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Today’s can’t miss deals:

T-Mobile is discounting iPhone 6s/Plus by $100 when bought on an installment plan or outright

Apple iPad mini 4 Wi-Fi 64GB in all colors: $460 shipped (Reg. $499)

MacMall already has iPad Pros on sale with modest $12 savings, more!

Apple iPad Air 2 Wi-Fi: 16GB $399 (Reg. $499), 64GB $479 (Reg. $599), 128GB $559 (Reg. $699)

Apple iPad Mini 2, space gray or silver: $199 shipped ($70 off)

Apple iPad mini 2 128GB Wi-Fi + Cellular: $370 shipped (Orig. $829) wp.me/p1xTlR-Jdb https://t.co/3Nk2zXzOCl

—
9to5Toys (@9to5toys) November 03, 2015

Implosion – Never Lose Hope for iOS goes free for the first time as IGN’s Game of the Month ($10 value)

Huge savings on pre-owned Apple Watches, deals from as low as $261 shipped

GameStop Black Friday ad leak: PS4/Xbox One bundles $300, new Nintendo 3DS XL $180, tons of games

Kohl’s Black Friday ad leak: more PS4/Xbox One $300 bundles, home goods, clothing, much more

Sam’s Club One-Day Sale: iPhone 6s/Plus $100 off, iPad Air 2 64GB/128GB $150 off, PlayStation 4 $300, more

Meijer Black Friday ad: Xbox One/PS4 bundles $300 w/ $50 credit, much more

eBay calls on Black Friday shoppers to decide which products will get discounted this year

Amazon’s Black Friday Deals store is now open for business

Everything we know so far about this year’s best Black Friday deals and promotions

The best GoPro HERO4 action camera accessories, mounts, storage, more

More deals still alive:

Apple Magic Mouse 2 (open-box): $68 shipped (Reg. $80)

App Store Free App of the Week: Rayman Fiesta Run goes free on the App Store for the first time (Reg. $3)

Review: How Amazon Echo changed my life + $130 special price ($50 off) for Amazon card holder

• Bluetooth Earbuds: Powerbeats2 (open-box) $80 (Reg. $150+), QY8 Sweatproof $19, more
• Bluetooth Speakers: Inateck Aluminum $30 (Reg. $43), SOL Republic Deck $40 (Reg. $50+)
• Car accessories: windshield mount $4 (Reg. $10), air vent mount $6 (Reg. $9), more
• Toys: LEGO Architecture Eiffel Tower Set $27 (Reg. $35), more
• Displays: LG 34″ UltraWide $570 (Reg. $699+), Acer 34″ Curved QHD $866, more
• Jawbone Big Jambox Bluetooth Speaker (Open Box) $115 shipped (Orig. $300)
• Beats by Dr. Dre Pill 2.0 Portable Bluetooth Speaker $120 shipped (Orig. $200)
• Buy PowerBeats 2 Wireless In-Ear Headphones, get a $50 gift card: $144 (Orig. $200)
• Pebble Time Smartwatch for iOS and Android: $150 shipped (Reg. $200)
• Get the latest Nest Learning Thermostat (3rd Gen.) for $212 shipped (Reg. $249)
• iPhone 6/s dual-layer case in Space Gray, Silver or Gold: $3 Prime shipped (Reg. $12)
• Foscam Plug and Play HD Wireless/Wired Pan/Tilt IP Camera $75 shipped (Reg. $100)
• Seagate 4TB USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive w/ 200GB of Cloud Storage: $130 (Reg. $150)
• Home Theater Audio: VIZIO 5.1-ch. Soundbar w/ Wireless Subwoofer $198 (Reg. $298+), more
• Factory Unlocked iPhones: 16GB iPhone 6 Plus $600, 64GB (Refurb) $450, more
• Magic Color Changing LED Light Bulb with Remote Control $9 (Reg. $33)
• USB-C 4-port hubs for new Macbooks by Aukey: $20 Prime shipped (Orig. $30)
• USB Power Deals: Lumsing 3-port Car Charger + Lightning Cable $8, more
• TP-LINK 802.11n pocket wireless router: $10 shipped (Orig. $40)
• SoundBot Bluetooth 4.0 Sports-Active Headphones $10 Prime shipped (Reg. $15)
• Fashion: 20% off at Amazon – Kenneth Cole Down Jacket $90 (Reg. $113),more
• Sling TV is giving away a 2nd gen Chromecast when you pre-pay three months
• Kindle First Books for November: Christmas in Good Hope, more
• Media: Breaking Bad Complete Series on Blu-ray $70 (Orig. $161), $3 DVDs, more
• JBL Voyager Portable Bluetooth Speaker $90 shipped (Reg. $119)
• Free PS Plus Games for November: The Walking Dead Season 2, more
• Free Xbox Live Gold Games for November: Pneuma Breath of Life, more

