering a woman for said position, Alice starts out as a — and this'll sound harsher than intended — dollar store Roy Kent. Or, rather, the season 1 version of Kent, who was an antagonistic figure whose sole purpose was to rail against Ted's cheery demeanor.

Thankfully, it soon becomes clear that Alice isn't a Kent knock-off, but a fascinatingly complex and likeable individual in her own right. She also not only comes around to respecting Ted, but also quickly embeds herself as an integral cog in a new-look, eccentric triumvirate alongside Ted and Coach Beard, as well as a fully-formed foil to this established intrepid duo.

Clearly, Ted's capacity to thaw even the iciest of exteriors has no limits, and I'm eager to see how Richmond Women's primary coaching team collectively evolves throughout season 4 amid myriad issues that'll come their way.

New team, new problems

And fall their way, those problems most certainly do.

Indeed, season 4 metes out its share of obstacles, starting with a goal-scoring crisis after Richmond Women's main strikers are ruled out for the season. Meanwhile, in a far cry from their time in charge of the men's team, Ted and Beard no longer have free rein to walk into the locker room whenever they please — an obvious boundary that becomes a recurring, comedic point of contention for all concerned. Ted also finds himself in plenty of awkward one-on-one chats with his new squad, most notably with zany, slightly unhinged goalkeeper Katy 'Boots' Quinn (Jude Mack), who's easily the highlight of this season's new additions.

'Boots' is far from the only unique personality in the Richmond Women squad.

We don't get to meet the vast majority of this rambunctious rabble until episode 3 but, in its follow-up, they manage to do the impossible: make Ted lose his cool and lay down the law amid dressing room splits. Ultimately, though, they're an instantly lovable collection of characters with distinct quirks and personal problems that'll inform their individual character journeys, and I get the impression that viewers will be just as captivated by this group — and their various trials and tribulations — as they were by the men’s team.

Off-the-field challenges also permeate many of season 4's early subplots, many of which give major supporting characters in Waddingham's Rebecca and Temple's Keeley a stage on which to shine.

From gender inequality and pregnancy and motherhood to systemic underfunding and the media coverage gap, Ted Lasso tackles these heavy real-world issues head-on. That's to be expected, but it's nevertheless pleasing to see the show do so with warmth, empathy, and the occasional slice of its trademark irreverent humor.

On the whole, Ted Lasso season 4’s opening four episodes handle their secondary storylines reasonably well. However, a few subplots lean into comedy at the expense of substance and subsequently feel a little shallow due to their flippant execution.

Take episode 2, where Rebecca grapples with perceptions that she isn't much of a feminist. It's a subplot that highlights Waddingham's comedic timing and dramatic range, but falters somewhat by prioritizing quick laughs over meaningful narrative resolution, thereby coming across as unbalanced.

The other major misfire in episodes 1 to 4 is Goldstein's Kent.

His presence remains vital to the series, but he feels oddly overused in a season that has moved away from Richmond's men's team. Of more concern is how the show worryingly appears to be turning his character into a caricature of his signature gruffness. Pair that with his recycled 'will they, won't they' subplot with Keeley — an eye-rolling dance that's run its course — and Roy's evolution feels increasingly sidelined in favor of easy gags. Hopefully, a finer balance will be struck between the Kent of old and his new persona in chapters to come.

My verdict

Noteworthy flaws in Ted Lasso season 4's early episodes aside, it's great to see this wonderfully silly, optimistic, cosy comfort show back on the air.

There was understandable scepticism when Ted Lasso season 4 was officially announced, with plenty of 'cash-grab' and 'who asked for this?' murmurings in the wake of what felt like a definitive finale.

As heart-soaring returns go, though, Ted Lasso's comeback delivers a match-winning performance in its first half, rich in both laugh-out-loud moments and striking emotional notes. Keep up this kind of form, and few will argue against another trophy-laden season of television.

Ted Lasso season 4 episode 1 is out now on Apple TV. New chapters air weekly.

Apple TV's adaptation of Cape Fear saw a chilling finale recently, and it was as grisly as we'd expected it to be. Over the past few weeks we've followed Javier Bardem's take on Max Cady, delivering a performance so scary it's left some of us sleeping with the lights on.

Cady was particularly unhinged in Cape Fear's finale, which saw him killing his own family and taking the Bowdens hostage in one final altercation.

It's an important moment in the series and allows Cady to have a do-over by setting up a mock trial, once again including attorney couple Tom and Anna who were responsible for sending him to prison in the first place.

But what went down, and should we be expecting a Cape Fear season 2? Here's everything you need to know.

