Apple’s October event wasn’t all MacBooks and iPhone updates. Today, Tim Cook and crew announced a few things for the Apple TV. Chief of which is the company’s new TV app simply dubbed TV.
No, seriously. It’s actually called TV.
No ad to show here.
Even with that uninspiring name, the app is heading to both tvOS (Apple TV) and iOS (iPhone and iPad) for users in the US “by the end of the year”, and aims to provide users with a unified viewing experience.
It’s essentially a digital TV guide, displaying the collated content from all of your video-on-demand accounts — from HBO to CBS — with integration with Apple’s own iTunes bouquets. Some content is handpicked, while tabs in the app’s top-level menu sorts your content into commonly or recently viewed items, to your greater library.
The new TV app will be available on the Apple TV (because that won’t become confusing at all)
Siri is also integrated as well. The charismatic voice assistant can be used to play specific shows or movies, or search for interesting content.
TV makes total sense for iOS, where navigating a slew of apps to decide what to watch is a tiresome process, but on the actual Apple TV? Not so much.
Apple’s Apple TV TV app pic.twitter.com/HIdfoAPDGX
— Daniel Rubino (@Daniel_Rubino) October 27, 2016
The TV app doesn’t seem to boast intergration with the Apple TV dashboard, but rather sits on tvOS as a standalone app.
Interestingly, the TV app also doesn’t seem to boast integration with Netflix or Amazon’s streaming service. This could be a major problem for Stranger Things and The Grand Tour fans.
Either way, it’s name is bound to get extremely confusing — at least as confusing as it is meta.