New products & more

Is Luma’s surround Wi-Fi system the router we’ve been waiting for?

Don’t Panic’s latest iPad Air 2 case is an astute all-in-one solution for every angle

• New Fallout 4 launch trailer hits with a fresh look at gameplay and more
• Unboxing and Review: Halo 5 Xbox One Limited Edition Console Bundle [Video]
• Bosch made a robo-farmer that looks straight out of a galaxy far, far away
• The Room Three releases today, now available for download on the App Store
• Mellow Boards makes any skateboard electric and looks good doing it
• Pre-order Fallout 4 to receive Fallout 3 via Xbox One Backwards Compatibility
• PlayStation Now adds 105 titles as it aims to pick up more subscribers
• Mogees iPhone-connected sensor turns any object into a playable instrument
• Amazon to offer midnight deliveries for Call of Duty: Black Ops III via Prime Now

Filed under: Tips and Tricks Tagged: 9to5Toys, Amazon Gold Box, Amazon Prime, Black Friday, coupon codes, Cyber Monday, Daily Deals, eBay Daily Deals, free, Freebies, ipad mini 2, ipad mini 4, iPad Pro, iPhone 6s, iPhones 6s Plus, Lunch Break, New Toy of the Day, playstation 4, T-Mobile, xbox one

Visit 9to5Mac to find more special coverage of Tips and Tricks, 9to5Toys, and Daily Deals.

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Apple’s Shot on iPhone ad campaign was largely deemed a huge success, with the campaign taking home the top prize at the Cannes Grand Prix festival over the summer. Separately, a photo featured in the campaign won its own Cannes Lions award. Now, Apple is rewarding those photographers who had their iPhone-shot pictures featured in the campaign.

Apple today has surprised Shot on iPhone photographers with physical photo books featuring the images featured in the campaign. Participants in the ad campaign are receiving packages with the photo book, as well as a pair of plain white gloves, presumably meant to wear while the handle the cloth photo books. The books are all white and titled “The Gallery.”

One photographer who received a book, Brendan Ó Sé, of Cork, Ireland, said the books were a complete surprise. “It was totally out of the blue,” he said. “Naturally, I looked for my own photo, but seeing those of the friends I’ve made over this campaign added to the surprise and thrill.” (via Cult of Mac).

The Shot on iPhone World Gallery showcased images from 162 users and was marketed in 73 cities in 25 countries. Images in the campaign itself were shot in 13 different countries and included videos as well. Photographs that were included in the campaign were also featured on various billboards and buildings around the world. 

Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: images, shot on iphone, shot on iPhone 6

For more news on iOS Devices, images, and shot on iphone continue reading at 9to5Mac.

What do you think? Discuss “‘Shot on iPhone 6’ photographers surprised with physical photo books from Apple” with our community.

From 9to5Toys.com:

iPads officially go on sale next week and AppleCare training started today but Apple reseller MacMall is the first US retailer advertising offering the iPad Pro and they’ve already marked prices down modestly $12/SKU.   MacMall, unlike Apple, takes Paypal and only collects sales tax in CA, NY, IL, WI, MN, CO, TN, NC and GA which can save a significant bit of change.

Note: iPad Pros aren’t currently in stock but are estimated to ship within 9 days. 

Apple has been showing off the iPad Pro for Education at the Dropbox conference and at Disney/Pixar and we expect reviews shortly. Apps like ProCreate, iTunes U and Adobe’s Photoshop have already been updated to work with the 12.9-inch tablet.

