Single Sign-On Now Available in tvOS 10.1 and iOS 10.2

[MacRumors]

Sometime over the course of the last few hours, Apple appears to have quietly activated the much-promised Single Sign-On feature for the Apple TV and iOS devices, making it available to developers running the tvOS 10.1 and iOS 10.2 betas.

Single Sign-On, as rumored, appears to support only a limited number of cable services, including Dish, GVTC Communications, Hotwire, and Sling TV.

On the fourth-generation Apple TV, Single Sign-On settings can be accessed by opening the Settings app and navigating to accounts, where a TV Provider section is now available alongside Home Sharing. Customers can sign in to a service at this menu and will presumably be able to access all content associated with that subscription.

On the iPad and the iPhone, the same TV Provider section is available in the Settings app, located below the section for signing into social networks.

Single Sign-On is designed to allow users to sign in once with their cable credentials to access all live cable content available through their cable subscription, even when it's spread across multiple apps. Apple's aim with Single Sign-On is to simplify and streamline the television-watching experience on the Apple TV.

Dish and Sling TV are well-known television providers, while GVTC and Hotwire are smaller regional services. Hotwire is available in Florida, South Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, while GVTC is only available in a small part of Texas, including north of San Antonio and the Gonzales area.

With the limited availability of Single Sign-On, it will only be available to a small number of Apple customers to begin with, but Apple is undoubtedly working to get more providers on board.

Article Link: Single Sign-On Now Available in tvOS 10.1 and iOS 10.2

 

[Juicy Box]

About time!

 

[Loyalty4Life]

No Comcast??

 

[RvXtm]

Dish )

 

[pilotkid]

No Cox Communications...I knew it was to good to be true...

 

[Juicy Box]

I thought this was going to end up being like Wireless CarPlay. Something announced, but never materialized.

 

[DaveOP]

Hard to believe no Comcast, DirecTV or Cox. They've only had since June to work on this list.

 

[derek916]

So I signed on with my dish account ... now what

 

[Juicy Box]

Hard to believe no Comcast, DirecTV or Cox. They've only had since June to work on this list.

They were busy with touch bars and watch bands.

 

[jetjaguar]

No verizon ?

 

[dannyyankou]

No verizon ?

Are we surprised? Verizon is late to everything.

 

[Peace]

Four providers.

Now thats Innovation !!

 

[unobtainium]

Lol I was so excited for a second.

 

[DotCom2]

Frontier will probably be the very last one to sign on to this.
They are just horrible.

 

[Vermifuge]

Is there a developer with sling wo can tell me what this enables? Does this mean i can now use the apps for the channels sling offers?

 

[Juicy Box]

Frontier will probably be the very last one to sign on to this.
They are just horrible.

Aren't they all?

 

[pat500000]

Not bad...a single login.

 

[harley3k]

Couldn't care less about this since I don't have cable. Waiting for the new "TV" app though... - that 'should' ease the pain of switching into a dozen apps to try and remember what streams I was following.

 

[dominiongamma]

Sad XInfinity isn't ready

 

[Juicy Box]

Lol I was so excited for a second.

Yea, finally some good news, but with the lack of supporting cable services, there is still bad news.

I'm sure that the companies will join eventually.

 

[newyorksole]

No Verizon FiOS?! Wow...

 

[AtheistP3ace]

No xfinity son? To be honest can't remember last time I had to log in anyway. Whenever it pops up and says choose a cable provider I tap xfinity and it just automatically logs me in. Use to ask me all the time for credentials. Been a while since it has. Not sure what they changed but it's been nice.

 

[ZeRoLiMiT]

But if we are signing with out apps will the tv app work?

 

[julesme]

Single Sign On is not that big of a deal to me. Let's say I have around 10 TV apps that I use on my iPad, all of which reference the same cable subscription. Signing in to each one ONCE is not a major headache, especially since the list of apps does not change much over time.

The real inconvenience is when an individual app occasionally deletes/forgets the credentials and asks me to sign in again, as if I've never used the app before (CNBC does this around once/month). If Single Sign On prevents this from happening, then it's a Godsend. Otherwise I don't care.

 

[Juicy Box]

Single Sign On is not that big of a deal to me. Let's say I have around 10 TV apps that I use on my iPad, all of which reference the same cable subscription. Signing in to each one ONCE is not a major headache, especially since the list of apps does not change much over time.

The real inconvenience is when an individual app occasionally deletes/forgets the credentials and asks me to sign in again, as if I've never used the app before (CNBC does this around once/month). If Single Sign On prevents this from happening, then it's a Godsend. Otherwise I don't care.

Reauthenicating is a pain, especially if you have many ATVs.