The Cupertino Hobby

Developers from around the world are currently in San Francisco at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference learning all about the new changes to Apple’s operating systems and services and getting tips from Apple engineers on how to build and improve their own apps. Apple recently released a free app for Apple TV specifically for WWDC. It currently features sessions from last year’s conference, but presumably at some point sessions from WWDC 2016 will be added as well.

Today Apple kicked off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference with its traditional keynote, where it talked about updates to watchOS, macOS, iOS, and of course: tvOS. It was a keynote that lasted more than two hours, and yet had so many new things to discuss that it each segment felt rushed. And if you weren’t careful, there were a lot of details to miss. Unlike in keynotes past where it seemed as if Apple’s executives had forgotten the Apple TV, our favorite little black box is now one of Apple’s main software development platforms and WWDC is a conference for developers. Here’s what Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, had to say about Apple TV today:

First, he gave some tvOS statistics. He highlighted the fact that on the old Apple TV, Apple had eventually grown its library of streaming video channels to 80 and announced that on the new Apple TV, developers had pushed that number to over 1300. He further announced that after just seven months there are now over 6000 total apps in the tvOS App Store. He then announced a handful of new apps coming soon to Apple TV. Unfortunately there was (as expected) no mention of Amazon Prime Video. However, Cue did announce that Sling TV, an online-only cable TV service alternative, was available for Apple TV starting today. This is a long anticipated app launch for Apple TV. Cue also announced that Fox Sports Go would be arriving this summer. Finally, he mentioned a handful of games that would soon be coming, including NBA 2K and Minecraft: Story Mode. After that it was time to talk about new Apple TV features. Here’s what Cue mentioned:

Apple TV Remote App - The iOS Remote app will be updated to function just like the Siri Remote in every respect. Currently the Remote app only allows for basic control of the Apple TV interface, but with the upcoming update you’ll be able to trigger Siri and use your iPhone’s accelerometer and gyroscope to play Apple TV games. This is great for those times when you (or your kids) lose your Siri Remote, or for situations where you want to play multiplayer games.

Siri - Siri will now be able to search more topically. Cue gave the example of asking Siri to show a list of high school comedies from the 80’s. He also threw out the statistic that Siri searches over 650,000 movies and tv shows. Presumably that not only includes content from the iTunes Store, but also the many third-party content provides that Siri can now search across. Cue also announced that Siri will allow you to search YouTube, a very welcome feature. “Siri, show me cat videos on YouTube.”

Single sign-on - This may prove to be the most welcome feature of all. Currently, if you have a cable TV subscription, you can sign into network TV apps (like the ABC app) and watch live or recorded content. The problem is that you have to go through this cumbersome process for each TV network app you want to authorize. Single sign-on will let you authenticate your Apple TV with your cable provider in one place and activate every compatible app. It will even provide a page which shows you all of the apps that have been activated. This addresses a massive pain point for Apple TV users.

Dark Mode - While the updated Apple TV interface is a welcome change from the old design, its brightness may not sit well with everyone, particularly if you have the lights off to watch a movie. Apple is addressing that concern by providing a dark mode that many people will find better suited to a television interface. I will probably switch to this mode immediately once its available.

Instant Downloads Across Devices - With this new feature, when you download an iOS app, you’ll automatically get that app on your Apple TV if there’s a tvOS version available. Presumably this will only work if the developer has allowed this by making the app a universal app. I think this is a great feature, but I also hope Apple provides a mechanism to disable it, as it does on iOS.

Those were the main new features Apple touted, but Cue very briefly highlighted new tools for developers:

ReplayKit will allow developers to enable gameplay to be broadcast live or saved for later. PhotoKit will allow access to the user’s entire photo and video library, and HomeKit will enable developers to create apps to control smart devices like lights, garage door openers, and security cameras. Cue also mentioned that developers can enable 4-player game controller support.

Tomorrow morning, Apple kicks off its 2016 Worldwide Developers Conference with its traditional keynote. What can we expect to hear about Apple TV, and Apple’s newest developer platform, tvOS?

