Apple's gadgets are the actual co-stars of The Morning Show

The Wall Street Journal

"The iPhone appears so often in The Morning Show that it can seem like an appendage," says The Wall Street Journal's Joe Flint and Tripp Mickle, noting that the Apple TV+ series opens with a scene featuring a Mac and an iPhone. "Reese Witherspoon’s character, Bradley Jackson, manages to take off her leather jacket in one scene without putting down her iPhone," they write. "Another character holds on to her iPhone while getting amorous with a co-worker." Unsurprisingly, The Morning Show is an extended commercial for the gadgets that drive Apple’s business -- MacBooks, iMacs, iPads, AirPods, Apple Watches and even a HomePod speaker, which was widely seen as a disappointment. "Apple products are visible in an average of 32 camera shots per episode, and an Apple logo is visible in roughly one-third of those shots," according to the Wall Street Journal report, which adds that "rival brands are scarce." (Witherspoon's character's father uses a flip phone.) The Journal story reports that, according to sources, producers weren't under pressure to showcase Apple products. As the story points out, the other Apple shows in the "initial batch of nine programs for TV+ aren’t really conducive to product placement. Several are set in times when Apple doesn’t exist, while others are children’s shows or nonfiction programs that couldn’t easily accommodate gadget shots."