tvOS (formerly known as Apple TV Software) is an

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

developed by Apple Inc. for the

Apple TV An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple trees are cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus '' Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, where its wild ancesto ...

, a

digital media player A digital media player (also sometimes known as a streaming device or streaming box) is a type of consumer electronics device designed for the storage, playback, or viewing of digital media content. They are typically designed to be integra ...

. In the first-generation Apple TV, Apple TV Software was based on Mac OS X. Starting with the second-generation, it is based on the iOS operating system and has many similar frameworks, technologies, and concepts. The second and third generation Apple TV have several built-in applications, but do not support third-party applications. On September 9, 2015 at a media event, Apple announced the fourth generation Apple TV, with support for third-party applications. Apple changed the name of the Apple TV operating system to tvOS, adopting the

camel case Camel case (sometimes stylized as camelCase or CamelCase, also known as camel caps or more formally as medial capitals) is the practice of writing phrases without spaces or punctuation. The format indicates the separation of words with a single ...

nomenclature Nomenclature (, ) is a system of names or terms, or the rules for forming these terms in a particular field of arts or sciences. The principles of naming vary from the relatively informal conventions of everyday speech to the internationally ag ...

that they were using for their other operating systems, iOS and watchOS.

History

On October 30, 2015, the fourth generation Apple TV became available, and shipped with tvOS 9.0. On November 9, 2015, tvOS 9.0.1 was released, primarily an update to address minor issues. tvOS 9.1 was released on December 8, 2015 along with

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

10.11.2, iOS 9.2, and watchOS 2.1. Along with these updates, Apple also updated the Remote apps on iOS and watchOS, allowing for basic remote functionality for the fourth generation Apple TV (previously, said app only worked with past versions of Apple TV). On November 25, 2015, Facebook debuted their SDK for tvOS, allowing applications to log into Facebook, share to Facebook, and use Facebook Analytics in the same way that iOS applications can. On December 2, 2015, Twitter debuted their login authentication service for tvOS – "Digits" – allowing users to log into apps and services with a simple, unique code available online. On June 13, 2016, at WWDC 2016, Apple SVP of Internet Services Eddy Cue announced the next major version of tvOS, tvOS 10. tvOS 10 brought new functionality, such as Siri search enhancements, single sign on for cable subscriptions, a dark mode, and a new Remote application for controlling the Apple TV and was officially released on September 13, 2016, along with iOS 10. On June 4, 2018, at WWDC 2018, tvOS 12 was announced. tvOS 12 brought support for Dolby Atmos E-AC3 and was officially released on September 17, 2018, along with iOS 12. On April 13, 2020, it was discovered that Apple's Siri Smart Speaker HomePod began to run variants of the tvOS software. On June 22, 2020, at WWDC 2020, tvOS 14 was announced. tvOS 14 brought support for the

Home A home, or domicile, is a space used as a permanent or semi-permanent residence for one or many humans, and sometimes various companion animals. It is a fully or semi sheltered space and can have both interior and exterior aspects to it. ...

app and 4K

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

videos and was officially released on September 16, 2020, along with iOS 14 and iPadOS 14. On June 7, 2021, at WWDC 2021, tvOS 15 was announced. tvOS 15 brought new features and improvements, including SharePlay, a new "Shared with You" section on the TV app, and the ability to play content via voice command and was officially released on September 20, 2021, along with iOS 15 and

iPadOS 15 iPadOS 15 is the third major release of the iPadOS operating system developed by Apple for its iPad line of tablet computers. The successor to iPadOS 14, it was announced at the company's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 7, 2 ...

. On June 6, 2022, at WWDC 2022, tvOS 16 was announced. tvOS 16 brought support for

Nintendo Switch The is a hybrid video game console developed by Nintendo and released worldwide in most regions on March 3, 2017. The console itself is a tablet that can either be docked for use as a home console or used as a portable device, making it a ...

's Joy-Con and Pro Controllers and additional Bluetooth and USB game controllers and was officially released on September 12, 2022, along with iOS 16.

Features

tvOS 9 shipped with several new features on the fourth generation Apple TV. One of the major features was the ability to move through the interface with the new touchpad remote using multi-touch gestures. It introduced a new App Store in which users can download and install new applications (such as apps and games) made available from developers that develop applications for the Apple TV and tvOS. tvOS 9 adds support for Siri, which lets users do a multitude of things such as a cross-application search for a movie/TV show, rewind, fast forward, name and actor/director of the current movie, and skip back 15 seconds. tvOS added support for an application switcher on the Apple TV, more application customization options, cinematic screensavers, and control the TV using the included Siri Remote with the built-in support for HDMI-CEC in tvOS. In addition, tvOS allows the user to control the Apple TV in many different ways. These include using the included Siri Remote, pairing a third-party universal remote, pairing an MFi Gamepad to control games, using the Remote app on iOS, and pairing a Bluetooth keyboard to aid in the typing experience of the user.

Accessibility

tvOS was designed based on iOS, as such tvOS inherited many of the accessibility features of iOS and macOS. tvOS includes the Apple technologies of VoiceOver, Zoom, and Siri to help the blind and those with impaired vision. VoiceOver, Apple's

screen reader A screen reader is a form of assistive technology (AT) that renders text and image content as speech or braille output. Screen readers are essential to people who are blind, and are useful to people who are visually impaired, illiterate, or ...