Who died in the Cape Fear season finale?

Max Cady kills his half-sister Crystal, his father Robert, and Crystal's apparent son Luke in the season finale. He wanted to eliminate the whole family after what happened to him, as it was revealed that Crystal killed Max's former wife Melissa, the crime that he was wrongfully sentenced for instead.

By killing the family he believes betrayed him, Cady hopes to achieve peace, but instead he ends up with just another tragedy when he finds out who Luke really was. As it happens, when Crystal murdered Melissa, she didn't kill her unborn baby and instead took him to raise as her own child.

So Luke is Cady's biological son, who he murdered in a rage thinking he was actually the son of his half-sister instead. This cruel twist is a shocking one, creating even more pain for Cady.

What happened to Max Cady?

After Cady broke into the Bowden family home, they manage to get free and Anna stabs Cady. She's given the opportunity to kill him, but doesn't, saying that they should "let him die in a cage".

We don’t see Cady after this point, but it’s assumed he’s arrested and sent to back to prison. But Cady's fate could be explored in season 2, if one is greenlit by Apple TV. Right now, though, we assume he's gone.

His presence still lingers, however, because the final scene of Cape Fear shows that the Bowdens are still looking over their shoulder, assuming he's lurking somewhere in the shadows.

Who is Natalie's father?

The family twists don't stop there, as Tom and Anna's daughter Natalie is also going through an identity crisis. Throughout the series it was always assumed that Natalie's father was Anna's ex Paul, and that Tom stepped up as a step-parent after he and Anna got together.

As it happens, Natalie's father could actually be Cady, as he and Anna have a history. Natalie's real father is not revealed to us, but she does receive an envelope at the end of the finale which includes DNA results. We don't get to see these, leaving her true roots a mystery for now.

It is likely we will never know the answer, but Natalie is seen walking over to join the family in the finale's barbecue scene, implying she has made peace with having Tom as a parental figure.

What might happen in Cape Fear season 2?

Even though this story has been wrapped up, there are still loose ends that could well be explored if Cape Fear comes back for season 2. Cady's fate is one of them, of course, especially if he manages to escape once again.

Or, we could take a look at the Bowden family and how they recover from what happened to them. Especially Natalie, and the mystery around who her father is. But right now, nothing has been set in stone and this could be the end of Nick Antosca's take on Cape Fear.

While Apple TV first showed that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max could handle the demands of a live professional sports broadcast during Friday Night Baseball, the company has since expanded their role into Major League Soccer, using the smartphones to capture angles traditional broadcast cameras simply can't.

Nearly a year after Apple first put iPhone 17 Pro Max units into a live sports broadcast workflow, the cameras are back for 2026 MLS All-Star Week in Charlotte, North Carolina. During the July 28 Skills Challenge and the July 29 MLS All-Star Game, iPhone 17 Pro Max can be mounted behind goals, attached to Magic Arms — articulated mounts commonly used in film and broadcast production — and carried on Ronin gimbals by roaming camera operators. If a penalty kick happens, one could even end up just feet behind the player taking the shot, delivering an even more immersive perspective.

I've been on the ground in Charlotte this week and caught up once again with Royce Dickerson, Executive Producer, Live Sports on Apple TV, to see how the company's approach has evolved over the past year. For Dickerson, the mission is no longer proving the iPhone belongs in a live broadcast — it's figuring out what broadcasters can do with it that they couldn't before.

"We’re always looking for ways to innovate and bring fans closer to the action," Dickerson told me. "How do we continue to be creative with the spaces that we have? Where can we stick iPhones that we haven't thought about before?... We're always striving for... what is that perfect shot? I don't think we've found it yet."

That shift in mindset is perhaps the biggest takeaway one year later. Apple is no longer asking whether the iPhone can work as a broadcast camera — it's asking how many more it can deploy and where they can go next.

'Just like another camera'

A year in, nobody on Dickerson's crew treats the iPhone as a novelty act anymore. He pointed back to that first Friday Night Baseball broadcast, when veteran director John Moore ended up cutting to the iPhone shot more often than he expected once he saw the picture quality for himself. Camera operators reached the same place, Dickerson told me that once they're familiar with the iPhone, "it's just like another camera to them."

That comfort is why Apple is running the setup weekly across both MLS and Friday Night Baseball now, rather than treating it as a special event. "I don't think we'd be doing it week-over-week in MLS right now and in Friday Night Baseball if everybody wasn't 100% comfortable with the camera," he said.

