Apple TV Digital Signage

Many users have shown interest in using Apple TV Digital Signage. It seems like a great solution – apple makes solid products and many already have appleTV at their home, either to test out the signage solution or perhaps it is already not in use and could be utilized as a digital signage player.

We looked into building an Apple TV app for the player, however, due to the decisions that apple has made to handicap the device, it soon became apparent that we couldn’t produce an app for the platform because it does not support HTML.

How so? Our software consists of two parts – an editor that is being used in the web browser and a player. Since you are using a browser to design the content, we are also using a browser to play the content back. By using the same technology stack on the player side, we are ensuring that what you create in the editor will be presented in the player equally. The backbone of our drag-and-drop editor is HTML5 canvas, while it’s not a new technology anymore, it is something that Apple TV can’t handle. Instead, Apple has come up with its own flavor of HTML called TVML and JavaScript called TVMLJS however both of these still lack the support for HTML5 canvas.

Apple TV still supports screen mirroring via AirPlay functionality, however then you would need another device that would actually run our app in addition, plus the entire setup would be fragile to any network issues.

Alternatives?

While we still keep an eye on Apple TV devices in hopes that one day they will be able to run basic HTML, there are plenty of alternatives to use, depending on your needs and on your budget. Check out our Find a player page for more!

Learn more about Mac OS