Apple believes the future of TV is apps, and that's the core idea around which it has built the new Apple TV. But how is the new device fairing with developers? Pretty good, actually. In six weeks since the launch of the fourth-generation Apple TV, there are already over 2,500 apps in the tvOS App Store.
Developers are certainly jumping to the platform. According to app intelligence platform appFigures, there are 2,624 apps available in the tvOS App Store. The number is seeing an upward growth, the firm says. It expects the count to hit 5,000 in January 2016, and 10,000 sometime next year. In a recent interview, Eddy Cue, Senior VP of Internet Software and Services at Apple, said that the company was seeing a "tremendous developer interest."
It seems game developers are most excited about the Apple TV. Data reveals that with 1,002 apps (38 percent), Games is the most popular category on the Apple TV. Following Games is Entertainment genre, which has seen the arrival of Netflix, HBO Go, and Plex in the past few weeks. No wonder then Games and Entertainment apps dominated in the company's best apps for this year. The company gave HBO Now the mantle for the best app for the Apple TV. Following it were Zova - Personal Trainer, Kitchen Stories, Netflix, Airbnb, Showtime, Storehouse, Hulu, Sago Mini Fairy Tales TV, Playkids.
The tvOS provides developers with the ability to develop apps for the big screen that can utilise hardware's capabilities. However, Apple is also strict about several things, such as its no-ads policy with tvOS apps. The Apple TV also restricts many things. App developers, for instance, don't have access to the Siri Remote's mic, they can also not implement support for multiple Game Center accounts, which would be nice to have for multiplayer games.
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