The hardware has diversified slightly, too — alongside the now-recognizable Cosmic Orange units, Apple has mixed in some silver iPhone 17 Pro Max cameras as well.

From four iPhones to 15 — and eventually 30?

Ask Dickerson what he took away from that first Fenway broadcast and applied directly to MLS, and his answer is immediate: they needed more iPhones.

That first game ran four units total — one on the Pesky Foul Pole, one tucked into the Green Monster, one on a Ronin gimbal, and one in the dugout. Seeing how unobtrusively that small footprint could be worked into a stadium convinced him the ceiling was much higher than four.

"We need more of them," he told me. "The small-scale size of that just showed me we can put iPhones anywhere. We need to be able to say, like, let's put 20 — what can we do that's crazy in a stadium that just provides full 360 coverage inside of a venue?"

That thinking has already become reality. For a dedicated MLS match shot almost entirely on iPhone, Apple deployed 15 iPhone 17 Pro Max cameras throughout the stadium — and Dickerson doesn't see that as a ceiling.

"I see a world where we have 20 iPhones. I see a world where we have like 30," he said. "With the confidence that everybody has in them now, the envelope's going to start getting pushed a little bit further out."

The workflow has caught up with that ambition. What used to take a full day of rigging and connectivity checks is now, in Dickerson's words, roughly a tenth of the time it took a year ago — purely a result of doing it week after week and building familiarity with the process.

Crews are still using Beastgrip rigs for mounting, but the iPad-based control setup I saw a year ago is gone: camera input and shading are now integrated directly into the truck's standard broadcast system, no separate tablet required.

Geometry is a key difference between capturing MLB and MLS

The biggest difference between MLB and MLS comes down to something surprisingly simple: geometry.

A pitch is the same size in Charlotte as it is in LA, Miami, or New York, and in many soccer stadiums, the stands run right up to the touchline — meaning a Ronin-mounted iPhone can get shockingly close to the run of play.

Baseball doesn't offer that flexibility. The foul lines are a hard boundary, and once you cross onto the field of play, that's it — no matter which park you're in, and no matter how the dimensions shift from stadium to stadium. Soccer's more consistent footprint, paired with sideline access, is letting Apple push cameras nearer to the action than it could at a ballpark.

That proximity has led to placements you wouldn't get near a diamond: a Ronin at the touchline for tight shots, an iPhone on the team benches (Dickerson mentioned catching LA Galaxy head coach Greg Vanney's face as he made notes on an iPad during a match), cameras tucked into the goal net, in the tunnel, and mounted on field-level advertising boards. None of it blocks a fan's sightline, and all of it is small enough that it goes unnoticed until a broadcast cuts to it.

Dickerson also pointed to a subtler benefit: players, coaches, and managers react differently to an iPhone than they do to a traditional broadcast camera.

"Usually there's a big broadcast camera being shoved in their face, and they immediately kind of retreat within themselves," he said. "But all of a sudden there's just an iPhone 17 Pro Max on a gimbal... and it kind of eases them."

That reaction is helping Apple capture more intimate, unguarded moments without disrupting play or fans' sightlines.

What to watch for in Charlotte

Tuesday's Skills Challenge leaned heavily on mobility with Ronins at the stadium, two of them on RF for full remote control, plus two more mounted on Magic Arms positioned for organic, up-close angles of balls in flight and players running by.

Wednesday's All-Star Game mixes in two Ronins pushed toward the sidelines, alongside iPhones positioned around the halftime stage for Ciara's performance (produced by a separate crew that Apple's broadcast will ingest as a feed).

Dickerson's dream shot for the All-Star Game: a Ronin-mounted iPhone getting a tight angle from behind a player on a penalty kick — a shot that's essentially impossible with a traditional camera rig.

I'll be keeping an eye out for that moment during the match, because if Apple can pull it off, it may be one of the clearest examples yet of why these tiny cameras are changing what's possible in a live broadcast.

Still searching for the perfect shot

Twenty years into a broadcast career, Dickerson isn't interested in declaring victory. He pointed to a shot from the first official MLB game shot on iPhone when Ceddanne Rafaela had a walk-off captured from a phone on the Pesky Pole, as one of the closest things to a perfect shot his team has captured — but he's clear it's not the finish line.

The goal, as he put it, is finding angles nobody's thought to try yet, in stadiums that all start to look the same until you walk them looking for a spot nobody's used before.

With Apple already talking about a "year-and-a-half" of testing and implementation behind it heading into the next MLS season and Friday Night Baseball campaign, Dickerson is promising more of what got Apple here in the first place: more iPhones, more unconventional angles, and continued insistence that the phone in your pocket can shoot alongside — and sometimes replace — a six-figure broadcast camera.

