
Launching an Apple TV App: What We’ve Learned So Far - ingve
https://blog.serverdensity.com/launching-an-apple-tv-app-what-weve-learned-so-far/
======
thestoicjester
I was playing around with writing an app for the new Apple TV, and it was fun
enough that I ended up putting a bit of polish on it and releasing it to the
app store. It's a free game called Slingshot Superhero.

It wasn't until the app got approved that I started to realize just how
terrible app discovery is on the platform. There's no "new apps" list at all.
There are no Top 100 lists in the individual categories. I can't even link you
guys to the app. The only way anybody can find my app is if I personally tell
them to go to the app store, find the search feature, and use the hilariously
bad text input feature to search for "Slingshot Superhero".

I probably won't be making any more Apple TV apps.

~~~
Fr0styMatt88
That really sucks. Still, discovery has been crap on iTunes for.... how long?
I've always relied on sites like TouchArcade and their ilk when trying to find
iOS games.

I really wish Apple would do something like Google Play does, where I can go
onto the store in my browser and buy an app right there to be sent to my
AppleTV.

Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make voice recognition universal to all text
input fields. Why isn't this the case already?

I am really liking my AppleTV and hoping that Apple puts the effort in to make
it fantastic.

~~~
saw-lau
Bought ours on Saturday, and excitedly asked Siri to play some David Bowie
when I got it home and set up... It just displayed a list of _films_ that he'd
acted in!

~~~
kerbs
Fortunately/unfortunately this works iff you have an Apple Music subscription.

~~~
saw-lau
...which I don't; but I _do_ have iTunes Match.

------
jalencas
Hi, I'm the main author of the app in the linked article. (Finally had to
create an HN account after lurking for years.)

I'll be glad to answer questions regarding development, audience and similar
aspects, but I'll do that tomorrow as it's just past midnight in Europe/UK
(where we are based). Also feel free to ask about our monitoring service, I'm
sure my colleagues will chime in where my knowledge ends.

~~~
ctdonath
I appreciate your article, having worked on porting our iPhone app to Apple
TV. Video recording, remote pairing to simulator, etc all sound useful. I'd
like to respond in more detail, but will take some time to go thru your points
with care & attention.

Overall it's nice to have the same tools and codebase for both platforms, just
adapting the app for notably different use cases.

~~~
jalencas
Our case was the other way around, Apple TV first, and we are currently
working on the iOS app. We have a previous iOS app, but it only knows about
alerts. A full dashboard monitoring app was on our roadmap, further down the
line, but with the release of the Apple TV (and having the luck of being
selected for a developer kit) we decided to tackle the tvOS version first.

This decision was made easier due to the fact that both platforms can run the
same code, so most of the API interaction and view rendering code will be
reused. It was mostly a greenfield project, because even though we leveraged
the knowledge from our alerts iOS app, we took the opportunity of writing
everything in Swift, which functional expressiveness makes it slightly more
useful when it comes to dealing with APIs.

------
FreedomToCreate
I really want to know the sales figure for the Apple TV. Its a lot to spend
for casual gaming; and if you want news, netflix, youtube, etc.. on your TV,
then there are many alternatives that are better and more powerful. Say buying
a $200 desktop with a wireless keyboard and mouse.

I know this thing is optimized for the TV experience, and great if your in the
Apple Ecosystem. I have the original Apple TV (received as a gift) and besides
for some Netflix and youtube, I barely use it. And when I do, my iPhone is the
remote. Does this new one really push TV forward?

Edit: I agree the optimization for experience is the focus, but what I am
getting at is with the TV getting smarter, it is moving towards the realm of
being a full out computer attached to your TV, and the user interaction
methods designed for it really diminish the quality of the interaction.

Here is an example. The current Apple TV has a remote that makes typing in
login information extremely annoying. To address this issue they integrated
voice, which works sometimes, which is a hit of miss in its current
implementation and useless for passwords. To remedy this issue, you can attach
a BT keyboard or iPhone to your ATV, and thus have gone backwards in terms of
what the designer intended, but in doing so have actually achieve a better
interaction.

Apple and the other companies need to move towards discovering whole new
interface technologies to make this really effective. Kind of like what the
touch screen was for the smart phone.

~~~
ranman
My xbox one is a significantly better experience than the Apple TV. Despite
what I've ready in other comments I actually find the software to be
borderline unusable and very unpolished.

For instance on setup I entered the same apple account password more than 4
times despite having synced from my phone... I then had to enter it every time
I wanted to purchase something despite checking the setting that did not
require a password for purchases. Entering my long-ass password on that tiny
apple remote is really frustrating. It doesn't have Amazon prime video --
voice search for apps, or really anything that makes it better than my xbox
one. I can't upload my own videos to it to play or play from a network stream.

I can say "xbox watch HBO" and suddenly it switches from my game to my cable
box and tunes to the correct channel. "xbox open netflix" and suddenly I'm on
netflix.

Of course microsoft just redesigned the entire interface for the xbox and now
that sucks too...

