Apple's dedicated TV app on iPhone, iPad, iPod touch and Apple TV now supports Sony's Crackle video-streaming service, in addition to content from Filmstruck and Freeform apps. The company's support document highlighting the TV app was updated earlier in the morning to reflect these additions.
Announced a month ago, Google's live TV streaming bundle launched today in five U.S. markets. Named YouTube TV, it's available in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia and Chicago.
YouTube TV gives you access to live TV streaming from Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC and popular cable networks along with content from 39 other local broadcast networks and channels like ESPN, in exchange for $35 per month.
Recode reported Sunday that Apple is considering offering a “premium TV bundle” with content from the networks HBO, Showtime and Starz.
As I'm sure you'll recall, the Cupertino company's long been rumored to have been interested in creating a $30-$40 per month skinny bundle of top TV programming from multiple content owners.
While App Store offers apps from each of those channels individually, Apple has reportedly approached the three networks about rolling them up into a single package, as conventional pay TV operators sometimes do.
Hulu recently updated its experiencehulu.com mini-site, which highlights the company's existing video on demand service and a forthcoming live television offering. The website refresh has revealed previously unconfirmed features such as cloud DVR, multi-device streaming, user profiles, support for guest accounts, real-time notifications for live events and other perks. The sub-$40 service is expected to launch across iOS, tvOS and other platforms in the coming months.
Candy Crush Saga has been a cash cow from its inception on the App Store. King's tremendously popular mobile match-three puzzle video game has made a fortune on platforms like iOS, Android, Facebook and Windows 10.
But now, King is set to boost its profits as the CBS network confirmed Tuesday that it has given a series order to a TV adaptation of Candy Crush Saga from Lionsgate TV.
That's right, they'll be actually turning the mobile Candy Crash Saga game into a live action game show in which teams of two individuals will compete on “enormous, interactive game boards featuring next generation technology.”
If you're subscribed to one of Fox's sports channels through your cable or satellite TV package, the newly launched FOX Sports Go tvOS app lets you watch up to four games simultaneously in split-screen mode, at a remarkably fluid 60 frames per second, via your fourth-generation Apple TV.
As first noted by MacRumors, the app's split-screen interface and underlying technology make it possible to watch baseball, basketball, football and hockey games at once, or any combination of games from MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, UEFA Champions League, UFC and more, depending on regional restrictions.
After adding support for searching shows from Viacom-owned Comedy Central and music networks MTV and VH1 on the fourth-generation Apple TV a month ago, Apple has recently added Australia's Stan streaming service to the list of providers that support tvOS's universal search feature, as first discovered by MacRumors. Now customers in Australia can find content on Stan by pressing the Siri button on their Siri Remote.
Apple's stubbornness and “hard-nosed” negotiation tactics have backfired and “alienated” cable providers, who say the firm is a cheapskate in terms of paying for digital content, reports The Wall Street Journal. For years, Apple's been persuading cable firms to let it sell their cherry-picked programming in a skinny TV bundle of its own for about $30 per month vs. $80+ for traditional cable subscriptions.
Universal Search feature on the fourth-generation Apple TV has been refreshed yesterday with expanded support for searching content provided by tvOS video apps from Viacom-owned Comedy Central and music networks MTV and VH1. Provided these apps are installed on your set-top box, you can either use the Search app on the device or press the Siri button on the remote and use your voice to find shows like South Park and others.
Google has accelerated efforts to beat Apple to market with a live TV service on YouTube, dubbed “Unplugged”, Bloomberg reported yesterday. Work on boosting YouTube's infrastructure is already underway as launching the service has taken on a high priority.
For a yet-to-be-determined monthly fee, YouTube users will be able to subscribe to so-called skinny bundles of television programming, streamed over the Internet.
These bundles should include some of the most popular offerings from major U.S. broadcast networks and cable services.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that Hulu has been busy putting together a cable-like subscription offering that'd include content from partners like Disney and Fox while providing such advanced features as a cloud-based digital video recording (DVR) capability, live TV and more. The service sounds a lot like a rumored skinny TV bundle that Apple's been unsuccessfully trying to create.
Analysts have estimated that Hulu may charge consumers about $40 per month for the yet-to-be-announced service, which won't launch before 2017.
It's annoying when you download an Apple TV app for your favorite entertainment provider only to realize that you cannot access the service due to regional restrictions, the need to connect with your cable service or pay for the service.
Of all the third-party content provider apps available for download in the tvOS App Store, only a handful of services are available on a worldwide basis.
To save you some time, Apple has put together a handy support document which lists all the content providers available on the second, third and fourth-generation Apple TV.