How to watch Channel 4 on Demand (4OD) on Apple TV

January 30, 2016 by 1 Comment

4OD App for Apple TV

 

If you are looking for the Channel 4 app for the new Apple TV then this blog post is for you. We explain how to use your Apple device to watch Channel 4, 4 On Demand, 4E, More 4, Film 4 etc using the All 4 App.

Currently Channel 4 don’t have a native iOS App for Apple TV but the good news is that they do have a really good iOS App for the iPhone, iPad and iPod. It’s easy to port these apps to the Apple TV so it should only be a matter of time before they get around to supporting the Apple TV as well. Luckily in the meantime the iPhone, iPad and iPod App works really well with the Apple TV 3rd and 4th generation.

You’ll need to install the 4OD App on your iPhone/iPad. You can find this in the App Store on your device by just searching for 4OD.

4OD Apple TV App

 

You will then need to start the app and register if you don’t already have a user id and password with C4.

You can then search for and play the programme you want to watch.

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When the programme starts to play you just need to swipe up from the bottom of the screen. You will then see the control panel shown below.  Press the AirPlay icon.

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Now pick your Apple TV from this list of AirPlay devices. Your programme will now start to play on your Apple TV.

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Watching ITV on Apple TV with the ITV App.

January 4, 2016 by 2 Comments

How to watch ITV on your Apple TV

Update: Jan 2nd 2017 : In a recent update ITV have blocked you from mirroring the output to the Apple TV. We can only imagine that they have some rights issues with various content owners that prevent them from allowing us to do this. We suggest you email ITV and let them know how hard they are making it for us to watch their programmes. It would also be worth complaining to Apple as they should be doing more with the UK based channels to get their content onto their platform.

At the time of writing ITV have launched their new ITV Hub App on the iTunes store.  This is the ITV equivalent of the BBC iPlayer. Currently the ITV Hub App only works on iPhone and iPad and they haven’t released a version for the Apple TV.  This shouldn’t be more than a few days development work for them so we hope they will get on and do it soon. In the meantime you can use the ITV Hub App on your iPhone and mirror it onto your Apple TV.

ITV-Apple-TV-App

 

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How can I watch BBC iPlayer using my Apple TV?

June 18, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Update: December 2015 – The blog post below refers to the second and third generation Apple TV.  The 4th generation Apple TV launched in September 2015 has it’s own App Store. In early December 2015 the BBC launched their own native Apple TV 4 BBC iPlayer App. You can simply download and use this from the Apple TV App Store.  At this time there is no mention of this being ported back to the earlier Apple TV devices and this doesn’t seem likely. If you are still using one of the earlier Apple TV units then the blog post below will still work very well. 

 

It’s really easy to use BBC iPlayer with the second generation Apple TV but to do it you’ll need an iPhone or iPod Touch.  Just download the BBC iPlayer App free of charge from the Apple App Store.  It’s a really great App. I really like the favourites function so you can mark the programmes you are interested in so that you can quickly get to them through the favourites menu.  Check you’ve got the latest version of the BBC iPlayer application installed.  To do this just find the App Store icon on your iPhone and make sure there are no pending updates.

How to use BBC iPlayer with Apple TV

 

When you start to play a programme you should then see the Apple Air Play icon on the bottom right of the display as shown above.  Just press this and then select your Apple TV device from the list.  If you don’t see your Apple TV device in the list then do a quick restart on the Apple TV.  For some reason mine seems to drop off the network when it goes into power save mode.  To do a restart go to the General menu on the Apple TV, scroll down to the bottom of that menu and select restart.  If you then try the Air Play icon again you should see your Apple TV device and a few moments later the programme will start to play through your TV.  At this point you can press the off switch on your iPhone to save the battery and you can control iPlayer using the Apple TV remote control.

For me this works brilliantly and we use it all the time now to watch iPlayer in our sitting room.  It would still be great if one day the BBC and Apple could cooperate to bring iPlayer directly onto the Apple TV but for now this is nearly as good.

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