Apple TV universal search received a major update this week, expanding to 10 new apps in the United States. On the fourth-generation Apple TV, users can now search for movies and TV shows on Apple Music, Animal Planet GO, Crunchyroll, CuriosityStream, Investigation Discovery GO, Science Channel GO, TBS, TNT, TLC GO, and Tribeca Shortlist.
For those unfamiliar with universal search, it's a feature that allows users to conduct Siri voice searches or text-based searches to find TV and movie content across a wide range of channels. At launch, universal search only supported a few channels, but Apple has been rapidly expanding the feature to encompass additional channels.
Apple TV universal search is now available for a wider number of apps in the U.S., Australia, Canada, and the U.K., but the feature is limited to iTunes and Netflix in France, Mexico, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden. In some other countries and regions, only movies in iTunes are supported.
Meanwhile, in Germany, users can now search for episodes on Galileo.
Apple today provided developers with the release candidate versions of upcoming watchOS 26.5, tvOS 26.5, and visionOS 26.5 betas for testing purposes. The software comes a week after Apple released the fourth betas for each platform.
The software updates are available through the Settings app on each device, and because these are developer betas, a free developer account is required....
Apple today released tvOS 26.5, the fifth update to the tvOS operating system that came out last fall. tvOS 26.5 is available for the Apple TV 4K, and it comes over a month after Apple released tvOS 26.4.
tvOS 26.5 can be downloaded using the Settings app on the Apple TV. Open up Settings and go to System > Software Update to get the new software. Apple TV owners who...
Apple today provided developers with the first betas of upcoming watchOS 26.6, tvOS 26.6, and visionOS 26.6 betas for testing purposes. The software two weeks after Apple launched the 26.5 versions of each platform.
The software updates are available through the Settings app on each device, and because these are developer betas, a free developer account is required.
There's no word on...
so, if I have Home Videos stored on my MacBook's iTunes I cannot easily get to them with the new AppleTV?
with ATV 3rd gen I think I go through My Computer and select the home sharing iTunes and can see music, tv, movies, Home Movies stored on that computer/iTunes.
Looks like someone else jumped in on my behalf but no, I didn't phrase this well. I use the home sharing feature on my 4th generation Apple TVs and it works well, I'm just disappointed that universal search support has never been added for this type of content. The rationale I've seen used is that the search is server side so does not have an index of my local content but this could easily be extended to search both server and local then reconcile both result sets together.
I applaud their efforts to bring on as many services as possible. But it's so rough outside of the US, and I still wish we could have some form of universal search for local stuff (thinking Plex..)
so, if I have Home Videos stored on my MacBook's iTunes I cannot easily get to them with the new AppleTV?
with ATV 3rd gen I think I go through My Computer and select the home sharing iTunes and can see music, tv, movies, Home Movies stored on that computer/iTunes.
There is a Computers app, so you can see content shared using Home Sharing from a Mac, but what I think he was referring to was that this shared content is still not part of universal search.
Universal Search: the easiest way to find crap you don't want to see on channels you don't watch.®
A stupid comment from someone who think they are being "witty." Because everyone searches for stuff they don't want found. [doublepost=1481730969][/doublepost]I like the idea of the TV App, if for no other reason than the single sign on. But I always found it ridiculous that the ATV never had the ability to automatically show you your recently watched shows/movies. It's annoying to watch something and then after you leave it, you have to scroll through an entire list just to find what I was recently watching.
For example I have 500 Movies and probably 100 TV Shows, if I'm watching X-Men and leave off, I have to scroll through a list of 500 movies to get to the X-Men before I resume and scrolling using the ATV remote flaky.
Granted I can tell Siri to find X-men, but again a pointless Step. I just want to launch my purchased Movie or TV Shows thing and see a recently watched or up next (if I'm watching a TV Series) option at the top. The idea that they have to create this whole convoluted "uniformed" TV app thing just to get that one simple feature is asinine. I really hate the "new" Apple and would leave in a heart beat but Windows is terrible and I'm locked into stupid iTunes.
