Apple TV

The TV app, which was introduced with iOS 10.3, finally brings all of your TV and movie watching together. Within the TV app, you can see what your viewing options are all in one place, including shows from streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. While a lot of Apple TV users have cut the cable cord, just as many still rely on their regular cable package to watch favorite shows. And most of your favorite networks (ABC, NBC, HGTV, etc) have apps that you can download to your Apple TV, as well as your iPhone and iPad. But when you download those apps, you have to prove you’re a cable subscriber, which is what this tip allows you to do in a couple easy steps (less if you have iCloud Keychain turned on). Here’s how to watch cable on your iPhone or iPad.

There are two major different ways you can connect or stream your iPhone or iPad to your TV. The easiest and cheapest way (if you already own an Apple TV) is to use AirPlay, which will allow you to enable iPhone screen mirroring. Alternatively, you can hook up your iPhone or iPad to your TV with an HDMI cable. If your TV doesn’t have an HDMI port, you can use a VGR or AV adapter and cable to connect to your analog TV. But that’s a fairly small pile of people, since the vast majority of TVs have HDMI ports. Which is why I’m going to focus on how to connect your iPhone or iPad to your TV via AirPlay mirroring or with an HDMI cable and adapter. Regardless of what method you choose, it may take a little money to hook your iPhone up to your TV. Which is why, if you already have an Apple TV, I recommend using AirPlay mirroring to watch your iPhone or iPad on your TV. However, I’ll go over both methods and what you need to hook up your iPhone or iPad to your TV below.

The TV app on iPhone or iPad allows you to bring all of your shows and movies together in one app. You can sign in with your cable provider to watch shows from ABC, NBC, and many others. You can also connect your streaming services such as Hulu, Netflix, and HBONow. If you’re concerned about using too much cellular data watching shows, you can turn this feature off. But if you’ve got enough data and want to watch your shows even when you don’t have Wi-Fi, use this tip to turn on Cellular Data for playback.

Learning how to use your Apple TV can be a bit of a process—just ask my mom who is still using the old silver Apple TV Remote with our new fourth-generation Apple TV. But our iPhone Life Insider program is all about breaking down the Apple ecosystem into bite-size pieces you can easily digest. From our one-minute video tips to our growing library of in-depth guides, we want to make Insider the best resource you have. And we’re passionate about it. Our latest project is the Complete Apple TV Guide, which covers everything from setting up your Apple TV and using the Siri Remote to finding the best apps for watching free movies and TV shows, plus much more. This is one of our most in-depth guides to date; check out a few of my favorite videos from the guide below and get a sneak peak of the immense value our Insider membership offers.

You can stream music from your iPhone to your Apple TV using Airplay. This wireless option makes listening to your music collection on your TV easy to do. It’s nice to Airplay your music to your Apple TV when you’re having a party or cleaning the house and you want music to serenade you. A college classmate of mine once told me that he played music constantly day and night. “I feel like I need a soundtrack for my life,” he said. It’s been 20 years since I’ve seen him and music playback has come a long way since that CD player clipped to his belt. If my former classmate now owns an iPhone, my guess would be that he is using AirPlay to keep his tunes playing wherever he goes. Here’s how to play music on Apple TV from iPhone using Airplay.

Being able to use your iPhone or iPad as a remote for your Apple TV is a fantastic feature, especially since the included remotes are easily lost. Using Siri to type on Apple TV (Gen 4) isn’t perfect, which makes using your iPhone or iPad to type on Apple TV the quickest way to type anything on Apple TV. Forget sliding across or spelling out each letter of a strangely spelled word to Siri, just use the Remote app on iPhone or iPad to make it easy. Here’s how to use your iPhone or iPad to type on Apple TV.

As much as we love our Apple TVs, we've all had Apple TV problems now and then. Whether your Apple TV is frozen or your Apple TV is stuck on the Apple Logo or You need to force quit an Apple TV app, we’ll cover multiple solutions to try when your Apple TV is not working. The number one rule of electronics is if it stops working, restart it. So we’ll go over how to reboot the Apple TV and how to hard-restart you Apple TV just in case it’s frozen or stuck on the Apple logo. We’ll also cover how to factory reset and restore your Apple TV in case all else fails or you decide to sell your Apple TV at some point. Here’s how to reset Apple TV and other troubleshooting techniques.