Filed under: iOS Devices Tagged: Apple Inc, iPad Pro, macmacll, sale

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CNN Money has today shared the second part of its interview with Apple SVP Eddy Cue. In the first part of the interview, shared last week, Cue noted of how the Apple TV has graduated from the “hobby” stage and sold more than 20 million units. While sales of the new fourth-gen box are unclear at this point, Cue did hint at some future features come to the device in part two of the interview, as well as  Apple’s ultimate goal with the tvOS platform.

The current state of cable TV, as CNN notes, is in somewhat of a disastrous and outdated state. Cue, however, brags that the new Apple TV offers a “much better experience for consuming content” than other offerings on the market. The end goal, Cue said, is to entirely replace the need for a cable company’s set top box.

When asked if Apple would achieve this goal by revealing its own streaming TV service, Cue gave a handful of non-answers. Cue was specifically asked about CBS CEO Les Moonves’ comments when he stated “Apple is having conversations with everyone about doing their own streaming services.” Cue, however, simply responded with, “The great thing is that Les is actually on Apple TV,” referring to the CBS All Access app in the tvOS App Store.

Cue was then asked about the idea of buying a whole cable package through Apple TV, which he replied is already possible if cable companies let it happen:

“If Comcast or any other provider wants to do that, they’ll be able to do that with the current Apple TV. We want to get to the point where customers are able to buy whatever they want, however they want. We’re not fixed into ‘There’s only one way to buy it.’ Just like we’ve done with the App Store, where there have been things that have been free; things that you subscribe to; things that you pay for; things that are in-app. All of those capabilities will be here and we want that market to be able to develop.”

The main selling point of the Apple TV, Cue believes, is that it offers a way for developers to truly change how TV is consumed. It “offers a platform to truly innovate,” Cue said. The Apple executive also shot down the notion that Apple needs exvlusive programing to differentiate itself from the likes of Google and Roku. “We don’t try to do things that are exclusive,” he said. “What we try to do is build technologies that let developers do things that they can’t do anywhere else.”

However, when asked about financing its own TV shows, Cue was a lot more coy in his answer:

“We love working with our partners,” he said. “We’re great at technology and they’re great at creating content, and we think that’s a great partnership to have. I think there’s a tremendous amount of great content out there today, and we want to make it easier for customers to have access to it.”

Filed under: Apple TV Tagged: Apple TV, Eddy Cue, interview, streaming, web tv

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While the new fourth-generation Apple TV advances Apple’s entertainment box in many areas including universal search, Siri  input and a whole App Store for the first time, much of week one with Apple TV 4 has been about what you lose when moving from Apple TV 2 or 3.

The list is uncomfortably packed for a device that had three years to advance since its predecessor hit the market: missing Bluetooth keyboard and iPhone/iPad Remote app support for easier text input, Apple Watch’s built-in Remote app doesn’t recognize it yet, the Podcasts app hasn’t moved over, and the Photos app is exactly the same (no iCloud Photo Library) despite the newer iCloud Music Library feature making the cut for Apple Music.

There’s also the oddity of each channel being pre-installed on older Apple TVs while new Apple TVs ship with only iTunes, Music, and Photos apps installed. If I were gifting a family member a new Apple TV — something I’m sure will be popular during the holidays — I’d prefer essential channels like Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, and HBO to come pre-installed, albeit optionally deletable, to make the experience friendlier. There’s also the lack of one universal sign-in process between multiple channels so that’s a big setup challenge. I had hoped Apple would tackle this with the new box but instead its just like the prior Apple TV experience.

That being said, my biggest critique and one I haven’t seen acknowledged nearly enough this week is the drop in usability of popular video apps, like the ones that used to be pre-installed on the third-gen Apple TV as ‘channels’. Simpler, list-focused versions of apps like Netflix and Hulu were just easier to use than current versions on the new Apple TV…

The tvOS software running on the new Apple TV is flashier and more capable as a platform than past versions of the software running on Apple TVs despite the missing features that will surely return with time. Right now, though, most video apps are now worse with harder-to-use layouts. Video apps aren’t constrained in the same way they were with the template-system of previous Apple TV software, so tvOS is giving them the freedom to do things worse. This is counterintuitive to what you expect, as you assume the new device to be better and more capable, but this is sadly not the case.

Like new Apple TV overall but apps for channels from old box worse. Netflix is a mess to browse & Hulu can be slow to launch. Uniform lost.

