Apple TV continues to evolve as a smart home hub

Apple “reported that it sold more than $1 billion Apple TVs in 2013 and has around 20 million units out in the world,” Aaron Tilley reports for Forbes. “And Apple TV seems to be becoming more important to the company’s play in the connected home.”

“As I first reported last month, Apple quietly brought HomeKit functionality to the Apple TV in the recent iOS 8 update. HomeKit is Apple’s wireless protocol for how connected home devices talk securely to the iOS,” Tilley reports. “But now, Apple is starting to add new features like remote access control to the Apple TV, based on iOS 8.1 beta 2 developer notes and iOS developer testing. The new remote access feature was first reported several days ago by AppleInsider.”

“This beta release allows the developer to push instructions outside of the home to, say, turn off a light in the HomeKit simulator provided to iOS developers. It works by sending the instruction from an iPhone to Apple’s iCloud that then gets sent down to the Apple TV. The instruction on the Apple TV gets dumped onto the home network and the HomeKit simulator picks it up,” Tilley reports. “We should expect to start seeing HomeKit-certified devices start trickling out in the upcoming year”

Read more in the full article here.

Related articles:
Latest Apple TV update enables remote access relay for HomeKit connected accessories – October 7, 2014
Why the Apple TV HomeKit update makes ‘Apple Television’ more likely – September 23, 2014
Apple TV gets HomeKit support, now armed and ready to be the hub for the smart home – September 22, 2014

17 Comments

      1. huh, i read 1 billion sold in 2013 and 20 million out in the world… which is pretty poorly said – by which I understood as – out side of the USA, making it a total of 1 billion 20 million total units to date.

        http://www.forevergeek.com/2007/07/how_many_apple_tvs_have_been_sold/

        approximately 206000 units Posted on JULY 26, 2007

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_TV

        LETS ASSUME no one really knows how many AppleTVs 1/2/3 gen have been sold.

  1. First  will succeed where Google wallet has failed. Then  will give us useful home automation where Google’s “Nest” has given us only intrusive surveillance. Then  watch will thrive while Google glass is withdrawn from market. Go !

        1. It’s not just being greeted by the blanks or weird symbols, it’s jarring. It’s like reading a post that’s written all in caps, missing all punctuation or using no caps whatsoever. Whether I’m reading it on my Mac, my iPhone or if I’m running Windows under parallels, it gets annoying after a while.

  2. I’ve been an Apple TV fan since the first version. Apple needs to lavish some attention on this device because this is what the Apple TV is going to be. Not the display, which could anything, but the brains behind it. I really hope that a new version with greater capabilities Will be announced on the 16th. It really is one of Apple’s unsung heroes. The cheap small Interface box that is capable of doing so much more.

  3. What they are saying is that apple has sold about 1 billion dollars worth of Apple TV minus the cost to manufacture them. And they have 20 million out in the world today. 1.98 million is what the broth in, minus the manufacturing cost means they made about 1billion

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