Apple TV Gets New 'Live Tune-In' Feature For Live Broadcasts

While the long rumored, full-fledged TV service from Apple has to come to fruition, leaving cord-cutters hopelessly tied to their cable services, the fourth-gen Apple TV has made a small towards watching live television. On Friday the set-top box began notifying users via a splash screen that there's a new "Live Tune-In" feature which enables to jump right to a live TV feed in certain apps.

The new feature is tied to Siri and the Apple TV's voice-enabled Siri Remote. Users can make a simple voice command to begin watching live TV, with examples including "Watch CBS" and "Watch ESPN live." Along with those two apps, Disney XD is another mentioned to support Live Tune-In.

Of course, most of these apps require their own subscription, such as a CBS All Access account being needed to watch live TV from the CBS app. Unfortunately, Apple hasn't said exactly which other apps support Live Tune-In, or how many will gain support for the feature. For now, ABC and Food Network are among those don't.

Some of the other items highlighted on the Apple TV's splash screen are features that were included in the tvOS 9.2 update that was released in March, such as support for Bluetooth keyboards and Folders organization. It's not clear why the Live Tune-In feature is only being promoted now, but it may have been because Apple needed to make improvements to Siri on the server-side.

SOURCE MacRumors