Facebook launches Video app for Apple TV

After previously announcing its ambitions to launch a video-focused app for the small screen, Facebook has officially released an application for Apple TV on Tuesday night.

After logging in via the Facebook app on your iPhone or via a dedicated web page, users are presented with a carousel of videos shared by some of the people and pages they follow, as well as some of the top live videos being currently watched.

The first thing you will see upon logging in is a stream of videos that have been shared by your friends. This can either be their own home videos they published on Facebook, or simply third-party videos they have watched and shared via the social media platform.

A second carousel also shows videos from the pages you follow. For example, if you follow the Facebook page for the band Sublime, you might see some of the clips shared by that page.

Finally, another carousel shows a bunch of videos being streamed live and deemed popular enough to make it on your screen.

Navigation is pretty simple and intuitive. The three carousels mentioned above are listed vertically. For each carousel, you can swipe through the videos from left to right. Each video that appears centered on the screen will automatically play. If you don’t like that video, keep swiping until something catches your attention. When you do, you may press on the remote to play that video in full screen mode.

It seems that compared to YouTube where you can easily go into a rabbit hole, this is very much more limited to what you follow or to what your friends are sharing. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I don’t know. I guess your mileage may vary.

If you have downloaded the Facebook app on your Apple TV, I’d love to hear your initial thoughts about it.

Thanks Hussain for the tip!