Apple TV in the United States is the broadcast home to MLS, and you get to watch for free as it’s included with one of the best streaming services. The MLS All-Star Game will kick off at 8 PM ET tonight, July 29, 2026, with a pre-show starting before it, and it’ll be easy to know when they call for a shot from the iPhone thanks to a ‘Shot on iPhone’ bug visible on the screen.

• Apple has raised prices across multiple categories in Australia
• The MacBook Neo has lost some of its entry-level appeal
• The move follows rising RAM and storage costs

Australian shoppers looking for EOFY offers, or waiting for early Amazon Prime Day tech deals, now have another price shift to factor in. Apple has raised local prices across several major product categories, including the new MacBook Neo, MacBook Air, iPad range, Apple TV 4K, HomePod mini and more.

The timing is awkward, but it also hasn't come from nowhere. Apple has usually been better than most tech companies at absorbing supply chain pressure before it reaches shoppers, though the current RAM and component crunch has been dragging on for long enough to change that calculation.

The warning signs came last month, when Tim Cook flagged "significantly higher memory costs" on an earnings call, then said RAM prices would "drive an increasing impact" on Apple products from this month.

Australian buyers will feel this

One of the clearest examples is the new MacBook Neo, Apple's lower-cost MacBook model and the machine most likely to appeal to students, or anyone trying to get a new Apple laptop for less than MacBook Air money. In Australia it launched with a price from AU$899. It now starts at AU$1,049, so it has lost some of its entry-level appeal.

Sure, it’s still Apple's cheapest laptop, but the higher starting price makes it less competitive against Windows laptops that have been fighting to compete with the Neo. The 512GB model with Touch ID has also gone from AU$1,099 to AU$1,249.

The MacBook Air has lost some of its competitive edge, and the 13-inch model with the M5 chip (check out our MacBook Air 13-inch M5 review) has jumped from AU$1,799 to AU$2,099 to start.

The 15-inch model is up by the same AU$300 amount, from AU$2,199 to AU$2,499. For a laptop that often sits in the middle of Apple's consumer Mac range, that is a significant hit to its value proposition.

The MacBook Pro increases are especially notable in some configurations. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 now starts at AU$3,199, up from AU$2,699, and the higher-end M5 Max models have also moved up by several hundred dollars. Buyers looking at extra memory or storage were already dealing with expensive upgrades, so the higher base prices only make that decision harder.

The Mac mini is another notable hit. It has gone from AU$999 to AU$1,299, which is a 30% increase on a machine that has often been one of the easier Apple desktops to justify on price.

The iPad range is up, which matters for students, families and anyone who was looking at a new tablet for work, study, travel or general use. The 11-inch iPad Air now starts at AU$1,249, up from AU$999, while the standard iPad, iPad mini and iPad Pro models have also increased.

The rises are not limited to Macs and iPads. HomePod mini has gone from AU$149 to AU$199, HomePod is up from AU$479 to AU$549, and Apple TV 4K has jumped from AU$219 to AU$299. Vision Pro was already a niche product at AU$5,999, and the new AU$6,299 starting price certainly does not broaden its appeal.

Apple's iPhone lineup, Apple Watch and AirPods appear to have avoided this round of increases at least. That helps limit the pain for some buyers, but it doesn’t change the issue for anyone who was waiting to buy a Mac, iPad or other Apple device.

Aussie price changes

Of course, Apple is not the only company dealing with higher memory and storage costs, but the scale of these changes is still pretty notable. Price rises across one or two products are easy enough to explain. Price rises across most of Apple’s range are not something that’s easily avoided.

An Apple spokesperson said: “The consumer electronics industry is facing an unprecedented challenge. The rapid expansion of AI data centers has created an extraordinary surge in demand for memory and storage. We have never seen a component price increase this much, this quickly. We have shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products, including today’s increases for iPad and Mac. We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions.”

The main question is whether the Australian prices come back down if the RAM shortage eases, or whether these higher starting points become normal. We are hopeful, but Apple hasn’t promised a reversal.

For now, local retailers may be worth checking more closely, especially if older stock or short-term deal pricing remains available during EOFY and early Prime Day sales periods.

To help out, we have included some of the better remaining Apple deals below.

Best old price Apple deals

Other Apple deals

These products haven't gone up in price, but they're still great deals. Want more? Check out our dedicated EOFY Apple sales page. Or for more laptops, take a look at our best EOFY laptop deals.