Apple has rolled out new Apple TV beta software to developers, featuring the ability to purchase iTunes music tracks directly and to configure your Apple TV with a single tap of an iOS device.
As reported by Apple Insider, the new Apple TV software opens out your living room iTunes experience to include music. Previously, it had been limited to films and TV shows.
At present, navigating to the Music section on an Apple TV will simply provide access to your iTunes library. In the latest Apple TV beta, however, you're presented with an iTunes interface that's not dissimilar to the iOS equivalent, featuring scrollable panes.
From here you can preview tracks, browse artists and purchase songs and albums, just like on your iPhone or iPad. Songs are synced with iTunes rather than downloaded onto the Apple TV device.
One interesting tweak comes when selecting an album, at which point the latest single or featured track is automatically highlighted. This is evidently an attempt to cut down on the number of presses required when navigating using the Apple TV remote.
Another interesting addition to the latest Apple TV beta is its new set-up procedure. As revealed in screenshots tweeted by Benedict Evans, users will be able to turn on Bluetooth on their iOS 7 device and tap it to their Apple TV, and the latter will configure itself automatically for Wi-Fi, iOS pairing and the like.
The new feature won't be available on iPhone 4 and iPad 2, which reveals that it uses Bluetooth 4.0 and particularly Bluetooth Low Energy to produce an NFC-like effect. This was first introduced with the iPhone 4S and iPad 3.
Next, read the latest on the iPhone 6 release date, news, rumours and price.
Via: The Verge
