Apple kicked off WWDC 2016 today with its traditional keynote event, during which it highlighted some great new features coming to tvOS. When Eddy Cue took the stage, he demoed the new and improved iPhone remote app with all the new features of the Apple TV’s Siri remote. He showed how Siri’s universal search will be adding YouTube to its content sources in the upcoming tvOS update.
One of the major new features coming to Apple TV is Single Sign-on, which lets you enter login credentials just once, instead of having to enter them over and over again to gain access to apps from the big networks such as HBO, NBC, ABC, ESPN, etc. The feature is is coming to iOS as well, according to Cue. tvOS will also gaining a new feature called Live Tune-in, which lets you open live channel streams from networks like ESPN and Disney by just commanding Siri to put them on.
The upcoming tvOS update will also include a new dark theme and automatic download of apps between iOS and tvOS. So if you download a video app or game on your iOS device which also an Apple TV version, it will automatically be installed on the Apple TV.
A beta preview of the new tvOS is available to developers starting today.
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How does this translate to Canada?
If our networks launch Apple TV app channels, we won’t need to sign-in individually. Support for single sign-on would need to come for apps like CraveTV and Shomi from Bell and Rogers.
We already have some apps, like Global BC and CTV… but I’m not sure if these install on the Apple TV already.
They aren’t tvOS apps though. There isn’t much support for TV apps in Canada. The fact that Sportsnet now has an app (and a good one at that) leads me to believe that there is hope but we still haven’t seen anything from Global or CTV.
You missed the sling app? Any news on what it will cover?
The single sign-on is a blessing.. I hate having to authenticate every damn time,
I suspect we’ll see none of this up here in Canada. Despite every cable package here including all the same American networks, they’re always region-locked to the US.