tvOS first look: Taking Apple TV to the next level

Next on tvOS: Darker, smarter, more convenient, more memorable, musical, and around-the-home magical.

tvOS is the newest of Apple's four platforms. Based on the same underpinnings as the iPhone and iPad, but with an interface all its own, it brought the App Store to the television and breathed new life into the Apple TV.

Though Apple's not sticking a landmark or number behind it the way it is for macOS Sierra, watchOS 3, or iOS 10, the company is releasing a second major version of the big screen software this fall. Internally tvOS 10, it comes with updates to the Siri virtual assistant, and to Photos and Music. There's also a way to darken the interface, to live-stream your gaming, to automatically download apps you've gotten elsewhere, and a new remote app for iPhone.

• In brief
• Dark appearance
• Game on
• Siri
• HomeKit
• TV
• Photos
• Music
• Apps
• Remote
• And more
• Bottom line

In brief

The new version of tvOS is currently in developer preview. Apple hasn't announced a public beta, like with macOS or iOS, which means general release this fall is when most people will get it and start using it for the first time. That's roughly a year since the first version launched, so what's Apple been up to?

There's a new dark mode to better match home theater setups and better spare sensitive eyes. It's great for Apple TV, so great I'd love to see it on iPhone and iPad.

Games have been set free from the Siri Remote, so developers can concentrate on making truly console-quality experiences. And they can make them for up to four controllers now as well. It's a boon for both casual and hardcore gaming alike.

Those games can also now be recorded and even live streamed to popular social gaming networks. Watching gaming has become almost as popular as gaming — so has watching while gaming — so getting the Apple TV in on the action is terrific.

Siri is getting more languages and more features, including better movie search, YouTube search, and HomeKit integration. In other words, if you love movies, finding funny new videos, or home automation, you'll love the new Siri. I know I do.

If you haven't cut the cord, and your cable or satellite company chooses to support it, single sign-on will make logging in easier. It'll also show you all the apps available through your provider so you can get up and watching faster than ever.

Photos now supports Memories, just like Mac and iOS, and Music has gotten the same new design language as iPhone, iPad, and iTunes. Memories are great for discoverability and Apple Music is an important step in the right direction.

Automatic app downloads make it a little easier to get apps onto Apple TV. Basically, if you download an app on iPhone or iPad, and it's a universal app, it can automatically download on your Apple TV as well. There's still no way to easily send or receive links the way you can on iOS or the Mac.

There's also a new Remote app with Siri support, continuity for the keyboard so you can quickly enter text from your iPhone, and more.

Some of these are major improvements. Others smooth out experiential edges that really needed smoothing.

Dark appearance

The new Apple TV came with a new, bright interface. It was a stark contrast to the previous generations of Apple TV which had all been dark, charcoal to black. The brighter, whiter interface looked fresh and new, but it also looked bright and white, especially in a dark room or home theater.

So, now, we have the option for both. There's the original, bright tvOS interface if that's what you want to stick with, and there's an everything-old-is-new-again dark interface you can switch to or stay with, depending on your preference.

Any app that uses Apple's default interface elements will be able to adopt the new dark appearance automatically. Apps and games with custom interfaces can use trait collections to similarly adapt.

What the dark appearance doesn't do is suppress the indicator light, sadly. Nor is there a separate option for that. I hope it gets added, though, because it would make the experience complete.

I also hope Apple decides to add the dark appearance on iPhone and iPad. Not only does it increase usability in darkness, it increases accessibility for everyone with light sensitivity or a need for high white-on-black contrast.

In the meantime, though, I'll enjoy it on my Apple TV.

Game on

At launch the Apple TV could support 1080p 60fps video games, intelligently downloading new levels while purging old ones to ensure you never ran out of space to play. Despite those advances, there was one thing holding it back as a gaming platform: With a very few exceptions, it required support for the Siri Remote, and that didn't make for the best experience.

Well, the new version of tvOS changes that. Now developers can target games specifically and exclusively for gamepads, with not a concern in the world for the Siri Remote, and they can support up to four of the — four of them! — so all your friends and family members can play.

tvOS is also getting ReplayKit, which is Apple's framework for recording and, now, live streaming games. With it, developers can plug into all the social video sharing networks, and that means you'll be able to show off your skills on YouTube, Twitch, and everywhere else your friends and audiences are.

