Vevo is likely one of the more popular music video streaming platforms on the internet. Most people view their content on YouTube, and today Vevo plans to narrow down its focus to just that service.
Following up on the experience it brought to iOS, Vevo is bringing its reimagined 10-foot interface to tvOS. Available soon on the fourth generation Apple TV, Vevo’s new app looks to make finding and enjoying music videos as easy as possible.
The app introduces curated playlists and artist stations to the music video experience. Seeing an average global viewership of 23 billion views a month, Vevo sees the living room as an obvious next step for its entertainment app.
Vevo has today announced a native tvOS app for Apple TV, with a Spotlight section auto-playing a stream of music videos based on your own tastes.
Vevo brings the smooth experience of the new mobile app and customizes it for the best lean-back experience. The Spotlight section autoplays so that a user can put down the remote and instantly enjoy a stream of music videos curated to their individual tastes.
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.
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You’ve long been able to tell Siri to play any track on your iPhone, and the Say Play app gives you the same ability with music you don’t own. Just open the app, hit the red button and speak the name of the track.
To be sure, you could do a voice search in YouTube, but the app appears to simultaneously search several music video sources, and continues to play the track while you’re using other apps. As you’d expect from an app powered by Nuance, voice-recognition is faultless, and in my brief tests it was lightning-fast.
The app costs $0.99 on iTunes.
In a flurry of updates today, Amazon Cloud Drive and Sony’s Music Unlimited service have received updates for their respective streaming services. Amazon Cloud Drive adds AirPlay support for photo and video streaming to Apple TV, as well as exposing more metadata information in the UI. You can now also rename albums, although this is iPhone only for reasons unknown.
Sony has given its Music Unlimited app a big overhaul. The app has been modernized with iOS 7’s aesthetics, featuring sharp imagery and flat iconography. The team have also dedicated significant time in improving performance, to minimize the sluggishness customers complained about in previous versions. You can also edit playlists right from the app, a critical improvement for a music app.
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Alongside the introduction of the current Apple TV design in fall 2010, Apple launched AirPlay. In short, AirPlay allows a user to watch a movie, listen to a song, or view a photo on an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch (or Mac in some cases) and stream that content to the Apple TV. AirPlay typically works well and we have even considered it a major innovation in the living room appliances space. Apple has continued to enhance AirPlay over the past few years, allowing the service to integrate with iTunes in the Cloud and function without a WiFi connection.
With OS X Yosemite and iOS 8, Apple has taken the AirPlay idea to new levels. This fall, as Apple previewed at WWDC earlier this month, a user can begin writing an email, viewing a webpage, or sending a text message on one Apple device, and then walk up to a different Apple product and continue that action. This feature is called Handoff and is part of a new suite of features called Continuity. Unlike AirPlay, a click to stream the content is not necessary.
Now, users running the latest iOS, OS X, and Apple TV betas are reporting that Apple could also be working on Handoff and Continuity features for the Apple TV set-top box…
Back in February news broke that Warner Music Group made a deal with popular music recognition app Shazam that would see the label have access to Shazam’s proprietary music data gathered from its users as well as the formation of a new Shazam-branded label. Today, Shazam announced another perk of that deal with the app launching its first exclusive single, offering users the first chance to listen to the latest from Grammy Award-winning band Linkin Park before anyone else.
Shazam® today announced that multi-platinum, Grammy Award-winning band Linkin Park and Warner Bros. Records, are launching the band’s new single “Guilty All The Same” (feat. Rakim), and are giving Shazamers around the world the first chance to hear the song. When users Shazam any song today, they’ll see a special link to hear the new Linkin Park track, then will be able to buy it from all major digital retailers after wider release Friday… Last night, Linkin Park fans who had previously Shazamed the band were treated to an exclusive opportunity to hear “Guilty All The Same” via a notification in the app’s News Feed, giving them advance access to the new single.
While the deal with Warner Music Group was originally thought to be mainly Warner’s attempt to get its hands on Shazam’s valuable user data— the data helps labels and services identify what’s popular and what music users are interested in purchasing— we see that the other end of the deal is exclusive content for Shazam. It’s unclear if the Linkin Park promotion, however, is part of the co-branded label deal that Shazam and Warner Music announced they would create as part of the original deal.
