At the moment, Apple TV subscribers that own Android phones have to watch in a web browser. That might eventually change as an Apple TV app is reportedly in the works.
According to Bloomberg, Apple is hiring for an Android app that will be “used by millions to watch and discover TV and sports.” This is according to a job listing, while it’s unclear if work is underway yet.
Apple TV is only available on Android TV today. It started rolling out in 2020 with wide availability in 2021. The best phone experience today is tv.apple.com’s Progressive Web App. This PWA is quite basic compared to any streaming app.
The lack of a mobile app is particularly felt when watching live sports. Apple finally deciding to create a phone app will ultimately help boost its services.
In total, Apple today offers six phone/tablets apps on the Google Play Store. There’s Apple Music and the Classical offshoot, while Shazam is technically maintained on a separate developer account. Both receive frequent updates and make for nice apps, with Apple clearly capable of building for Android. Then there’s the Beats companion app, as well as Move to iOS and Tracker Detect, though that has been made redundant by the system-level, Google Play services-powered Unknown tracker alerts.
A good Apple TV app would offer offline downloads when traveling, picture-in-picture, and new content notifications. It would be nice if Apple showed any iTunes Media purchases you’ve made in the past.
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