—
Zac Hall (@apollozac) October 31, 2015

Take the new Netflix app as an example. Netflix gives you full access to its library of streaming movies and TV shows for a monthly subscription fee, and finding your way around that massive catalog requires great organisation to have a good experience.

The old Apple TV app for Netflix (above) featured a stripped down menu list that made navigating extremely simple. After choosing your user account, the  navigation list let you pick between movies genres and TV shows while presenting new releases and the very important ‘My List’ of manually saved shows to watch later.

The new Apple TV Netflix app (above) is visually more impressive and perhaps makes discovering new content easier, but navigating to core places in the app is noticeably more difficult. The newer version is a definite step backward in usability from my experience. The main view is split in two parts: a detailed preview on the top half and content navigation on the bottom half. Moreover, the focus is only ever on one row of results at a time. A large Netflix logo hides much of the second row.

Finding the My List section is actually quite hard with the new app. It’s right at the bottom of the list, the 37th row from the top. In fact, My List is located below obscure film collections and series recommendations that Netflix somehow considers more important. Once you discover that it takes several swipes down every time you want to access your saved shows, the new layout on the 4th-gen app feels a lot more limited than its predecessor.

The old My List screen displayed up to 14 movies or TV shows in your saved collection at once. The new buried My List is reduced to a row and limited to just 4 and a half titles that you swipe through. Don’t worry, the heavy Netflix brand logo to remind you which app you’re in doesn’t interfere here, thankfully.

It’s not all bad news.  On the new Apple TV, the screen where you resume playing a movie or TV show consolidates what used to take three separate steps into one. You can choose to resume playback, start video from beginning, or browse more episodes all through one screen. It’s easy to miss but this is an improvement from the old version, which would always surprise me by showing one more step than I was expecting.

I won’t dive so deep into the next app, Hulu, but from the initial starting page can you locate the Queue section? The top carousel of slides promotes what Hulu wants you to see (or thinks everyone will want to see?) and the next row down does an okay job of showing you shows you’ve recently watched although it’s a little tricky when you share an account with your house. For me the important Queue section was located as the 9th tile on the first row after TV, Movies, Kids, Originals, Latino, British, Anime, and Korean Drama. Not a knock against any of those collections, but Queue being placed after them all is a curious decision.

Compare that to the clear organization on the Apple TV 2/3 version of Hulu where Queue, the place I typically start watching shows, is prominently displayed at the top center. Now that I know Queue is around the 9th tile on the first row it’s not a big deal to locate it next time, but its poor placement made me think it was just removed initially. Without the top navigation menu or an equivalent replacement, I also find myself unsure at times at where I am in the new app.

Other apps do a better job, taking advantage of the layout possibilities with the new Apple TV. HBO Now, for example, doesn’t much resemble the old channel which could be confusing for upgraders, but the new version does closely resemble the iPad and iPhone version. What’s more, the important Watchlist section is placed in clear view and still manages to show off large artwork for movie and TV show titles.

My one disappointment here is that the new HBO app doesn’t offer an option to reverse the order of episodes in a season list and Watchlist only seems to work on individual episodes that you add rather than catching all new unwatched shows in a series. So when hunting the latest episode of Last Week Tonight from the TV shows section, for example, you first pick the season then swipe through however many episodes come before it. This happens in other apps like Hulu as well and Siri search helps but doesn’t completely solve it.

I’m not suggesting that new Apple TV apps should port their old limited layouts from the third-generation box to the fourth-generation box. That’s all YouTube has done so far and the result is a rather unremarkable user experience visually. The stock apps, iTunes Movies and TV Shows, show what is possible and its disappointing to see third-party apps nowhere close to comparable.

I do think there’s a massive opportunity for these popular apps from Netflix and Hulu to meet the usability of their old layouts and build around that experience. Apple TV is getting dinged for a lot of missing features from Apple that will likely be addressed in time, but the freedom to move from uniform apps to widely ranging designs on the new Apple TV is a usability concern that won’t necessarily be addressed without highlighting the issues.

Plex, an entirely new app to Apple TV but one that I don’t personally use for now, strikes a pretty good balance of taking advantage of the new capabilities while still maintaining good navigation and sense of place. And the new Apple TV as a whole is a really welcome product in my home.

