Apple TV

Stay up-to-date on the latest Apple TV news and learn how to get the most out of your device with our comprehensive tutorials and guides. Discover new features, troubleshoot issues, and explore the best apps and games for your Apple TV.

VLC launches full support for iOS 9, watchOS 2, SMB and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated November 9, 2016

Cross-platform media player by VideoLAN, called VLC, has been rewritten from the ground up for watchOS 2. And on the iOS side, VLC comes with many new features.

VLC plays a variety of video/audio files in non-iOS-friendly formats without conversion, including MKV movies.

The app also includes support for multiple audio tracks with 5.1 surround sound and subtitle tracks. In addition, VLC for iOS has dropped support for iOS 6.1 and now requires an iPhone, iPod touch or iPad with iOS 7.0+.

UPDATE: The post originally stated that VLC is now available on the new Apple TV. Regrettably, that announcement was an oversight on part of VideoLAN, which has since removed mentions of the Apple TV app from their release notes.

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BBC iPlayer now available on Apple TV 4

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 6, 2017

BBC iPlayer, the on-demand application for watching live television channels and exclusive content from BBC, is now available on the 4th generation Apple TV.

“Christmas is a popular time for viewers to come to BBC iPlayer, as they unwrap new devices and browse and discover the BBC’s fantastic Christmas programs,” said iPlayer chief Dan Taylor-Watt.

“With the launch of iPlayer on new Apple TV, I’m delighted we've been able to give people another way of accessing the full breadth and range of BBC programs.”

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Infuse for Apple TV gets its first update

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 4, 2018

Infuse 4 for tvOS, the Apple TV edition of the powerful media player for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, was updated last evening in the App Store following its debut on the fourth-generation Apple TV earlier this month.

For starters, the app now claims up to ten times faster metadata fetching (depending on the video type), which should drastically reduce the waiting time when Infuse initially scans a newly added network disk.

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Pandora launches app for the new Apple TV

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 19, 2018

Pandora on Wednesday launched an application for the new Apple TV. You can find it by navigating to the App Store in tvOS, and scrolling through the Featured page where Apple currently has the app highlighted in the 'Best New Apps' category.

The new tvOS client is obviously somewhat limited compared to its iOS counterpart, but it will allow you to sign into your Pandora account and listen to your customized Radio stations. You can also access tabs like Create Station and Now Playing.

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Apple: much-improved Remote app with full Siri Remote functionality in the works

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 9, 2015

Apple's fours-generation Apple TV is getting a proper remote app described as a viable replacement for the bundled Siri Remote, John Paczkowski, Managing Editor with BuzzFeed News, wrote this morning.

In an interview with Eddy Cue, Apple's Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, Paczkowski learned that a much-improved remote app for the Apple TV 4 is currently in the works.

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At last, Remote app now works with Apple TV 4

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 8, 2015

Apple today released tvOS 9.1 for the fourth-generation Apple TV, the second software update for the set-top box since its October 2015 debut, and the question that has been on the Internet's collective mind since is, does it now support Apple's own Remote app?

While I haven't had a chance to install and test tvOS 9.1 yet, web reports claim that tvOS 9.1 indeed includes compatibility with the Remote app, as well as Siri search support for Apple Music, a feature that was present in tvOS betas.

But it gets even better: if you own an Apple Watch, you can use its built-in Remote app to navigate the entirety of the tvOS interface right from your wrist.

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Oceanhorn gets iCloud save compatibility with Apple TV, flashier graphics on iPad Pro and more

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 3, 2015

Oceanhorn, the beautifully crafted fantasy adventure game from FDG Mobile Games GbR, has received an essential update in the App Store today. Bumped to version 2.7, this edition fixes the problem with iCloud save files created on the iPhone and iPad not being recognized on the Apple TV.

Those lucky iPad Pro owners will enjoy this update's ultra quality graphics on their tablet, with an improved world map and environment decoration.

Lastly, Oceanhorn 2.7 sports a better sound engine and fixes various bugs.

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Review: Infuse 4 is the ultimate media center software for your Apple TV

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 4, 2018

It cracks me up that a jailbreak was needed to let Apple TV user enjoy their own media libraries directly on the device—and yet here we are today as FireCore, the same developer behind the aTV Flash(Black), unveils an Apple-sanctioned media player app for the new Apple TV.

As I wrote in my preview a few days ago, Infuse 4 for Apple TV (releasing later today in the App Store) is an awesome app that turns Apple's fourth-generation set-top box into a powerful, easy-to-use media center.

No longer do you have to worry about video formats, file conversion and subtitles—Infuse 4 for Apple TV takes care of all that jazz, and then some more. The app can stream your media from a Mac or Windows PC, NAS or Wi-Fi drives and even through a server app like Plex, Kodi or Servo.

It automatically fetches movie details and artwork, integrates with trakt.tv for keeping watched progress in sync on multiple devices, retrieves subtitles from OpenSubtitles.org and more.

Most importantly, its powerful decoder renders any “foreign” video format directly on the Apple TV hardware, no conversion needed, in silky smooth sixty frames per second.

What more can you ask for?

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Review: SiriMote—control media playback on your Mac with Siri Remote

Christian Zibreg ∙ December 2, 2015

Wouldn't it be nice if you could use the Siri Remote that came with your new Apple TV to control media applications on your Mac? After all, the remote is Bluetooth-based and Mac itself has robust support for Bluetooth networking.

With SiriMote, a new freeware app, now you can. Created by Vienna, Austria-based Eternal Storms Software's Matthias Gansrigler, SiriMote lets you control various functions of the Mac using your Apple TV's Siri Remote.

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Twitter announces Digits-based logins coming to Apple TV apps

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 16, 2018

Hot on the heels of Facebook's release of an SDK for tvOS which lets developers create apps with Facebook Login based on eight-digit security codes, Twitter today announced bringing a similar feature of its own to the set-top box.

Digits, Twitter's own login and verification system based on phone numbers and verification codes, is coming to tvOS. This means that developers can now start writing Apple TV apps that users can log into by entering a short alphanumeric code in Safari on iPhone, iPod touch or iPad.

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Amazon allegedly confirms that Instant Video is hitting Apple TV before year-end

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 28, 2019

Online retail giant Amazon is bringing its Instant Video service to the new Apple TV after all. As a quick refresher, Amazon recently pulled both Google’s Chromecast HDMI dongle and Apple’s Apple TV from sale because the two set-top boxes, in Amazon's own words, don’t “interact well” with its video subscription service. Confirmation of a tvOS version of Instant Video was inadvertently leaked by Amazon itself in response to a question on Twitter.

The app should hit the Apple TV App Store by the end of the year.

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