If you want to listen to the same corporate pop music as you do on your terrestrial radio, you can do so from the comfort of your couch.
iHeartRadio’s streaming app can now also reside on your Apple TV, assuming you have one of the newer fourth-generation set-top boxes from Apple.
The new Apple TV app will give you all the main elements of the iOS app, including Live Stations, Custom Stations based on songs or artists, and podcasts from the behemoth media network.
It looks like Apple has expanded its killer Apple TV feature again, with Siri searches now turning up shows from PBS and PBS Kids.
This is the first sighting of the universal search feature finding results from more than just the apps included in Apple TVs initial launch, which included iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, HBO, and Showtime.
Now when you ask your Siri Remote to find shows that are available on PBS and PBS Kids, like the show about that curious monkey, you’ll see another option to watch via the Apple TV screen.
Is your Apple TV glitching out in some way? While I’ve not personally seen any weirdness with the rock-solid OS that comes with the Apple TV, it’s possible that you might have.
As most of us know, rebooting our Mac or restarting our iOS devices can save us from all sorts of odd behaviors; the same could be said of Apple TV. Here’s how to restart that little black box of joy, plus an easy way to get it into low-power sleep mode.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We take a look at them all from 2015 in this end-of-year issue of the delightful and informative Cult of Mac Magazine. We’ve got Apple’s best and worst wins and fails of the year, the must-have apps on Apple TV, Mac, iOS, and Apple Watch, how to keep your toughest New Year’s resolutions with your iPhone, a quick trick on adding emojis just about anywhere, and our thoughts on why 2015 was actually Apple’s most important year since 2007.
Dive in with your own copy of Cult of Mac Magazine. Below is the rundown for this week.
Happy New Year from all of us here at Cult of Mac.
You could say 2015 was a product-ive year for Apple. The company entered the wearable market with the Apple Watch, released a hugely updated version of the Apple TV streaming box, unveiled the massive iPad Pro (and considerably less massive iPad Mini 4), took on tune-streaming with the Apple Music service, and made its annual update to the iPhone with the 6s and 6s Plus.
We also saw updates to the operating systems that run all those things, as well as a new desktop OS in El Capitan, but it wasn’t all great news. Apple encountered lawsuits, shakeups and investigations by countries and entire federations thereof.
So whether we ultimately decide Cupertino had a good or bad year, at least it was pretty interesting. Relive the ups and downs with this Apple year in review 2015, Cult of Mac-style.
2015 was a bold year for Apple. The company jumped into new product categories, polished its existing hardware and software lines, and wowed us repeatedly.
Apple also made most of us throw up in our mouths a little bit now and then, due to some questionable (and some undeniably bad) choices.
These are Apple’s biggest wins and most epic fails of the past year, as remembered — fondly and otherwise — by Cult of Mac staffers.
The new Apple TV may soon get some competition from Microsoft, which according to a new rumor is considering making slimmer, cheaper version of the Xbox One console in an effort to beat Apple in the living room.
The Apple TV’s App Store is still so new, odds are you might be having trouble figuring out which apps are the best.
The holidays are just around the corner, so for the sake of the friends and relatives who will soon be swarming your living room, you might want to populate your new set-top box with some must-haves. Take a look at Cult of Mac’s top picks for best Apple TV apps.
Now you can watch (and explore) 360-degree videos on the new Apple TV, thanks to virtual reality network Littlstar’s free app.
The network’s new tvOS app delivers content from the likes of Showtime, Disney and PBS. It works with Apple TV’s Siri Remote, granting users the ability to control the angle used in the immersive 360-degree videos via the remote’s nifty trackpad.
Amazon, Google and Roku are all battling to win over your TV, but according to the Disney CEO Bob Iger, the new Apple TV tops them all, not only because it’s great for consumers, but also because it’s a win for content creators.
“One of the most important things that the industry needs to do is demand a better user experience,” Bob Iger told Bloomberg in an interview this morning. “The Apple TV box and the interface that it provides is the best user experience I’ve seen ever for television users.”
Watch Bob gush about Apple’s new box below:
This week: the force is looking very strong with the new Star Wars movie; live football may be coming to the Apple TV; the tvOS app store hits a major milestone; why you shouldn’t expect 3D touch in the next iPad Air; and with 2016 on the horizon, we’ll review our favorite games, gadgets, and books of 2015. Hit play, you must!
Our thanks to FreshBooks for supporting this episode, the easy-to-use invoicing software designed to help small business owners get organized, save time invoicing and get paid faster. Get started with a free trial at Freshbooks.com/cultcast.