As I discussed on this week’s Happy Hour podcast, I’m enjoying many of the new apps and games that aren’t just video channels. For that reason, I’m hopeful that we’ll see improvements to the current popular video apps like Netflix and Hulu on the platform. Agree or disagree with these points, let us know in the comments!

Filed under: Apple TV, Apps, Opinion Tagged: Apple TV, Apple TV apps, Apps, HBO, Hulu, Netflix

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Instagram is reportedly testing new ads that will take full advantage of being integrated with Apple’s platforms including the new 3D touch pressure sensitive touchscreen feature and its payments service Apple Pay, Digiday reports.

The integration of Apple Pay and 3D Touch, a new feature introduced with the iPhone 6s that allows pressure sensitive touchscreen interactions, is reportedly being tested as an expansion of Instagram’s recently launched “Shop Now” feature:

It has even run tests with restaurants to sell menu items right from the Instagram feed, without the need to click off the app’s main feed, said an ad agency source familiar with the test.

Some of the shopping tests incorporate features like Apple’s force touch screen feature, which lets consumers apply pressures in their clicks to switch among multiple product options in the images, the source said.

In other Apple Pay news, MacRumors notes that Wegmans will be one of the next major retailers to roll out its rewards card program but that it’s only in a piloting phase ahead of a full roll out next year. Yesteday, Walgreens became the first retailer to offer its rewards cards through Apple Pay.

And possibly related to Apple’s overall rollout of its own payments service, the site noticed Apple appears to have quietly dropped support for PayPal credit payment plans in its US online store. It is, however, continuing to offer Paypal as a financing option in the UK and as a payment option in its online stores there.

Filed under: Apple Pay, Apps, iOS Tagged: 3D Touch, ads, Apple pay, Instagram, Paypal, reward card, wegmans

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It’s no secret that Apple has had a hand in producing video and other content for artists since launching its new Apple Music streaming service. While we’ve known it has been hosting videos for artists using its own video player inside Apple Music, Apple quietly started adding an embed button to the video player that takes it out of Apple Music and makes it sharable across the rest of the web. The feature is notable for a few reasons and could mean big things to come for Apple, video, and its relationship with YouTube and other competitive music and video services…

The new sharing option began appearing sometime in recent weeks as new videos from Drake and the company’s latest Apple Music ad featuring Kenny Chesney included an embed button on Apple’s usual video player. It’s currently hidden, only appearing on the videos in some locations and only when videos are copied from raw webpage code, but it looks to be something Apple could really exploit. 

It’s likely Apple’s main motivation for producing videos and using its own web player is to help bring in exclusive content for Apple Music while promoting one of the service’s differentiators, a feature called Connect that lets artists upload content on-the-fly and interact with fans. Some of the earliest proponents of the service, like artists Pharrell Williams and Drake, released exclusive content through Apple Music that we later found out Apple itself likely helped to produce in one way or another. We later confirmed that Apple was indeed actively hiring video producers for such in-house projects.

Not all artists are using Apple’s video player on Apple Music, however, but there could be big implications if Apple decides to open it up to everyone and possibly get rid of the many YouTube and other external links currently on many artists’ Connect profile pages. It’s already allowing artists to manage their own uploads to Connect through GarageBand and elsewhere, so adding the ability to upload video with its web player wouldn’t be too much of a stretch.

Apple normally uploads all of its video ads to its YouTube accounts. This time around it didn’t add the Kenny Chesney Apple Music ad and instead all sharing online was done through its own video player thanks to the new hidden embed option that we’d discovered. Here’s a look at the ad with the new embed button:

But beyond promoting rival services — YouTube for example has its own paid music streaming service now — it’s not a great experience for Apple Music users to be pulled out of the app and into a browser to another service to watch video. That would be another notable motivator to open up the video uploads to all and an easy way for Apple to make the change and ban sharing from other services, in the name of the best user experience. YouTube also still uses Flash which we know is a pain.

Apple’s own player that is being used by Pharrell, Drake, Kenny Chesney and many other high-profile artists, on the other hand, plays the video directly within the app. And Apple’s player, unlike third-party players, includes an Apple Music link to drive users to the service when embedded on the web. It would make a lot of sense that Apple would want to avoid promoting YouTube through Apple Music and it can only do that if it offers artists another way to easily upload and share video content on the web.