In years past, Apple events would come and go with no mention of the Apple TV. Apple TV fans would line up like Charlie Brown and run to kick the football, only to have Apple’s Lucy pull it away at the last minute. Now though, Apple TV is open to developers, and since the release of the 4th generation Apple TV last fall, it’s become a playground for developers releasing all sorts of apps. I think going forward, Apple is going to mention Apple TV a lot. 

I don’t expect a new Apple TV device tomorrow. Apple, after all, just released the current hardware less than a year ago. Franky, I don’t expect yearly Apple TV hardware updates (like Apple does with iPhone). The only reason they might do frequent hardware updates is if they want to continue putting in faster processors and graphics chipsets on a regular basis, but I would bet against this. Perhaps a biannual hardware refresh is what we should expect.

In my mind, the only Apple TV hardware announcements we might see are controllers. The Siri Remote, for all its virtues, has been rightly criticized on a number of fronts. For one thing, it’s too delicate. (My kids have just about destroyed ours.) It’s also too symmetrical. This means if you go to pick it up at night with lights down, you can’t easily tell by feel whether or not you have it right side up. I do see Apple eventually addressing these concerns, but my gut tells me it won’t come tomorrow. What I would love to see is for Apple to release it’s own game controller. I bought a third-party game controller a few months ago, and it has night and day improved my experience playing games on Apple TV. But all of the third-party MFi game controllers are essentially Xbox controller clones. I’d love to see Apple’s design team take a crack at designing a game controller. I’m not predicting this for tomorrow, just wishing and dreaming. If they were to announce a game controller, I’d be ecstatic.

What I do expect is for Apple to announce some subtle improvements and enhancements to the UI. I also expect new APIs for developers. I’d love to see Apple drop the requirement that tvOS games be playable with the Siri Remote. this is only hampering game development on tvOS, when it should be thriving.

I’d love to see Siri get better. While Apple has been slowly but surely adding new content partners to Siri content search, Siri itself can’t do everything on Apple TV that it can do on other devices. For example, ask Siri the following question: “How many calories are there in a bagel.” On your iPhone, Siri can answer that question. On Apple TV, she can’t. Siri needs to be as consistent as possible on all devices.

I’d also love to see push notifications come to Apple TV. While you may not want to enable notifications, it would be a nice option to have. For example, it might be nice to be updated on football scores from ESPN while my kids are watching a show on Netflix.

Lastly, I’m hoping to see Apple announce additional developers from some big names. Of course, we’re all on pins and needles hoping that Amazon will bring its Prime Video service to tvOS. While I wouldn't hold my breath for that tomorrow, it’d be a welcome announcement. I’d also love to see more from big game developers like EA on Apple TV. Can’t a guy get a Star Wars game? My five-year-old and I would both love that.

Before yesterday, I last saw my Siri Remote in December or January. Yeah, that’s a long time, especially since the new Apple TV has only been around since last Fall. I can't tell you how happy I was when I found it in a shadowy area up against the wall between the piano and an end table. I feel like there’s a modern version of the parable of the lost coin in there somewhere. So how did I get by in all that time? Well, I used a combination of the Remote app on my iPhone, my TV’s remote, and the SteelSeries Nimbus game controller I picked up a few weeks ago.

We’ve all heard horror stories of people losing their Apple TV remotes dating all the way back to the original model. They’re tiny, and easily work their way into the cushions of couches. In my case, I have little children who can tote it around to who knows what corner of my house. To make matters worse, the current generation Apple TV’s remote is black, which means it can be hard to spot in shadowy areas. So what can Apple do to help people prevent their Apple TV remotes from getting lost, or finding them when they are lost?

Well, one option would be to make the remote much larger. Though I do sometimes misplace my Samsung TV remote, I don’t often lose it. When I do, it usually turns up quickly. Why? Because it’s big. It somewhat has to be large because it’s far more complex than the Siri Remote, at least from a user interface standpoint. However, I don’t see Apple dramatically increasing the size of the Siri Remote, and I don’t really want it to be as large as my TV’s remote anyway.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens was released via streaming services like iTunes on Friday, April 1, but it won’t hit Blu-ray and DVD until Tuesday, April 5. That left me with a dilemma, get it right away on Apple TV or wait a few days for it to arrive on my preferred format. I know what you’re thinking: “Don’t you run an Apple TV blog? Shouldn’t you be buying all of your movies from Apple anyway?”

