Apple has been granted a “universal browse and watch list” for its TV app, which allows you to continue to watch your favorite shows and movies, discover new content, and find new video apps, all from a single location.
The Apple TV App is available in select countries and regions. You can use the TV app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with the latest version of iOS, or on your Apple TV with the latest version of tvOS. If the TV app isn’t available in your country or region, your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch will instead have the Videos app to watch movies and TV shows that you buy from the iTunes Store.
Apple’s patent is for a universal browse and watch list that can provide a centralized user interface for presenting recently watched, recommended, and continue watching content items provided by different content providers. For example, a media device can include multiple content provider applications for viewing media items on the media device.
When a content provider application presents a media item, the content provider application can send playback status data to a content aggregator application on the media device. The content aggregator application can provide the playback status data to a content aggregator server.
The content aggregator application can interact with a content aggregator server to determine which content providers can provide the played media item or related media items. The content aggregator application can provide a centralized user interface that allows the user to initiate playback of media items provided by the various content providers.
In the patent filing, Apple sys that the the process of finding a content item by invoking several different content provider applications across different devices “can be time consuming, burdensome, and costly” if the user doesn’t know that the content item is provided for free on one service and for a fee on another service. What’s more, a user may forget that the user accessed a content item from one provider and not another and waste time trying to continue watching the content item by attempting to find the content item through a content provider that does not have the desired content item. Apple says an improved mechanism for allowing a user to search, browse, and/or continue watching content items from various content providers is needed.
By the way, Apple, when can we get a macOS version of the TV app?