But it could be a sign of even bigger things to come in terms of Apple and video. Apple just launched the fourth generation Apple TV and we reported it’s planning to launch its own video streaming service, not unlike Apple Music but for video, on the Apple TV early next year. Having its own web player could come in handy for sharing video clips and promoting the service in the same way as Apple Music, and having artists upload directly to Apple with its own video player would give it a big catalog of music videos to pull from for the service. And if the new video service perhaps includes creator/upload features like Connect, it would already have the infrastructure in place.

It’s certainly possible the embed option will just be a handy way to share Apple’s content on the web, but Apple has the ability to take it well beyond that. By opening it up to all, it would encourage more artists to go directly to Apple Music with exclusive content, rather than uploading to YouTube or another competitive service first, and it would allow Apple to drive users back to Apple Music by promoting exclusive Connect content across the web for non-subscribers to get a taste.

Filed under: Apple Music Tagged: Apple Music, Apple Music Connect, connect, iTunes, Music, music videos, Vevo, videos, YouTube

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A new YouTube video (embedded below) showing the first browser designed for the new Apple TV has been published. The app uses a private API to render web content, so it’s not likely you’ll be seeing it on the App Store any time soon, but the project is open source and can be downloaded by anyone.

The browser takes advantage of the Siri Remote bundled with the new Apple TV hardware to navigate websites. Pressing the glass surface on the remote switches between two modes.

The first allows the user to scroll by flicking the glass, while the other mode displays an arrow that can be moved freely around the screen. Once the arrow is visible, pressing the glass surface again will click on whatever’s below the arrow.

The simplistic browser loads pages quickly and seems to work fairly well. For casual browsing it might be quite useful. Unfortunately, as noted above, it’s not likely to be released officially because it requires access to a private API to function.

Earlier this week, another Apple TV hack demonstrated built-in support for iOS-like folders on the home screen, which would make app management much more powerful.

Filed under: Apple TV Tagged: Apple TV, tvOS, Web browser

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Apple has enabled a new category on the iOS App Store designed to help shoppers find apps for specific retailers. The Shopping category is now rolling out worldwide and includes apps from companies including Apple, Target, eBay. and Groupon.

As the inclusion of these apps demostrates, the section can be used to track down not only products, but also deals, coupons, and auctions. Previously such apps were grouped into the Lifestyle section, which wasn’t the best fit as that also included apps with a wide variety of purposes ranging from keeping up with the Kardashians to connected appliance management.

The category’s home page features a handful of promoted collections, such as apps that include support for Apple Pay, fashion apps, and separate sections for department and grocery stores. There’s also a section dedicated to kids’ stores, like Disney.

A “Save While You Shop” section includes retailers that are currently offering in-app deals, such as free one-day shipping on Zappos and 30% off photo services at Walgreens.

A “Shop for Everything” section featured at the top of the home page breaks up a large number of apps into further categories like “Shop for Cozy” or “Shop for Gifts” to provide some extra help in tracking down the right types of apps for the products shoppers want to buy.

The Shopping category is rolling out across the world now, and may not be showing for all users just yet.

Filed under: AAPL Company

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The Apple TV has been available for a week now and the tvOS App Store is estimated to include over 1,000 apps, with more coming online every day. There’s a pretty good selection of titles, with a heavy focus on gaming. Developers are still figuring out how to use the touchpad Siri Remote in interesting and new ways but the initial launch is promising for sure. We’ve rounded up our favourite apps and games for the new Apple TV so far …

Top Apps And Games For The New Apple TV

Battle Supremacy: Evolution

My current favorite Apple TV game, Battle Supremacy: Evolution. You play as a transforming mecha unit and speed through beautiful-scenery like futuristic cityscapes, mountains and more. The vehicle can swap between being a tank, a drone or an airplane and each mode is distinguished from each other to offer unique gameplay, with the difference between driving and flying being the most compelling. It’s a great high octane racer-shooter featuring 100 single-player missions to accomplish and team deathmatch multiplayer. The game is universal and progress is synced between your iPhone, iPad and Apple TV through iCloud for added convenience.