The NFL is looking for a new partner to host Thursday Night Football, and it appears that Apple may be gunning to make an interception from Yahoo and Google.
Traditional networks like CBS, ESPN, Fox, and NBC were all informed by the NFL that it is ready to accept bid for broadcasting rights to its Thursday Night Football package, but the league also notified Apple that it can bid for a non-exclusive streaming deal for Apple TV and iOS users.
Pac-Man is a touchstone of gamer nostalgia, and Hipster Whale (the dynamic duo behind runaway hit Crossy Road) has created one of the best spin-offs yet: Pac-Man 256.
Better yet, it looks like the free-to-play endless runner cum dot muncher is now available on your high-def living room screen via the Apple TV itself.
Androgynous English rockers Placebo just claimed the honor of landing the first “artist” app on the new Apple TV. The free Placebo app is designed to deliver an “immersive” experience for fans while they remain ensconced on their couches.
Ultimately the app, which was released Monday, lets you watch music videos, live video of the band and “exclusive content” from the Placebo archives, all in your very own home.
BBC’s iPlayer app has landed on Apple TV in the U.K., joining the other streaming set top boxes — such as Roku, Google Chromecast and Amazon’s Fire TV — for which it was already available.
The app includes a full catalog of programs from the past month, along with live-streaming of BBC TV stations, the ability to start watching a program on your iPhone or iPad and then switch to Apple TV or vice versa, and personalized recommendations.
On the Apple TV app store, entertainment apps, including streaming video from the likes of HBONow and Netflix, are a clear winner, followed next by games.
AppFigures, an app tracking service for publishers and developers, took a look at the trends from Apple TV’s first month out of the gate. Their report also has some interesting insights about each category, and the way the Apple TV’s digital storefront is shaping up to be a fairly viable place to sell apps.
The remote for the new Apple TV can be a bit tricky to master and very easy to break, but help is on the according to Apple media boss Eddy Cue who revealed this morning that an iOS remote app for the new black box is coming soon.
Apple has reportedly suspended plans to add an Internet-based live television service for Apple TV, maintaining its focus on providing media from other companies.
A person familiar with negotiations claims that Apple’s plan to sell a $30-$40 monthly package of exclusive television stations has run into problems — based on the amount of money content creators are asking for for programming.
Apple is pushing its new iteration of Apple TV hard, hoping to move it beyond a “hobby” into a must-have set top box for every living room and television set possible.
Apple’s new ad, “The Future of Television,” is a visual collage of just about everything you can do with the Apple TV, including watching television shows and movies, playing games, and listening to music.
Check it out.
Here’s an amazing factoid: Netflix almost went head-to-head with the Apple TV in 2007, until they realized they were about to pick a fight they would surely lose.
The new, fourth generation Apple TV is still settling into its home next to our television sets, but already Apple is hard at work on its successor, according to a new report.
Apple’s suppliers are said to be putting a limited number of the new Apple TV into limited, small-scale “trial” production, ahead of volume production beginning early in 2016.
Once Apple brought games to the Apple TV, it was a no-brainer that we’d all want to play them together on the couch in our living room.
Apple requires developers to support the new Siri Remote, but they can also allow third-party game controllers to move stuff around on the screen, too.
Crossy Road, the excellent Frogger-like hit iOS game with the seemingly endless supply of cute creatures to play as (that was also an Apple TV launch title), goes one step further. If you want to play with a buddy and don’t have a second gamepad, you can have your pal play Crossy Road on Apple TV with just their iPhone.
Here’s how.
If you’re hoping to stream games from Steam to your new Apple TV, developer Kevin Smith (no, not the Clerks guy) has shown it is possible by modifying the Moonlight iOS project — which lets users stream Steam games from a desktop computer to their iOS device — so that it works with tvOS.
Check out the videos below.
Logging into any service on Apple TV is a pain. The text-entry field is one long line, and if you’ve got a particularly lengthy username or password for apps on the Apple TV, entering them can take much longer than it should.
Twitter-owned Digits is offering its own take on a solution with an SDK that tvOS developers can implement in their apps and let users type in a short string of numbers and letters that they get from their iPhone, rather than the full-on username and password combination.
This could solve the problem altogether, and it’s not much more tricky than using an app for Two-Step Authentication, which we all do now, anyway (or should).
Amazon’s Instant Video service has one of the best libraries in the world, but if you’re an Apple user, it has a crucial weakness: the only way to get it on Apple TV is to AirPlay it from an iOS or OS X device.
AirPlaying can be unreliable at times and you can’t use certain apps without cutting off your Amazon stream. That could change in just a few weeks though, according to an Amazon employee who let it slip that the company is working on an app for the new Apple TV.