For casual gamers, tvOS just became more fun for everyone. For hardcore gamers, it just became harder core.

Siri

Siri is one of the centerpieces of the new Apple TV experience. It lets you easily find and play exactly the media you're looking for, exactly when you want it. It's already international and already supports multiple languages, even concurrently when asking for media in one language that's titled in another. There'll be additional new languages in tvOS 10, both for Siri itself and for dictation.

Apple is also making Siri search even more powerful. Now you can ask for types of movies as well. "Show me sci-fi movies." "Show me movies about time travel." You can even specify multiple criteria. "Show me sci-fi moves for kids." "Show me musicals from the 1970s."

YouTube can also be searched through Siri now, and just as delightfully, ludicrously as you'd expect. "Search YouTube for WWDC karaoke." "Search YouTube for iPhone unboxing."

It makes good search even better. Where it still takes too many clicks to find TV Shows or Movies using the focus interface, Siri can pull up almost everything almost immediately. And since Siri is server-side, Apple can continually tweak and improve it.

I do wish Siri would persist more like it does now on macOS. When I say "Show me The West Wing Season 2" it pops up immediately, but when the episode ends it throws me back to wherever I was in the focus interface, not where I was in Siri. There's a lot of different expectations that would need to be managed there, but it feels manageable.

There's still no voice activation like "Hey, Siri" on iPhone or iPad in the update, and I wouldn't expect there be unless and until we get new hardware with multiple, beam-forming mics. There's also quite a lot an iPhone or iPad can access via Siri that Apple TV can't, especially anything requiring web access.

The Apple TV does get access to one of the things that's been highest on my personal list, though…

HomeKit

HomeKit is Apple's framework for home automation. It provides a consistent, secure, and voice-activated way for accessories to be coordinated and controlled. It's been working on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch for a while, and now it's working from Apple TV as well.

I love HomeKit. I have most of the lights in my house hooked up to it, and even the LED panels in my studio, through a smart plug. I love using them when I watch TV shows and movies. I can make my living room look like Tatooine sunrise or Deadpool red.

Previously, I had to change devices to do it. Either tilt up my wrist to use my Watch, or put down the Siri Remote and grab my iPhone or iPad. No longer. Now I can tell Siri on the Apple TV what I want to watch, and immediately tell my room how I want to watch it.

Better still, since Apple TV is, at least theoretically, always plugged in and always online, it can make remote access easier and triggers more reliable. So, if you want to turn your fan off from the airport, or have your lights to go bright at sunset, HomeKit on tvOS will make it all work better.

Single sign-on + Live Tuning

First, it was intolerable that you couldn't stream your cable or satellite television shows to your mobile devices. Then it was intolerable you couldn't AirPlay them to any TV you wanted. Then that you couldn't simply stream them natively. Then that you had to log into each and every one of them separately.

Now, with the new version of tvOS, as long as a channel makes an app, and you have a cable or satellite provider that supports it, you can sign on once and gain access to all of it. In essence, once you log in, Apple both stores your log in information and then shows you all the channel apps available to you. When you download one, Apple shares your login information with them, and you're good to go.

Once the apps are downloaded, the new Live Tuning feature lets you use Siri to go straight to the programming you want to see. Simply say the channel you want, and you'll see what's being broadcast live.

None of this will help cable cutters or people in countries where the broadcast channels have failed to provide apps for the Apple TV, but for people who do use those services and have channels available, we've finally achieved streaming bliss.

Photos

Photos now includes Memories. It doesn't sync the Memories made on iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Instead, it examines the photos in iCloud Photo Library and creates memories right on the Apple TV.

Some of them are awkward. Some are forgettable. But some are… pure magic. To see a face, a place, an event, or even just a moment that meant a lot to you in the past, and to rekindle it in the present… pure magic.

Since televisions tend to be far more public than phones or even tablets, you do want to be careful about what kinds of photos you let sync to the big screen. That's as true for Memories as it has been for screen savers.