Cueist

The new Apple TV Siri Remote bears a lot of resemblance to the Nintendo Wii motion controller. I loved playing Snooker with the motion gestures on the Wii, and Cueist brings a great, perhaps even better, interpretation of the game to the Apple TV. Cueist has pretty visuals to boot: 60fps gameplay with high-quality reflections on the balls. Use the touchpad to pull off some more complicated moves with the cue, like jump, screw and curve shots. You can play against a friend or against a CPU to get up to speed. You can use an MFi game controller for more accuracy, but playing with the motion controls using the Siri Remote is way more fun.

Plex

Arguably, the most well known network media streaming service is now on Apple TV. The Plex developers have done a great job with this — beautiful artwork, simple navigation and great video streaming quality. Reviews from sites like Rotten Tomatoes are integrated directly into the interface and the UI in general matches Apple’s tvOS iTunes Store apps, so it feels right at home. The app talks to a local Plex Media Server to get its content.  You can also view livestreams from internet video networks like YouTube and Revision3. Plex is the best choice for NAS media streaming to a new Apple TV.

Squire

Another media streaming app similar to Plex, the app requires a helper app to run on a Mac in the local network which handles the actual file sourcing and transcoding necessary for the new Apple TV to play it. The UI is really streamlined to the essence of watching TV shows and movies, making navigation super-simple with the new Apple TV Siri Remote. The app plays a relevant backing soundtrack as you hover between movies, which adds a great cinematic feeling before you’ve even started watching a show. Squire can directly integrate with torrent movie streaming sources, too, for easy access to not-very-legitimate content on Apple TV.

Oceanhorn

I think this is the most ‘in-depth’ Apple TV game out of the current selection. A full-on adventure puzzle game, with a beautiful variety of worlds … you cross oceans, explore mazes and fight dragons in your quest across the ancient kingdom of Arcadia. Game Center integration tracks your progress via achievements as you play through the ~10 hours of gameplay on offer. The sound design in this game is top-notch, which makes it so fun to play on the Apple TV with the immersive living-room environment. It works great with MFi game controllers too.

Crossy Road

If you have played Crossy Road on iPhone, then you’ll know what you are in for here. You get a chicken to cross as many roads as possible without getting hit by the oncoming traffic. The simple four-way controls work beautifully on Apple TV. At Apple’s September event, they showed a multiplayer feature where two people could play simultaneously; one using the Siri Remote and another using an iOS device as a remote. This takes full advantage of the shared user aspect of a television but unfortunately its not included in the game just yet.

Sing! Karaoke by Smule

An interesting sing-along karaoke app from Smule. Great for home parties — use your iPhone or iPad as a microphone. You can also watch people from all over the world perform songs, as well as sing alongside them. A strange, but cool, social music experience.

Alto’s Adventure

The iconic iOS game is now available on Apple TV, in its full 60fps 1080p glory. The game syncs with the iOS version of the app so you can pick up right where you left on any device. The app is also universal, so there’s a good chance you already own the version for Apple TV. The game has just added support for MFi game controllers, which may be preferable to the Siri Remote touchpad interaction.

Shadowmatic

Shadowmatic is a weird game to describe. The idea is you have to manipulate floating objects in a scene against a spotlight to cast shadows that make recognizable objects. Once the highlighted scene matches the end image, you win and move on to the next level. The appeal is in the discovery more than the game progression: seeing how abstract shapes can bend light to depict completely different images on a screen is very compelling, even if it sounds boring. It works great on Apple TV thanks to the beautifully high-resolution graphics.

Almost Impossible

A new game from Realmac Software: a difficult side-scrolling platformer with a highly-stylized graphic style. I love it on iOS and the Apple TV app is pretty good too. Although the game is frustratingly intentionally hard, the checkpoint system is very generous so you always revive right next to the obstacle that just killed you. You can also pay to advance if you get really stuck.

Scoreboard

The tvOS App Store is dominated by video entertainment apps and games so it’s nice to see some utility apps make an appearance that are genuinely useful. Scoreboard keeps track of player scores for physical board and card games and simply displays the score onscreen. Play something as a group in the living room and whenever players wants to check how far ahead they are, they can just glance up at the TV.