So let me step away from the story to talk a little bit about my home video preferences. In the DVD era I bought lots of movies in that format. I had an entire bookshelf dedicated to them. And then when Blu-ray one the HD home video format war, I took a year or two before jumping into the format. But I didn’t start buying up Blu-rays left and right. Part of that was because my TV, while HD, was only capable of 720p. Two years ago I finally got a 1080p set, one of the last generations of Samsung plasmas, and at 51″ a pretty decent sized one at that. But I still didn’t increase my rate of buying Blu-rays. Why? Netflix. Netflix streaming was satisfying most of my entertainment needs. It still is. So throughout the Blu-ray era to this point my rationale has been to only buy movies in the format that mean a lot to me and that preferably have had a lot of money spent by the studio doing a high-quatily scan of the film with lots of cleanup work to get it looking as good as possible. My 50th anniversary Blu-ray of North By Northwest is my favorite in my collection for that reason. It looks incredible.

“So why haven’t you been buying HD movies from iTunes?” Well, for one thing Blu-ray is still the pinnacle of quality in home video. It’s far less compressed than a streaming movie. And then there’s special features. Apple introduced iTunes Extras alongside iTunes LP in 2009. This brought Blu-ray/DVD-like special features to movies bought in iTunes. The big problem for an Apple TV fan like me, is that Apple TV wasn’t able to play iTunes Extras until 2014. So while I had bought some movies in iTunes, I had honestly never considered it a viable way to purchase movies.

That brings us back to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Buy it day one on Apple TV or wait a few days for the Blu-ray release, which includes a digital copy anyway. The biggest deciding factor that swayed me toward the iTunes version is that my parents, who had not yet seen the film, were in town, but would be leaving the next day. I wanted to show them the movie, so iTunes it was. 

The purchase process was dead simple. The movie was featured prominently on the main screen of the Apple TV’s Movies app, and the purchase process was as simple as typing in my Apple ID password. The movie was ready to watch essentially immediately. It’s incredible how well Apple’s CDN is at delivering content.

I can watch the film anytime by going to the Movies app, and visiting the Purchased tab. In theory it lists all of the films that I’ve purchased. There’s at least one notable exception though as a copy of Terminator 2 that I bought when the iTunes Extras format was brand new doesn’t show up there. It does show up in my iTunes library on my computer though. When I select the poster for Star Wars it takes me to the screen you see at the very top of this post, which is the same screen you’d see pre-purchase. Selecting play takes you to the film’s menu as seen in the next screenshot on this play. The options are Play (which starts the film), Extras (which has all of the additional content), Featured Extra (which is a quick link to the feature-length documentary that accompanies the film), and Related (which just shows you other movies you might be interested in based on your selection of The Force Awakens).

I haven’t bothered to try to do a comparison between the extras that come with the iTunes version versus the Blu-ray, but there’s a lot of content here to enjoy. Most disappointingly there’s not a commentary track. I don’t know if the Blu-ray copy has one or not. Commentary tracks are possible with iTunes Extras because my copy of Star Trek (2009) has one.

Yesterday Apple hosted a special event in its Town Hall auditorium on its campus in Cupertino California. The iPhone and iPad got the most attention, but CEO Tim Cook did take a few minutes to talk about Apple TV, another encouraging sign that Apple is taking the platform seriously. Cook mentioned that to date more than 5000 apps had been released in the tvOS App Store. He also took the time to highlight a few key new features that were made available in the tvOS 9.2 software update that was released Monday.

Folders - This was my favorite new announcement. Now, as you’ve long been able to do on your iPhone, you can create folders to group apps together. Given that my Apple TV home screen was becoming a mess of scores of apps, I’m really happy to have this new feature.

Siri for App Store - Now you can use your voice to search for apps in the App Store.

iCloud Photo Library - You can now view your entire iCloud photo library from Apple TV.

Live Photos - If you have the new iPhone 6S (or the soon-to-be-released iPhone SE) you can view any Live Photos you’ve taken. If you haven’t seen Live Photos in action they’re basically like the moving photos from the newspapers in Harry Potter.

Dictation - You can now use the Siri Remote to perform dictation, including dictating user names and passwords.

