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butterwm

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 25, 2012
136
48
We are doing a little experimenting with Apple TV. My wife is visiting family in Germany and bought an Apple TV. We are using the VPN and able to download and watch American shows using the American Apps. Her family has their own profile and she created her own profile on the Apple TV. She is finding that all the apps she downloads are showing up in the other user profiles on that Apple TV. It kind of defeats the purpose of having separate profiles if they all look the same. Is there a setting I am missing where the apps she downloads stay in just her profile and not everybody else’s profiles?
 
Profiles only affect what you see in Continue Watching, Watch List, Purchased Library and Apple Music.
The main home screen remains the same no matter the selected profile.
 
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Yeah, they're not like the true User Accounts we have on the Mac. Only a few things are actually separated, and AFAIK aside from the Apple TV app, the other streaming apps themselves don't "know" anything about which profile is active.
 
We have three Apple TVs in our house. My husband and I are in a family sharing group. I’m the default user on two of the Apple TVs, with One Home Screen enabled. My husband’s profile is also set up on those TVs. He’s the default user on the third TV; my profile is set up on that TV so I can see my “Continue Watching”. The apps are in sync between “my” two TVs, but they aren’t synced with the TV where my husband’s profile is the default profile.

This isn’t perfect, obviously - if I’m using ‘his” TV, even with my own profile, not all of my apps are there, and vice versa. I’m not entirely sure it’s an improvement over setting myself as the default user on all of the TVs and having all of the apps on all of the TVs. It’s not like we have separate accounts for the apps (we’re not going to pay for two Hulu, etc, subscriptions) anyway.
 
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