The 22 best Apple TV apps

The 22 best Apple TV apps

When revealing the revamped Apple TV, Apple CEO Tim Cook bullishly claimed the “future of television is apps”. As it turns out, there’s a lot of junk to fish through on the Apple TV App Store, and probably not that many apps you’d want to use for long. But there are exceptions – and those apps we’re still using (and liking) are listed here.

AMAZON PRIME VIDEO

At some point towards the end of 2017, Apple and Amazon apparently had a big hug, after a number of months punching each other in the face. This meant Amazon Prime Video finally made it to Apple’s black box. And it’s all rather nice, especially if until now you’d be slumming it getting your Preacher and Man in the High Castle fix through a cheapo Fire TV stick.

BRIAN ENO : REFLECTION

“Thirty quid!” you might yell, while choking on your drink and following up with a choice expletive. But hang on, because Reflection is something special – a version of Brian Eno’s latest album that never stops remixing itself, and that shifts and changes depending on the time of day, and even the season.

CARROT WEATHER

Many weather apps will give you forecasts and maps, but only CARROT gives you snark. A malevolent AI dishes out twisted animations along with rainfall predictions. Multiple locations can be stored, and secret places await discovery; but whatever you do, don’t poke CARROT’s ocular sensor!

EARTHLAPSE TV

There’s something magical about seeing the Earth from above, and Earthlapse offers some stunning time-lapse photography. There are 18 carefully mastered views from the ISS to choose from, and you can muck about with speed, colour filters and the soundtrack as you gawk at our little blue planet zooming through space.

FLICKR

With its 1TB of free storage and optional automatic back-up of your photos, Flickr for iPhone is a must-have download. On Apple TV, it’s more of a sit-back experience, enabling you to enjoy your photos on the big screen, and to browse uploads by other users.

INFUSE 5

If your digital video collection is mostly knocking around hard drives or dotted about various cloud services, Infuse can deal with all that. Whether you grab the free or paid version, you’ll be able to stream to your Apple TV, re-encoding files on-the-fly as necessary. Artwork, catalogue sorting and metadata is all automatic, too, making for a gorgeous browsing experience.

ITUNES MOVIE TRAILERS

iTunes Movie Trailers provides an efficient and usable means to feast your eyes on upcoming films. Click a piece of cover art and you get an overview of the flick in question, along with access to current trailers. Interesting movies can also be squirrelled away into a favourites list.

KITCHEN STORIES

Our favourite cookery app, Kitchen Stories is awash with gorgeous photography and tons of video. Unsurprisingly, Apple TV concentrates on the latter, with a selection of videos covering recipes and skills. So if you’ve always wanted to know how to prepare a squid, make a hearty beef stew, or chop (rather than just eat) chocolate, this is the app for you.

MADEFIRE COMICS & MOTION BOOKS

Motion comics are a bit of an oddity, not really being comics and also not quite being cartoons or films. Somehow, though, they work really nicely on Apple TV. The content in Madefire Comics has all been carefully and intelligently optimised for a lean-back view, too, with booming audio, large panels, and suitably chunky speech balloons.

METEOEARTH

CARROT Weather’s the best Apple TV weather app, but it doesn’t do maps – which is just as well for MeteoEarth, which is essentially one big map. You twirl the Earth about, cooing at twinkling lights in places where the sun’s naffed off, and adding overlays for temperature and rainfall.

NETFLIX

With Netflix having infiltrated pretty much everything with a screen, we’re half surprised it doesn’t appear on our Apple Watch. The Apple TV version’s much as you’d expect: a usable, reliable way to delve into tons of great telly like Stranger Things and Orange is the New Black – before realising with a start you’ve not actually moved from the sofa in three days.

NETNEWSWIRE TODAY

An RSS app might strike you as an odd fit for your telly, but NetNewsWire works surprisingly well. You set up your feeds on your iPhone and can then optionally share them with the Apple TV app. A smartly designed interface ensures headlines can be seen across the room, and you can bookmark suitably intriguing articles for later perusal.

NIGHT SKY

If you’re a fan of stargazing, but not of going outside, you can always peer at virtual heavens using an astronomy app on your phone. But if even that seems like too much effort, fire up Night Sky on your Apple TV. Using the Siri Remote, you can zip about constellations. For more dedicated buffs, there’s a Tonight Tour that provides information about what will appear in the sky – and when.

PLANE FINDER

For armchair plane geeks, Plane Finder is heaven, displaying a live(ish) map of metal tubes with wings hurtling through the sky. You can zoom, filter by company, and search for specific flights, tracking a single plane to keep tabs on when it will land. If you fancy something more conventional, try the similarly impressive (but far simpler) FlightBoard.

PLEX

Although Infuse is in our list, it would be wrong to omit another video favourite, PLEX. The app appeared in unofficial form on jailbroken second-generation Apple TVs, but this is the real deal. Despite being built in just five weeks, PLEX for Apple TV started out as a first-rate app for organising and streaming media collections, along with finding new things to watch; it’s carried on being great ever since.

RECEIVER RADIO

The ‘Radio’ app on the old Apple TV was dreadful, hence why we’re relieved to find Receiver Radio. It all looks very sleek and swish – dare we say it, a bit Apple-like. You can search for stations, add them to your favourites, and then dance around the living room like a lunatic. The app also supports podcasts, for when you want some Adam Buxton booming out of your telly.

SOLAR WALK 2

On iOS, Solar Walk 2 is a gorgeous educational tool for exploring the solar system. On Apple TV, it’s somewhat simplified, having you select a planet or moon from a menu, and then fiddle around with Siri Remote’s touchpad to spin it about. However, you can still crack Saturn and co. open like eggs to peer at their insides, along with bringing up infographics to discover how insignificant Earth is compared to the giants of the solar system.

SPEEDTEST BY OOKLA

If you work for an ISP, you might be gnashing your teeth on seeing this entry, and so, yes, we know speed-test apps aren’t entirely accurate. However, if your Apple TV is having trouble streaming your favourite shows, Speedtest by Ookla at least provides an indication of whether your broadband’s conked out or not.

STREAKS WORKOUT

The ethos behind the Streaks apps is habit-forming and simplicity. With Streaks Workout, you only need your Apple TV, a floor, and at least some desire to get fit. You choose exercises you’re happy with, how long you want to sweat for, and then get going. The app tracks your streaks, encouraging you to continue burning off excess flab that ‘somehow’ appeared due to you spending too much time parked in front of your Apple TV doing less strenuous things.

TV MAPS

The idea of using maps on your telly probably seems a bit odd. After all, you’re unlikely to have your flatscreen and Apple TV while zooming up the M1. But this is a decent app for just exploring, not least when using Apple’s flyover feature, which gives you a 3D view of famous landmarks — even if they sometimes look like a 15-year-old PC game has melted a bit.

TVPLAYER

Chances are your Apple TV’s plugged into an actual telly that’s capable of playing live broadcasts. But if not, TVPlayer gives you free access to all the usual suspects, along with a simple, usable TV guide. Splash out some extra cash and you can unlock premium channels that usually lurk on cable.

WHITE NOISE

If you can’t relax without background noise, but don’t want it to be permanently angry ‘Landahners’ in EastEnders, or whatever Spotify serves up, get White Noise on your telly. You choose from audio loops, including gentle beach waves, a tick-tocking grandfather clock, and, er, a vacuum cleaner. Probably just clean the house if that last one’s your thing.