Apple on Thursday released its “Apple Events” app in the tvOS app store, just days ahead of hit Monday event. Apple is widely expected to unveil a new 4″ iPhone, perhaps called “iPhone SE” and an update to its 9.7″ iPad, perhaps now adopting the “iPad Pro” moniker. Little is known about what else, if anything, Apple may announce, but I’ll be watching for any Apple TV-related news.

In the days before the tvOS App Store, Apple’s “Apple Events” app would magically appear days before a new Apple event, and just as magically vanish sometime afterward. It’s nice to see that they’re not forcing it on anyone who owns the new Apple TV, instead letting users download it for themselves if they wish. Presumably that also means that it won’t disappear from your Home screen. It’s neat to be able to go back and watch previous events from the last few years, but I’d love to see them update it to allow you to watch any Apple Event from the second Steve Jobs/Tim Cook era.

Boy, did I pick up my third-party game controller at just the right time! Sega yesterday released Sonic The Hedgehog, the twenty-five-year-old classic originally released on the Sega Genesis, for the new Apple TV. They’ve got more coming too. Here’s Matt Brian, writing at Engadget:

Sonic 1 is available today, with Sonic 2 coming on March 24th. Sonic CD will launch a full seven days after that. Sega's keeping quiet on why it's making gamers wait to get their hands on the other two titles, especially since they're already live on the App Store and just need to be enabled on Apple TV, but staggered release dates may give you more time to appreciate the Green Hill Zone before enjoying one of the best level themes of any game: the Chemical Plant Zone.

One of the most exciting aspects of the fourth generation Apple TV is its potential as a gaming console. While it’s not going to lure the hardcore gamers away from a PS3 or Xbox, it has a lot of potential appeal to casual gamers in much the same way the original Nintendo Wii did. On top of that, millions of Apple customers already play games on their iOS devices and could naturally transition that over to Apple TV. But to really take Apple TV gaming to the next level, Apple needs to do these two things:

1) Stop Requiring The Use Of The Siri Remote For Games. When Apple first announced the new Apple TV last September it showed a slide of a game page on the tvOS App Store that said “game controller required”. But soon after that, Apple amended the developer rules to stipulate that all games must support the Siri Remote. In theory this makes sense. It could definitely be confusing to new Apple TV users to discover that they can’t play some games on their new device without going back to the store to shell out $50 more on a game controller. It’s also true that many games are well suited to Siri Remote. It’s much like the original Wii Remote in the way it functions. However, many games are barely functional if all you have is the Siri Remote. When the Siri Remote requirement first came delight it caused a lot of game developers to have cold feet about developing for Apple TV. There are many, many games that just aren’t playable without a proper controller. Take away the requirement of the Siri Remote for games and I think we’ll quickly see a dramatic uptick in the number of games for Apple TV, and particularly an uptick in the number of well-known games from big-name game studios.

2) Apple Needs To Make Their Own Game Controller. I just bought a SteelSeries Nimbus for my Apple TV and I actually like it a lot, but it’s very similar to an Xbox controller. That’s not entirely a bad thing, but I think Apple could do better, and I think it would also make the Apple TV more appealing to gamers and game developers. Would Apple be guaranteed to make a good game controller? No, they could definitely mess it up. But I think they’d at least apply their typical level of thoughtfulness to the design of a game controller. Here’s what I’d do: hire the guy that designed the Nintendo GameCube Wavebird controller. It’s my all-time favorite game controller and I’ll happily launch into a detailed defense of it at the drop of a hat.

The cord-cutting revolution is really more of a cord-cutting evolution. Many of us said goodbye to a cable TV subscription years ago (I haven’t had one this decade), but that doesn’t mean we’re able to get everything we really want. For instance, I can watch ESPN3 because my ISP has a deal with ESPN which permits it, but I can’t watch a lot of my favorite college football team’s games live because I don’t have a cable TV subscription and thus no access to ESPN and ESPN 2. That could change in the future. Jared Newman, writing at Macworld:

Disney CEO Bob Iger, for instance, said that ESPN could offer a standalone, direct-to-consumer service, according to Los Angeles Times reporter Daniel Miller. ESPN must work out some pricing issues first, but Iger said negotiating rights would not be a problem, the Orange County Register reports. Iger has discussed the possibility of a streaming ESPN service in the past, but in 2015 he said it probably wouldn’t happen within the next five years. Disney appears to be changing its thinking as ESPN subscriber numbers shrink.