, is available in more than 30 languages and enables visually impaired users to know what is on the visual display and input responses to on-screen prompts. VoiceOver uses gestures similar to other Apple products (flicks, taps, and the rotor). Like other Apple products such as the iPhone with a three click sequence to the home button to activate accessibility features, with Apple TV's tvOS, a user can activate VoiceOver without any installation process. One needs only to triple-click the Menu button on the Siri Remote and the Apple TV will guide the user through the complete initial setup, a task that is non-trivial to the visually impaired in most comparable products on the market. Another accessibility feature is to increase contrast on the screen which acts by reducing the transparency of background elements on Movie and TV Show pages, menu tabs, and other parts of the operating system. High-contrast can also be turned on, with a cursor to better delineate the focused content. The user can also opt to turn on Reduce Motion which in some screen actions, such as moving between app icons on the Home screen and launching apps are visually simpler which is of benefit to reduce strain on the eyes. tvOS enables users to watch movies with audio descriptions of what is being shown on the screen. Movies with

audio description Audio description, also referred to as a video description, described video, or more precisely called a visual description, is a form of narration used to provide information surrounding key visual elements in a media work (such as a film or te ...

s are displayed with the AD (Audio Description) icon in the

iTunes Store The iTunes Store is a digital media store operated by Apple Inc. It opened on April 28, 2003, as a result of Steve Jobs' push to open a digital marketplace for music. As of April 2020, iTunes offered 60 million songs, 2.2 million apps, 25,00 ...

for tvOS and in iTunes on a Macintosh or Windows PC. Pairing a Bluetooth keyboard with the tvOS on the Apple TV enables another accessibility feature that also is an incorporation of VoiceOver. When typing, VoiceOver mirrors with an audio voice, each character pressed on the keyboard and repeated again when it is entered. The Apple TV is designed to work with the

Apple Wireless Keyboard The Apple Wireless Keyboard is a wireless keyboard built for Macintosh computers and compatible with iOS devices. It interacts over Bluetooth wireless technology and unlike its wired version, it has no USB connectors or ports. Both generations ha ...

or the Apple Magic Keyboard. It will work however with almost any brand of Bluetooth keyboard. Apple TV with and without tvOS supports

closed captioning Closed captioning (CC) and subtitling are both processes of displaying text on a television, video screen, or other visual display to provide additional or interpretive information. Both are typically used as a transcription of the audio po ...

, so the deaf or hard of hearing can experience TV episodes and feature-length movies. Compatible episodes and movies are denoted with a CC (closed captioning) or SDH ( subtitles for the deaf or hard-of-hearing) icon in the iTunes Store either on the Apple TV or in iTunes itself. The viewer can customize the captions in episodes or movies with styles and

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mo ...

s that are more conducive to their hearing and/or visual impairment. The Touch surface on the Siri Remote is customizable. Tracking when set to Fast adjusts the thumb movements made to amplify the distance in relation to how far the thumb has moved on the glass touchpad. Conversely when tracking is set to slow, larger movements of the thumb on the touchpad will tune down the distance that is traversed on the screen. This can help people with disabilities. Apple's Remote app on iOS devices allows control of the Apple TV from an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. The iOS remote app increases the accessibility of the Apple TV by enabling Switch Control. Switch Control is a unique Apple technology that enables navigation sequentially through onscreen items and perform specific actions such as selecting, tapping, dragging, typing using third party Bluetooth-enabled switch hardware made for those with handicaps.

Development

tvOS 9 ships with all-new development tools for developers. tvOS adds support for an all-new SDK for developers to build apps for the TV including all of the APIs included in iOS 9 such as

Metal A metal (from ancient Greek, Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electrical resistivity and conductivity, e ...

. It also adds the tvOS App Store which allows users to browse, download, and install a wide variety of applications. In addition, developers can now use their own interface inside of their application rather than only being able to use Apple's interface. Since tvOS is based on iOS, it is easy to port existing iOS apps to the Apple TV with Xcode while making only a few refinements to the app to better suit the larger screen. Apple provides Xcode free of charge to all registered Apple developers. To develop for the new Apple TV, it is necessary to make a parallax image for the application icon. In order to do this, Apple provides a Parallax exporter and previewer in the development tools for the Apple TV.

Version history

Information about new updates to Apple TV (2nd generation) onwards is published on Apple's knowledge base.

Supported OS releases

iOS 4

iOS 4.1 was the first version of iOS available on the Apple TV (2nd generation). It included Apple TV Software 4.0.

iOS 5

On October 23, 2011, Apple TV (2nd generation) received the iOS 5.0 software, with My Photo Stream, AirPlay mirroring (from iPhone 4S & iPad 2), NHL, Wall Street Journal, slideshow themes and Netflix subtitles. Contrary to rumors and code found in iOS 5, the release did not bring support for Bluetooth or apps to the Apple TV (2nd generation).

iOS 6

On September 24, 2012, Apple TV (2nd generation) onwards received the iOS 6.0 software update, with Shared Photo Streams, iTunes account switching, better AirPlay functionality, and Trailers searching, among other smaller improvements.

iOS 7

On September 20, 2013, Apple TV (second generation) onwards received the iOS 7.0 software update, with iTunes Radio and AirPlay from iCloud.

iOS 8

On September 18, 2014, the third generation Apple TV received the iOS 8.0 software update, with a redesigned UI, Family Sharing and peer-to-peer AirPlay.

tvOS 9

tvOS 9 is an operating system that is 95% based on iOS 9, with adaptations made for a television interface. It was announced on September 9, 2015, alongside the new iPad Pro and iPhone 6S. Tim Cook introduced tvOS, saying that it was time for the

to gain a modern OS with support for apps, as they are "the future of TV". It will only be available on the Apple TV (4th generation), released in October 2015. It adds a native SDK to develop apps, an App Store to distribute them, support for Siri, and universal search across multiple apps.

tvOS 10

tvOS 11

tvOS 12

tvOS 13

tvOS 14

tvOS 15

tvOS 16

Notes

References

External links

* – official site for Apple TV {{Authority control Apple Inc. operating systems IOS Proprietary operating systems Streaming media systems Products introduced in 2015