~~~
sremani
Xbox 360 in the tail years (post 2010) and Xbox One from the get go, have good
feature addressing TV, content and apps. Actually, XB1 is perhaps the only
device that you can feed live TV from antenna or cable through it.

~~~
muddi900
The original Xbox was sold to MS execs as a way to capture the living room.
The whole idea of a set-top media streaming box was _invented_ by the Xbox
homebrew community, with the Xbox Media Center(now Kodi).

Xbox One was supposed to be the culmination of the vision. Too bad Microsoft
alienated their audience (gamers), by mixing messages and designing their
whole interface around a hardware fad, the Kinnect. Didn't help that they also
alienated so many independent developers and which left them with a dearth of
software as well.

------
bitL
There's a desperate need to have an HTPC capable of HDMI 2.0/HDCP 2.2/4k@60Hz.
It's ridiculous there is basically nothing worth mentioning... Not even the
latest Skylake NUCs... A/V Receivers are finally updated to 4:4:4 4k@60Hz/HDCP
2.2 - why not mainstream HTPCs??? Personal computing used to be a way ahead of
other computing devices in the past, why is it now trailing?

~~~
izacus
nVidia Shield TV perhaps? It can do HW decoding of pretty much anything out
there and has a wide variety of supported software.

~~~
joshmn
I love my Shield. It's a beast of a thing.

------
rbritton
It's nice to see an article on developing for the new Apple TV, but I've been
hoping to see an article like this for a paid tvOS app (up front or IAP).

I received one of the first round developer units myself and started on a
number of ideas, both to test the capabilities of it as well as the market.
Because of my workload at the time, I missed the deadline to have something
out on launch day. Sadly, that seems to have been a good thing -- I have read
nothing positive about the reality of marketing for and producing on the tvOS
App Store. Everything indicates it's even worse off for revenue prospects than
the iPad app market, which, aside from games, is on a steady decline.

While I'm sure we'll never know, I'd love to know what Apple actually expected
to happen with the opening of this new App Store given the state of its other
ones.

~~~
ckoglmeier
I think they expected what they've had. Some solid apps that converted over
immediately and then increasing adoption from the iOS development community
over time. This adoption curve probably looks similar to the consumer adoption
curve of the new device.

FWIW, we've had a lot of success with our IAP driven app @ Craftsy. Apple TV
revenues are definitely not the size of iPad or iPhone yet, but are promising.

~~~
perishabledave
A bit off topic, but have you guys thought about breaking out into electronics
classes? I bought a photography class and thought it was quite a nice learning
platform. I'd love to learn an Arduino or Rasberry Pi project on it.

------
lifeisstillgood
As the owner of chromecast, an Apple TV, and numerous raspPis I am frustrated
by my inability to play movie X on Apple on the TV with chromecast and vice
versa

Until this problem is solved (and I am trying hard not to learn the ins and
outs) Remote TV apps are going to stay niche.

Each time i think about how I can't play the iTunes movies I paid for on the
SkyTV and vice versa I feel ripped off - and don't remind me of the DVDs

When I can move a tv show from th set to th set as easily as Tom Cruise doing
his Minoroty Report thing this is never going to fly.

~~~
simonh
Maybe Tom Cruise was using hardware and apps all from the same vendor?

~~~
lifeisstillgood
Clearly proprietary lock-in - just like using pre-cogs from the same family,
once one turns, the whole thing falls apart.

------
roymurdock
I occasionally hear news about development for Apple TV and the new tvOS but
I've never seen it/used it. So I went to the Apple website to check it out.
First thing I noticed was this weird copy:

 _Apps are the future of television. Think about it. On your mobile devices
and computers, you already use apps such as Netflix, Hulu, WatchESPN, and
iTunes to watch TV shows. And that’s exactly where TV in the living room is
headed. Apps have liberated television. They allow you to make individual
choices about what you want to watch. And when and where you want to watch it.
With the new Apple TV and its powerful new tvOS, developers are creating
experiences that will change what you expect from your big screen, making your
TV feel as personal as your iPhone or iPad._

Has Apple copy always been written like an eager tech blog post? Doesn't fit
with the sleek, modern, sophisticated, enigmatic brand. Or at least, what used
to be my perception the brand.

As for the actual device itself: why would I buy it with the remote,
subscriptions, dongles, etc. when I could buy an HDMI cable and use my
laptop's "apps" instead? Is Apple trying to create an app ecosystem with the
TV/Siri Remote as the form factor instead of the iPhone/finger
Macbook/trackpad/mouse? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

~~~
eddieroger
> As for the actual device itself: why would I buy it with the remote,
> subscriptions, dongles, etc. when I could buy an HDMI cable and use my
> laptop's "apps" instead? Is Apple trying to create an app ecosystem with the
> TV/Siri Remote as the form factor instead of the iPhone/finger
> Macbook/trackpad/mouse? That makes absolutely no sense to me.

