The iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch are getting all the attention today with the public releases of iOS 10 and watchOS 3, but the Apple TV also just got a ton of new features thanks to the official release of tvOS 10. For users who have turned on automatic software updates, however, their fourth-generation Apple TV will automatically download and install tvOS 10.
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To install tvOS 10, one can download the update over the air by going to the Settings app, clicking on System and launching Software Update.
Announced at WWDC, tvOS 10 promises to greatly improve Siri functionality with users now able to make more complex, multifaceted requests.
Apple’s tvOS 10 is officially out. You can now search for movies by topic, and you can combine search criteria, so you can tell Siri to “Show me movies about time travel” or “Show me boxing movies from the ’80s”. Say “Search YouTube” and then your query, like so: “Search YouTube for iPhone 7 videos”.
Improvements to Photos and Apple Music have also been mirrored across tvOS, while, for you night owls, Dark Mode is also contained within today’s update.
Before the update, if you’ve been using a projector like me, the white interface was dazzling.
A Photos app Memories movie. Memories are automated collections of photos based on date and location. For instance, you should find an album with your latest vacation in the Photos app. tvOS even creates a short and sweet video compiling all these photos and videos together.
The new Music app also offers two new rotating playlists for Apple Music members: My New Music Mix and My Favorites Mix. Apple is copying Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist with computer-generated playlists that automatically refresh every week with new songs.
Aimed at United States cable users, it eliminates the need to sign into individual on-demand apps like HBO Go and Showtime, which require the user’s cable login. In the past that has typically meant typing in your cable TV login credentials app-by-app on the network’s website to get a passcode that will unlock an Apple TV app’s content.
tvOS 10 doesn’t offer any earth-shattering changes, but it does include a few niceties.
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When the 4th generation of the Apple TV was introduced there were inconsistencies in Apple’s documentation that made it unclear whether game developers could require a third-party game controller. With this app, it’s already much easier to type on your Apple TV.