In other related music industry app news today, Spotify announced that it has acquired music recommendation service ‘The Echo Nest’, a tool currently used by many similar services such as Rdio, Vevo, and Xbox Music.
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The Chromecast, Google’s streaming HDMI dongle came out last summer. It is compatible with any Android device running 2.3 or later, iOS device with iOS 6 or 7, and any Mac or PC. Initially, users were able to stream Netflix or Youtube from an iOS device and Android device, Google Play Movies and Music only on Android, or cast websites using the Chrome browser on a computer. The Chromecast works differently from Airplay in that you can multitask and do other tasks on the device or you can let it go to sleep while streaming.
Very quickly after its release, Chromecast has received support for Hulu +, Pandora, and HBO GO. Last month a major update added ten new apps including Plex, Vevo, Songza, Red Bull TV, Post TV from the Washington Post, Viki, RealPlayer Cloud, Avia, Revision3 Internet Television and BeyondPod. The most recent update the Chromecast received allowed users to stream Google Play Movies and Music directly from the Chrome browser on a computer.
In this How-to, we’ll discuss how to setup the Chromecast, use it with a Mac and iOS device and explore its gaming potential.
(via <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/apollo_zac/" target="_blank">Flickr</a>)
Google announced today a major round of app additions for its media streaming Chromecast HDMI stick including Plex, Vevo, Songza, and more.
Chromecast, which retails for $35 (currently $32.88 on Amazon Prime), can now play local files synced with your Plex media library from iOS, Android, or Chrome. Plex support is highly requested and offers a major advantage for content consumers looking to play content from a device to an HDTV.
German Apple blog Macerkopf notes that Apple TV users in Germany today have been greeted with new content in a server-side update that includes Vevo and NHL channels. Vevo first landed on the Apple TV for US, Canada, and other countries back in August alongside a big update for the platform that also brought content from Disney, the Weather Channel, Smithsonian, and others. The National Hockey League channel, however, has been available in many countries since an Apple TV update back in 2011.
Apple has been adding a ton of new content to Apple TV in recent months fueling rumors that a major revamp to the platform could be on the way. Most recently the company added new content from Major League Soccer and Disney Junior in the US.
Update: Users in the UK are also reporting receiving access to the NHL channel:
There's @NHL now on #AppleTV !! Get in!! New season starts… tomorrow? Here's hoping the UK sub options are good!
— Tony McGuire (@tmcgvideo) October 1, 2013
https://twitter.com/betterthan/status/384985585146146816
This morning, Apple has sent an over-the-air update to the Apple TV to add two new apps of content: Major League Soccer (MLS) and Disney Junior. The MLS app allows Apple TV users to watch soccer games live, and Disney Junior includes several shows oriented toward young children.
The new soccer app will surely be a big bonus for sports fans, while Disney Junior will continue to attract kids to the Apple’s living room appliance.
Last week, Apple added iTunes Radio and many new features to the device. A few weeks ago, the company added a couple of Disney Channel apps, The Weather Channel, Vevo, and a Smithsonian app. Thanks DJ!
UPDATE: Workaround now available to restore access
Thanks to an easy DNS hack called PlexConnect, non-jailbroken Apple TV users have been able to unofficially run the popular media server Plex on the second and third gen Apple TV since we first told you about it back in June. The hack, which required users to run an app on their Mac or PC that masquerades as the Trailers app, appears to be blocked in the latest Apple TV update pushed out this morning.
Earlier today Apple rolled out an update to the Apple TV that introduced new apps for Vevo, The Weather Channel, Smithsonian, Disney Channel, and Disney XD. The update didn’t require users to initiate a firmware update, so many users are reporting waking up to the PlexConnect app no longer working through the Trailers hack. A growing number of users on the Plex forums confirmed that PlexConnect is unable to connect following this morning’s update.