Still, Iger’s comments contradict what ESPN President and Co-Chairman John Skipper said at another conference just a few weeks ago. Skipper had said that ESPN was working on more bundled streaming services, akin to Dish’s Sling TV, but suggested that the company wasn’t interested in going direct-to-consumer. “We do not believe that right now to be good business,” Skipper said at the time.

We still don’t know what ambitions Apple may (or may not have) for live streaming TV, but for months there have been rumors that Apple may be among several companies interested in bidding for the streaming rights to the NFL’s Thursday night games. On Thursday, re/code threw some cold water on those rumors. Here’s Peter Kafka writing on the subject:

Apple, which could use something dramatic to set its Apple TV box apart from the competition, has determined that this package isn’t enough to pull that off, and isn’t bidding.

Of all the “gotta have” apps for Apple TV, Netflix is surely at the top for me. For the last several years, the vast majority of the TV that my wife and I watch has been watched within Netflix. And Apple clearly saw its importance early on, making it (if memory serves me) the first third party “channel” available on Apple TV, going all the way back to the second generation device several years ago. It was also something that always seemed like a natural fit with other first-party channels Apple was serving on the Apple TV. Like iTunes, it’s a service where you browsed through a list of titles and selected one to watch. Nowhere near as complicated for a developer as, say, a 3D game. But the very basic private SDK that Apple and its content partners had available for building channels on the 2nd and 3rd generation left much to be desired, and we were all excited to see what developers would do with a proper iOS-like SDK for building real apps for the fourth generation Apple TV. Many developers have made incredible apps for Apple TV while some, like The Weather Channel, have barely strayed from the primitive app format of the old Apple TV. Netflix on the other hand, while still being a fantastic service for consuming TV shows and movies, has made a pretty poor app. I feared we had this coming when, prior to the announcement of the new Apple TV, I tried the Netflix app for Amazon’s Fire TV. Unfortunately, the Apple TV app that Netflix has developed largely appears to be a port of the Fire TV app. Before I get into the deficiencies of Netflix’s app for the fourth generation Apple TV, let me start by illustrating what I liked so much about their app for the second and third generation Apple TV:

The initial screen looked a lot like Apple’s Front Row service from older versions of Mac OS X and the first generation Apple TV. On the left is a slideshow of titles and on the right is a list of all of the different parts of the Netflix service. My only real gripe with this screen is that “My List” isn’t at the very top.

When you entered the “My List” view you were presented with a clean grid of titles, making it extremely easy to see at a glance a large swath of what you’ve bookmarked for later viewing.

The thing I miss the most from the old Apple TV app is the “More Like This” section that appears at the bottom of the screen whenever you select a title. That made it really easy to find similar content. While it wasn’t always spot on, there were many times that I found things that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise.

Finally, if you clicked down while on a title you were presented with a cast listing, making it easy to see other movies and shows on Netflix featuring the stars of the title you’re viewing. While it’s true that you can use Siri to do voice searches like this on the new Apple TV, I miss this feature in the Netflix app. Now on to the new Apple TV Netflix app:

Rather than the vertical scrolling grid view of titles, you instead get rows of horizontally scrolling categories. It’s sort of an amalgamation of what you see in the first two photos of the old app above. I find this very unpleasant to use. It takes longer to move vertically through categories to see what categories there are because of all of the pictures, and then when you horizontally move through a category, you only see a few at a time. This makes it hard to survey a category quickly.

Then, when you select a title, you’re no longer presented with the helpful “More Like This” section or the ability to browse titles featuring actors from the title you’ve selected. (If these features are there somewhere, I can’t find them.)

While it hasn’t shown up yet on my device, Apple yesterday began rolling out additional categories for browsing in the tvOS App Store. According to AfterPad, here is the full list of categories after the roll out:

Business Apps Weather Apps Utilities Travel Apps Social Networking Apps Reference Apps Productivity Apps Music Apps Finance Apps Book Apps Medical Apps Catalogs