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New Apple TV Hacked to Run Native tvOS Web Browser
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Sorry, that's why company execs get paid the big bucks; to make what they feel are the right decisions to deliver a superior user experience. Obviously Apple decided (correctly in my opinion) that browsing websites on a TV is not a great user experience. If you have an issue with that then I guess Apple TV is not for you.
Do you have an example? Why wouldn't they be able to deliver a native app?
Apple has proven many times that customers (in aggregate) often do not know what they want.
A browser is a faster horse (but cars will sell much better throughout the next century). An Apple may even be looking at doing more in the car business. Note that there are no Apple horse ranches or breeders rumored (even though the daughters of a small number of rich parents want one).
If so, the user experience will be completely different from the github example, or what developers can do now with a iOS WebKit view. What can be done now is a UI worse than mp3 players before the iPod.
I mostly agree with this, but the old model of the ATV had no support for splash screens when connecting to Wifi. That's really the only browser window that I'd like to see.
Give me a way to hook it to a company's wifi when a splash screen is required for guest access (and not make me ask a customer to change the way "they" run their network to accomodate my style), and I'll be perfectly happy. Again, hotels and corporate guest wifi networks probably aren't too common of a use case, but especially with Apple trying to push into Enterprise more... You'd think it'll be more and more common as time goes on.
-to prevent the lazy developers just throwing web content onto the screen, which would be ugly and unreadable for many users, and would reflect very badly on the platform as a whole.
I understand that sentiment back in the old TV days. It was like surfing the non-mobile web on an iPhone 3GS. With the 1K and 4K (and 8K) TVs out there, I can see it for casual browsing, like going to www.raptor-aviation.com on the big screen and watching the videos there.
By casual, I mean that I see a website, and I surf to it, and treat it like a one way interaction. Surf, read, click, and repeat.
He's not saying they can't develop a native app but cases where they won't develop a native app for whatever reason, case in point would be the current speculation over whether Amazon Prime will release an Apple TV app or not. If they didn't and you had a web-browser there's a chance you could use that instead.
I'm waiting patiently for someone to sideload Kodi on the new AppleTV. Hopefully this ends up being possible.
The reason is simple (I think). If they had a browser, then you could circumvent the channels that are offered and get content other ways than via their app store. And they want to control that experience/access.
So, side-loading apps is considered hacking now? I'm gonna rush out and buy a USB-C cable to start hacking tonight and install all the hacks for my hacked Apple TV. Then I will change my signature to "1337 h4x0r".
You can already do that with AirPlay. This is about websites looking and acting terrible on a TV. Everything's too small, interaction requires a mouse or touch, typing urls is a chore, websites are generally not optimised for 16:9 viewing, reading articles on a screen 10 feet away isn't comfortable, and neither is it compelling viewing for anyone else in the room.
It isn't worth it, and giving developers the option of presenting web content in their apps would be too tempting a shortcut for many and would result in some very poor experiences for users.
Apple is about user experience (for the masses). Browsing on a TV is a bad user experience (for the masses). Thus skip it.
There are two options:
- Hack the Apple TV into having Mac capabilities
- Make TV software for Mac
I'd rather have the latter, actually.
- Hack the Apple TV into having Mac capabilities
- Make TV software for Mac
I'd rather have the latter, actually.
Well, this isn't a hack. This is just an app that the developer sideloaded using xcode, nothing more.
It would be horrible to use if you're sitting any further than a metre away from the screen, or clunky as to use.
Know about this because I've tried the browser on my Samsung smart tv...
Not having a web browser on a tv is a deal breaker? You'd use it like twice and then never again. It's a terrible user experience.
So can this guy change the website, or did he just hardcode the webview to open up apple.com?
Also, what the somebody said earlier on in this thread, if you can use it for amazon prime video, then that would be awesome
Also, what the somebody said earlier on in this thread, if you can use it for amazon prime video, then that would be awesome
People now are too conditioned to multitasking while watching TV. Beyond the technical exercise to hack the Apple TV, who is interested in forcing a device to perform a function it wasn't designed to do? I think most people would prefer to watch TV with their phone, tablet, or laptop nearby.
This whole "Why doesn't it support web browsing" reminds me a lot of "when will iOS support flash". Do people browse websites on mobile Safari a lot? I'm willing to bet they mostly use apps for information.
That tvOS doesn't allow apps to display content is a different story. Would we really need Twitter and Facebook with their respective web linked content on the TV? When people sit in front of their TV they probably don't want to read tweets. I have my phone for that.
That tvOS doesn't allow apps to display content is a different story. Would we really need Twitter and Facebook with their respective web linked content on the TV? When people sit in front of their TV they probably don't want to read tweets. I have my phone for that.