It’s unclear if Apple is intentionally blocking the popular Plex hack or whether its possibly a result of tweaks to the Trailers app delivered with the update. Plex isn’t the only app that takes advantage of the hack. We reported earlier this year that a Russian subscription TV service was using a similar method.
Today, Apple has issued an over-the-air update to the Apple TV that brings several new content apps. Notably, in line with expectations, an app for the Vevo Music Video service has arrived. Also new are Disney Channel and Disney XD apps.
With Apple’s deep partnership with Disney, it is about time that Disney has been fully integrated into the Apple TV. Apple TV users will now also be able to access Weather information via a new app from The Weather Channel. An app for the Smithsonian is also now present.
The Disney apps require cable provider authentication, while The Weather Channel, Smithsonian, and Vevo are available immediately for all users.
Earlier this year, the Apple TV was updated with ESPN, HBO Go, and SkyNews. Time Warner Cable integration is reportedly in the works for later this year.
Images of the new content offerings below:
Music video service VEVO just pushed out an update to its apps for iPhone and iPad that allows users to stream both audio and video from an AirPlay-enabled device to an Apple TV. Previously the app only supported AirPlay audio. It’s an interesting move considering the rumors that VEVO is building its own app for Apple TV set to launch sometime later this month.
According to a recent report by Advertising Age, VEVO’s Apple TV app is supposed to feature a “lean-back” version of VEVO, with programmed channels, but will also feature on-demand programming. The app will allow users to watch VEVO TV, which the company describes as “a 24/7 channel of music videos, live performances, and original shows from VEVO’s massive library – made by music lovers for music lovers, no algorithms allowed.” VEVO already has apps on a variety of competing devices, including the Xbox 360 and Roku Web TV box.
For what it’s worth, HBO GO received an update allowing audio and video AirPlay mirroring just two months before the app made its debut on Apple TV.
VEVO (iPhone) and VEVO HD (iPad) are available free of charge.
VEVO, the popular music video streaming service, is currently developing a new Apple TV application, according to AdAge. The VEVO TV app will, of course, stream content 24/7, and VEVO already has an app for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch, Android, Microsoft devices, and the Roku.
Roku integration into the Apple TV would be as an “app” much like HBO, Hulu, ESPN, and YouTube. The rumored addition of VEVO comes at a time where Apple and Time Warner Cable are reportedly working to strike a deal to bring Time Warner Cable content to the Apple set-top-box.
In recent weeks, Apple has also been adding more functionality to the Apple TV such as the Netflix profiles feature. In testing is a new version of the Apple TV software that allows more seamless device setup over Bluetooth LE with an iPhone.
Update: AllThingsD says the app could come as soon as this month.
Customers on the Apple Support Communities forum are reporting fluctuating audio volumes when playing videos on the new mid-2013 13-inch MacBook Air in a thread which has attracted 83 replies.
The problem seems to be a system issue rather than app-related, being reported in iTunes, QuickTime, VLC, Hulu, Vevo and when watching web videos in both Safari and Chrome – but doesn’t seem to affect all videos. It has also been reported that the issue persists when running Mavericks …
Several customers report that Apple is keen to get hold of affected machines so that it can identify the cause.
tbrumleve wrote: After being contacted by an AppleCare rep today, they do not yet have a fix. They are very interested in getting a hold of the affected hardware, and are willing to send a replacement immediately. However, they cannot guarantee it won’t have the same problem.
This is the second issue to reportedly affect the new MacBook Air, after widespread reports of wifi problems. In that case, Apple issued an update to the wifi software. However, 83 posts in a thread live for several weeks suggests that while the audio issue is affecting a significant minority of machines, it is likely less prevalent that the wifi issue.
Thanks, Aikiharvey.
Forget Flash, really, forget it. I don’t care how much more efficient it is at last becoming now it faces much-needed competition — I do however care that US iPad users can now download Vevo HD, a beautiful app offering you access to all 25,000 videos in Vevo’s huge catalog — no Flash required.
“The app has a few special features created especially for the iPad, including our favorite one, Music Maps, which gives you a window into what videos people are watching in your neighborhood and around the world,” the company says on its website.
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