Apple recently announced its new Apple TV that not only brings powerful hardware but also an entirely new software experience for the company’s set-top box. It certainly took its sweet time to come out with a new Apple TV but many fans are happy with what the company has achieved. One of the features it showed off was universal search on the Apple TV, the company says that it’s going to open this feature to more applications down the line.
Universal search will make it much easier to discover content, for example if the user asks Siri to show them comedy movies from a particular actor universal search will pull results from all supported apps like Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, etc.
At launch the feature is going to support iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, Showtime and HBO. Apple CEO Tim Cook has confirmed that there will be an API which is going to allow developers to tap into this feature.
Cook says that he believes many developers would like their apps to support the universal search feature on the new Apple TV and that’s obviously going to work out nicely for users who will get more choice and more ease of use.
Cook has also said that search results will also clearly identify which services will allow that user to view that content for free thereby eliminating the need for any guesswork on the user’s part. The new Apple TV starts shipping later this month.