You wouldn't, and that's just fine. But for the cost of an afternoon at my
parents' house, I can have them set up with a handful of services that I know
they like (Hulu, Netflix) and add a few things I want them to use (Plex,
namely), give them a super simple remote and a tutorial, and off they go. And
since they already have iPhones, they understand the concept of an App Store
that lets them install new stuff, and I don't have to worry. So, yeah, the
Apple TV isn't for you, but it's for plenty of other people.

~~~
roymurdock
I'd wager that anyone who owns and operates a computer would find connecting a
cable (or even more simply, chromecast) to their TV and computer and then
opening up youtube, netflix, hulu, plex easier in the long run than having
their son who works in tech come over and set up a black box with a bunch of
apps on it. The input device (mouse, keyboard, trackpad) is already much more
familiar than a new remote.

tvOS needs an update? How do I do that? This version of tvOS breaks my
favorite app? How do I downgrade? Do I really have to type in my password with
this little remote to authorize a purchase? Oh, I'm supposed to buy a
bluetooth keyboard to enter passwords/text?

My 70 year old father had no problem getting chromecast to work with his
computer and TV. He saw the thing advertised on TV, bought it, set it up, and
uses it to watch youtube on the big screen.

I find this whole coddling the older generation mentality a bit strange
honestly. Sure, I'll show my dad how to backup his computer with time machine
and how to install an adblocker in Chrome...but I'm betting he's had a
computer and a TV for long enough that he can figure out how to stream shows
to his TV without Apple TV if he wants to.

~~~
eddieroger
I'm really glad that your older father can handle his tech. I hope when my
parents are 70 that they can still handle business. But while they've never
really been afraid of technology, they've not taken to it as quickly as
others, like your dad.

I think you missed my bigger point, which was that because you don't see the
need for the device doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I also have my own AppleTV,
which I love very much. Yeah, I could hook any of my multiple computers to it,
or buy one that I dedicate to it full time, or anything, but I don't want to.
I want to grab a remote, which is basically a glorified d-pad with some extra
buttons, and see content. I don't want to have to bring down my computer, or
keep a spare power brick by the entertainment center, or navigate to
Netflix.com before getting on the couch, or having a 50 foot cable strewn
across my room. I'm happy to experiment with my computers, but when I decide
that it's time to zone out and watch TV, I don't want to be doing my day job
of running a computer.

As for updates and stuff, you've clearly not used an AppleTV in a while, since
they can auto update now and you wouldn't notice. You can't, but could never
downgrade, and that's not important to me to be able to do. And with their
iPhones, they can type on their iPhone's keyboard instead of the tiny remote
that you really have a distaste for.

I'm not coddling my parents, but I also don't think that having a dedicated
box that really does "just work" is coddling. Plenty of people keep cable
around solely because there's no thought to you - you turn on a box, and
pictures come out.

But you keep doing you, and I'll keep doing me. Plenty of room for both of us.

~~~
roymurdock
Yeah you're right. I can see how that would be less overhead.

I guess I'm just frustrated because it seems like another sort of useless
thing that is going to draw a lot of money and developer time and effort for
what I view as not terribly important, especially for the amount it costs.

Didn't mean to project my frustrations onto you or attack you/your parents
personally. Just trying to get to the bottom of why people purchase and use
Apple TV, and I see why now. It's easy and requires no thought, which is
exactly what you need when you're getting in the mood to relax and watch some
shows.

~~~
jalencas
It may seem frustrating at first. But when tv networks (and not just them, but
also newspapers, big brands, podcast networks…) switch from having 'channels'
to having 'apps', you'll see the genius behind it, and why it's worth the
developer time. That's what I'm looking forward to.

------
sjg007
I think it will get a lot of apps, especially apps that integrate and interact
with other iOS devices.

------
lifeisstillgood
One other thing - Enterprises using Apple TV?! What use case is there other
than the ubiquitous CNN / BBC news channel that some how seems required for
any office these days

~~~
jimminy
We used them in the office in conference rooms to make presentations easier
via Airplay. There is a qualifier that we were a startup, though.

~~~
protomyth
We (community college) have them connected to all the overhead projectors in
each room. Airplay is also the reason. We are exploring apps and will probably
setup a mac with all our videos for play in the classrooms.

------
fit2rule
I've written a few apps for the Apple TV, having written apps for Apple since
the 80's, and I can say this: its soon going to be time to stop writing apps
and just start shipping my own hardware.

Its getting cheap enough now where the 'ideal' software platform is a small,
cheap, fully-operational linux box that costs $US25, or thereabouts. Customer
wants your app, they get the hardware in the mail the next day.

True Plug and Play, AT LAST!

------
sriram_iyengar
wonderful ! motivating to start off

