Year after yr , one Apple operating system ends up get shortsighted shrift when the fellowship announces its yearly update at WWDC . While iOS , macOS , and iPadOS all show off their glossy new feature , an unnoted sibling is pull up stakes sitting unhappily on the bench , waitress for its chance to shine – a probability that never seems to come .
I speak , of course , of tvOS .
And yet , tvOS is far from an also - run when it fall to my household . A few years back I switched to consume middling much all my content through the Apple TV , and it ’s put me in a contradictory berth when it come to the rig - top box : appreciative of how quiet and competently it does its task , and all too aware of where it could be so much better .
Apple TV got an updated interface last December, but it feels like it could do more.
Off the grid
The internet is buzzing with rumors that thenext edition of iOSwill provide for further base screen customization , allowing you to put icons wherever you desire .
But will no one intend of misfortunate tvOS ? Not only do its apps stay on trapped in the prison house of a storage-battery grid , but it ’s never even get any of the other customizable Home screen features that the iPhone , iPad , or Mac have in recent years .
For example : appliance . I ’d love to have the option of removing some of the apps from my Home screen and exchange them with widgets of my choice . I could glance at the weather , see the score of the most late Red Sox game , or perhaps even eyeball a Home Kit video photographic camera . It does n’t have to be mandatory , but I ’d like to have the control and choice here that I have on my other devices : I ’m not trusted what make the TV so special that it does n’t apply .
Apple TV got an updated interface last December, but it feels like it could do more.
In universal , I do n’t need a screen with 30 icon on it : it ’s tough enough to find anything beyond the top couple rows as it is . On my iPhone and iPad , I ’ve taken advantage of the App Library boast to move most of the icon off my nursing home CRT screen ; I can always get to them via Spotlight if I really need them . Why not on the Apple TV too ? Yes , that might stand for resorting to Siri , or lookup , or even the Apple TV app , but those are all fine by me , frankly . The long and short of it is that the tvOS Home CRT screen is long in the tooth and for such valuable real estate , is really underutilized .
Watch out
you’re able to already start to see Apple nudging its way towards the hereafter of the Apple TV in the latest version of the Apple TV … app . Where you watch Apple TV+ . ( Seriously , the appointment is one of the bad parts of this program . ) Apple has undertake to hoard a queue of all the shows you watch in a exclusive location , which is still very ready to hand , despite two major problems . First , after all these yr there ’s still no integration with Netflix . I get it : they ’re two big companies and they ’re at loggerheads when it come to discoverability and who get the customers ’ information . But at this distributor point , it ’s still the drug user who get trapped in the middle , so it seems like Apple should swallow its pride ( ha ! ) and make a deal to get Netflix integrated .
Apple TV got an update interface last December , but it feel like it could do more .
Foundry
The second is perhaps a more permeating trouble , and it ’s one that Apple can solve all on its own : the inauspicious trend for the company to dish up up its own content before everybody else ’s . In the Apple TV app , this mean that the queue of yourApple TV+ showsis slow to get to , but if you want to see the listing include show from all your streaming services , you have to navigate to an wholly separate section .
Moreover , you have to spend some clip scrolling preceding advertizement for the company ’s other content . Who on the nose is this $ 99 box seat working for at that point ? The client who bought it to watch subject matter or the caller that wants to deal it ?
Anything but integral
While Apple ’s taken strides to improve the way the Apple television works with other part of its ecosystem , there are still a few places where I get hold myself frustrated by a lack of integration .
word continue one . While it ’s potential to login to apps on the Apple TV using your iPhone to access iCloud Keychain , there ’s no native system on tvOS to do so . Why ca n’t my passwords sync over so I do n’t have to drag out my iPhone to stand out through a bunch of basketball hoop ? I ’m still happy to use my iPhone or Apple Watch for confirmation that it ’s me , as I can do with leverage , but it ’d be nice to reduce some step .
as well , the Apple TV is one of the few Apple devices that provides support for multiple profiles , but if you want to set up a user for , say , a nestling , then you ’re swimming upstream . Apple ’s Screen Time feature of speech for managing usance just does n’t exist on the set - top box , and instead of get one systemwide kid - friendly profile alternative , you have to painstakingly dress it up for each app you utilize . It sure sense like tvOS could use a central set of frameworks that apps can utilize to supply a feature like this .
So is tvOS a well-thought-of member of Apple ’s political platform kinfolk , or nothing more than an also - ran ? promise give eternal : we ’ll have to wait until this year ’s updates – due to be announced just a dyad months from now – to get out .