Otherwise, sit back, relax, and get ready to smile.

Music

Music will be getting a makeover to match the new look of the Music app on iPhone and iPad, and iTunes on the Mac. It'll be bigger, bolder, and more beautiful. It'll also be more coherent.

Your own Library will blessedly be up front again, followed by For You and it's new daily playlists. Browse will show you what's new, and Radio still has Beats 1 and other stations.

I still use Apple Music primarily through Siri, so my workflow won't change much. But, based on the demo, if you do dive into the Music app on Apple TV on a regular basis, your workflow — sorry, playflow — will soon be much, much better.

Apps

It's been tough getting apps on Apple TV. Not on the device itself — thanks to the addition of categories and better search, that part has gotten easier. But sharing apps is still much harder than it is on Mac or even iOS, where sending and receiving links makes it easy.

Automatic app downloads is an attempt to fix that, at least a little. Now, when you download a new app on iPhone or iPad, if it's bundled together as a "universal app", the Apple TV version can be downloaded as well, automatically.

Not every developer will be able to support universal app pricing to make this work, of course, but it's one more step in the right direction.

Another would be some way to trigger Apple TV-specific downloads from the web and iOS. Fingers crossed for next time.

Apps can also be badged now on tvOS, just like on iOS. I typically turn most badges off, because number counts stress me, but for those who want to keep up-to-date on all their updates, it'll be appreciated.

Remote app + Continuity Keyboard

When the new Apple TV shipped, it wasn't compatible with the existing Remote app for iOS. Apple updated the old app in short order, but also promised a new app — one that could take better advantage of all the new Apple TV features — would follow. And follow it has.

The new Apple TV Remote App includes Siri support, so you can ask for what you want as well as browse for it. It also shows the cover art on its new now playing screen, and can double as a game controller. Thanks to the built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, that means you'll be able to play using your iPhone at least as well as you could with the Siri Remote.

Apple has only mentioned the new Apple TV Remote app for iPhone, not for iOS in general or iPad as well. We'll have to wait and see when and if that changes, though what makes sense of a 7.9- to 12.9-inch screen may well be very different.

Beyond the Remote app, there's also a new continuity-powered keyboard feature built in. Continuity is the technology that lets multiple Apple devices relay and handoff activities from one to the other. With tvOS 10, Apple TV can handoff text entry to your iPhone.

When you get to a text field on your Apple TV, if your iPhone is in proximity, an alert will let you know you can enter text right there, using the iOS keyboard.

And more

Along with the tentpoles, there are a few other interesting tidbits in the new tvOS update.

There's also switch control, an accessibility feature that enables navigation using single or multiple switches paired over Bluetooth.

tvOS 10 offers the same kind of support for wide color that Apple is rolling out to the Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Apple TV doesn't have a built-in DCI-P3 display the way the Retina 5K iMac or 9.7-inch iPad Pro do, of course. But we're starting to see high-dynamic range on television sets, and HDR can be even more impressive than 4K.

The previous version of tvOS shipped with support for Dolby 7.1 audio. Now it looks like we're moving into the world of wide gamut. Getting there will still take a while, but I am incredibly excited that we're on our way.

TVML, the markup language that makes it easier for developers to whip up channel apps, also gets the dark appearance, as well as well as video embeds, overlays, a Now Playing tab, and more.

Multipeer connectivity, which came to iPhone and iPad wth iOS 7 but it making its first appearance on Apple TV with tvOS 10, makes it easier for devices to work together. Whether it's over the same Wi-Fi network, directly using peer-to-peer Wi-Fi, or over Bluetooth, they can discover each other and securely transmit messages, streams, and files.

In other words, it makes it more likely your iPhone or iPad app will "just work" when it comes to interacting with your Apple TV app.

Bottom line

tvOS is new and the Apple TV has a very specific purpose. Both of those things might seem like they conspire to keep tvOS updates on the short side. Yet tvOS 10 has several significant new features.

Setting games free from the Siri Remote, opening them up to four gamepads, bringing HomeKit to Siri, enabling video recording and streaming, an all-new remote app — it all makes for a smoother, more satisfying living room experience.

Now we just have to strap in and see what developers do with it.