Lynda.com and Pluralsight Apple TV apps
05/23/16 05:02 PM Filed in: Software
I subscribe to both Lynda.com and Pluralsight (formerly Digital-Tutors) and love both of their iOS apps. What I would do is airplay a video tutorial from their apps on my iPad to the Apple TV to watch on a bigger screen. It was not ideal but it did work. Now both have released tvOS apps for the Apple TV and they are both great. Now I can eliminate the middleman that was the iPad and don't have to use Airplay. I just start up the app for either Lynda.com or Pluralsight and use the Siri remote to control things, much simpler. The tvOS apps for both are synced up so whatever playlists, history I have with either the iOS app or desktop apps is all coordinated. Just a great job by both companies in bringing their services to the Apple TV.
Gameloft's Asphalt 8 Airborne
01/22/16 02:41 PM Filed in: Games
I love driving games and while I have played Asphalt 8 Airborne on both my iPhone and iPad I couldn't wait to try it on the Apple TV with a game controller. The Nimbus controller makes me a much better driver that is for sure. I was intrigued to see how the game would play on the Apple TV what with the way developers have to work within the confines of tvOS. I know that the game for iOS was a download of over 1.3 GB and yet the Apple TV has an initial limit of 200 MB, and then it can get 2 GB of on demand resources and go all the way up to 20 GB.
It is a new way of dealing with games for me, the idea of app thinning, slicing, on demand resources and such. I was really worried about Asphalt 8 not being the same experience that I had come to know on the iPhone/iPad. So far I have no complaints, from time to time I do have to wait while resources are downloading and also, I have had the occasional hiccup in the game where the frame rates were lower than I wanted. All in all though I greatly enjoy playing this mobile game on a much bigger screen with a nice game controller.
I know people want to compare this to a Playstation or Xbox but I know the specs of the Apple TV and honestly it is fine for the mobile, casual gamer, which is what I am in this point of my life. Still, Asphalt 8 Airborne is a good example of the games that the Apple TV can handle right now. I do think that Apple is going to have to make some concessions eventually, like the requirement that games have be able to use the Siri Remote if no game controller is present. That won't fly. Some games are more complex and need extra buttons, joysticks, etc to function properly, hopefully they drop that Siri requirement soon.