Breakfinity

I love Brickbreaker as a quick time waster and the game concept shines on Apple TV thanks to the remote touchpad. You can get a 1:1 translation of finger swipes on the Siri Remote and the movement of the paddle onscreen. Other than that, it’s a pretty standard Brickbreaker experience with powerups, varying level designs and a pumping soundtrack. That’s not a bad thing. Why mess with something that works so well?

Speedtest

Another utility app: checking your Internet speed. This is probably not going to stay on your Apple TV Home screen for very long, but when you are setting up your box or moving it to a different room, it’s reassuring to be able to verify the strength of the Wi-Fi connection. Maybe you use it once or twice a year, but that still means you need to download it.

TapTap Party

The TV is great for multiple people like families. TapTap Party capitalizes on that by bundling a suite of mini games into one app for the Apple TV. Up to four people can race around ninjas, zombies, snowmen in arctic hockey, and more in a hectic party game a la Mario Party. The developer promises to add more mini games over time which will keep game content fresh. Even so, good value for $3.99.

Squares

A simple puzzle game, with a basic design hiding a pretty complicated game. Somehow, you have to move the squares to cover the circles. You have to discern the one combination of block positioning and movements that solve the level. A laid-back brain teaser perfect for casual evening entertainment.

Mr Jump

Mr Jump won an Editors’ Choice award on iPhone and iPad and the same game is now available on Apple TV. I love Mr Jump because each level adds a different power-up to change the gameplay. It’s the classic one-button game with a surprising level complexity. The frustration is definitely part of the appeal here though — getting to 97% level completion and then dying is a key factor in galvanizing another round of play.

CARROT Weather

You can ask Siri for weather conditions using the mic on the new Apple TV’s Siri Remote but tvOS doesn’t (yet?) have its own built-in Weather app on the Home screen. CARROT Weather fills the gap nicely, or as I like to call it, the weather app with an inferiority complex. CARROT differentiates itself by giving its apps a personality. This scales to the TV nicely, adding some depth to what could be a dull list of temperatures. The visual accompaniments are almost a show unto themselves, with a variety of characters popping along depending on current weather. Let’s put it this way: it’s the only weather app I know that features a spaceman moon landing. Funny indeed.

Cosmos

This is a classic arcade game in every sense. Eight-bit graphics. Power ups. Star field. The works. A big issue here is the control mechanism, I’m not sure exactly what the problem is but the ship will randomly shoot off to one side of the screen, ruining that particular run. When it’s working, which is most of the time, it’s pretty good fun. If you know what Galaga is, you should give this a go.

Young Hollywood

Recommending apps that are essentially TV channels might be a weird thing given people’s TV preferences are so varied but I think Young Hollywood deserves a mention. It’s clearly meant for a younger audience but all the content is free and has high production value. Watch documentaries about magicians, console game developers, YouTube stars, indie video makers and more. I was surprisingly impressed with the content offered by a relatively-unknown brand.

PCalc

It is certainly weird to suggest doing math on your TV, no question. If you are looking for a TV calculator, perhaps as part of a school / learning environment, PCalc is the best app for the job. The main calculator appearance is easy to read at a distance and navigating the calculator buttons with the Siri Remote is intuitive and obvious. The Settings have loads of options too, to customize your math-computation experience for engineering or scientific uses. If you want a calculator for your TV, PCalc is the app to get.

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The beauty of the new Apple TV is that the App Store can be ever-expanding with great new apps and games to watch and play. I have been surprised by the gaming quality with the Siri Remote, I think developers have done a good job within the limitations to make comfortable control schemes. Still, if you sit longing for a more-console feeling, the MFi game controllers can give you that.

Some games, like Rayman, even add additional controls when a game controller is connected to take full advantage of the additional joysticks/buttons available on a gamepad. My personal recommendation is the SteelSeries Stratus for ~$50 but there are a lot to choose from out there; Apple is pushing the SteelSeries Nimbus.

Let us know if you find some cool Apple TV apps and games not mentioned here below in the comments.

(Please note: In some cases, we are unable to link to the app directly due to limitations with the iTunes Store, so instead we have linked to relevant videos or the iOS version of the app. You can always search the name of the app on your Apple TV to find it.)

Filed under: AAPL Company, Apple TV, Apps, iOS Tagged: App Store, Apple, Apple TV, Apps, best apple tv apps and games, Games, iOS, new Apple TV

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