Using your iPhone as a remote for Apple TV is super easy to set up. Apple has improved upon the Remote app for Apple TV just as it’s improved upon the Apple TV itself. You can set up the remote app for Apple TV in a few quick steps. Why do this? The major benefit of using the Apple TV Remote app is that the remote device need not be in line of sight for the Apple TV to respond. With the app you can change media from any room as long as both the device and Apple TV are connected to the same Wi-Fi. The Remote app also allows you to input text for searches from your iPhone's keyboard. Here’s how to set up the Remote app for Apple TV on iPhone.

Apple TV has come a long way in recent years. With the introduction of the 4th-generation Apple TV, we said goodbye to limited Apple TV channels and hello to the Apple TV App Store. But where do you begin when setting up your Apple TV? How do you know what the best Apple TV apps to get are? Consider this an introduction for the newbies and a checklist for those who’ve maybe had their Apple TV a while but never really looked into the full spectrum of what they can download. This is our Apple TV apps list stocked with the best Apple TV apps from your favorite categories: TV and movies, games, fitness, and more. We’ll also cover which of the Apple TV apps are free, free to download but subscription based (i.e. Netflix, Hulu, etc.), free with in-app purchases, or (one-time) paid. Without further ado, here are the best apps for your Apple TV.

Can you watch Amazon Prime on Apple TV? Yes and no. There is currently no Amazon Prime Video app for Apple TV, and I wouldn’t expect to see one in the near future (there’s a bit of stream war between Apple and Amazon with neither looking to budge). However, you can watch Amazon Prime on Apple TV using a little loophole called AirPlay. If you stream Amazon Prime on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer, you can technically watch Amazon Prime on your Apple TV, although not officially. But you won’t know the difference when you’re catching up on your favorites episodes of Man in the High Castle or Transparent on your Apple TV. Here’s how to watch Amazon Prime on your Apple TV.

You can organize your apps on an iPhone, an iPad, and even an Apple Watch. It only makes sense that you’d be able to do so on the Apple TV too. This is specific to the 4th-generation Apple TV or later. All you need is your trackpad remote and a couple of minutes to organize the apps on your Apple TV however you’d like. Here’s how to move and organize your apps on the Apple TV.

Apple TV is striving to be your one-stop box for all things TV, movies, and video. But sometimes you may not wants the sound of your Apple TV to disturb the people around you (or a baby sleeping in the next room.) Luckily, with the 4th generation Apple TV, you can pair headphones with the device like you would any other Apple device. Here’s how to pair headphones with an Apple TV.

The fourth-generation Apple TV has been quite popular, and it's likely that in some households it's being used by multiple individuals, each with their own iTunes account. Fortunately, this new model lets you add each person's Apple ID. Then when someone wants to use the Apple TV to access their media, it's simply a matter of switching accounts.

One of the things that confused me on the Apple TV was when the music I was listening to kept playing even after I closed the app and began navigating to other apps. I would then navigate back to the Music app and stop it from playing. As you might expect, there is a simpler way to do this.

You can use Siri to control Apple TV settings on your 4th generation Apple TV, and this is especially useful if you want to reduce a movie's background sounds. This feature of Apple TV not only makes the dialog more audible, but also reduces the chances that you'll disturb your neighbors.

There’s a little know feature of Photos called Slideshow. You can visit any album in Photos and play the Slideshow. There are different picture display options, you can assign your own music, and change Slideshow speed. You can even Airplay your slideshow to a device such as Apple TV.

So you bought an Apple TV; now what? There are countless streaming network subscriptions, but what if you want to play a movie or song from your iTunes library? Welcome to Home Sharing. Using Wi-Fi and your Apple ID to connect your devices, Home Sharing makes it easy to watch the videos you own (or made) right on your TV screen.