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Apple Allowing Developers Who Won Apple TV Lottery to Place Orders

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The new Apple TV won't be available to consumers until the end of October, but some developers are able to get their hands on one of the devices early in order to begin preparing and testing apps for the tvOS App Store.

Following last week's "Hey Siri" media event, Apple gave developers an opportunity to sign up for a lottery for an Apple TV Developer Kit, which ended today. Developers who won the lottery are now receiving invitations allowing them to purchase an Apple TV kit, and the first Apple TVs could be in developer hands by the end of this week.

appletvdeveloperkit-800x629.jpg

Developers who were selected for the lottery are required to order by Wednesday, September 16, with orders beginning to ship out one to three days after that. Apple is providing Apple TV Developer Kits to developers at no cost, with a $1 fee being charged to verify billing and shipping addresses.

With Apple TVs in the hands of developers in just a few short days, we may learn a lot more about the device ahead of its official October launch date, and we'll almost certainly get a glimpse at what kind of apps we can expect on it. We've already seen an unboxing of the new Apple TV, which gave us a look at the set-top box itself and the new touch-based Siri remote included with it.

Apple's new Apple TV represents a massive overhaul of the existing set-top box, which has been left untouched since 2012. In addition to a much more powerful A8 processor, 2GB RAM, and more storage space, the new Apple TV includes a whole new operating system, tvOS, that supports a full App Store, allowing apps and games to be played on the device for the first time, and Siri, for full voice-control abilities in countries where it is supported.

The Apple TV also has deep search capabilities that will make it possible for users to search for content across multiple apps to find television shows and movies, and its aforementioned touch-based remote doubles as a motion-supported gaming controller for games that will be found within the new App Store.

Article Link: Apple Allowing Developers Who Won Apple TV Lottery to Place Orders
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2015/09/14/apple-tv-developer-kit-lottery/
Fingers crossed I get my invite email. I've been playing with the SDK, it's pretty cool if a little overwhelming.
 
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Ok, this week is the starting point. Let's see when the app store will be flying! Looking foward to this.
 
I am excited for them to be released to the public. I will buy one right away. And a second for christmas probably. What I am hoping the most is that the homekit apps come out soon since they are supposed to leverage the TV as the Hub. I have stopped buying HUE lights and other Home Automation until it is clear what direction products are taking relative to HomeKit.
 
I'm not a developer so this may be a stupid question: Do the apps have to be focused on television content and games? Are you able to develop apps for any application, like home automation? I was really surprised they didn't have any integration of Siri and Homekit shown at the keynote. That seems like a killer feature for the new AppleTV.
 
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I wonder how many of those that won the lottery will actually develop for it and not just nerds that want it faster.

Disclaimer: I'm a nerd and developer and I would love it faster. But since I have no inclination to develop for it in the short term, I didn't want to ruin the chances of an actual developer to get one.
 
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Got an invite. First time getting an invite to one of these Apple lotteries. :)
We're using it for actual development (and to see how cool it is ;)). Our goal is to make sure we can make our graphics engine run on it, and try to be one of the first WYSIWYG app/game creators to publish to it :).
 
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GenesisST said:
I wonder how many of those that won the lottery will actually develop for it and not just nerds that want it faster.

Disclaimer: I'm a nerd and developer and I would love it faster. But since I have no inclination to develop for it in the short term, I didn't want to ruin the chances of an actual developer to get one.
Click to expand...

When I looked at the terms I believe it required an Enterprise Developer account ($299, not the $99 one) so that would knock a few less serious folks out. Plus the prioritized based on developers with Apps already published in the store...
 
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wwooden said:
I'm not a developer so this may be a stupid question: Do the apps have to be focused on television content and games? Are you able to develop apps for any application, like home automation? I was really surprised they didn't have any integration of Siri and Homekit shown at the keynote. That seems like a killer feature for the new AppleTV.
Click to expand...

If you look at the developer API's they give a list of iOS 9 vs tvOS 9 differences. I would think that anything anything that can be done via the available API's is fair game, but I haven't seen the app review guidelines for it yet.

Surprisingly, HomeKit is not enabled in the initial release of tvOS 9.

https://developer.apple.com/library...edium=web&utm_source=iOS_Dev_Weekly_Issue_215
 
Shawn Parr said:
When I looked at the terms I believe it required an Enterprise Developer account ($299, not the $99 one) so that would knock a few less serious folks out. Plus the prioritized based on developers with Apps already published in the store...
Click to expand...

I just have a standard developer account and i got an invite..
 
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