Apple TV gets new PBS & Yahoo apps — still playing catch up with Roku, Xbox, & others

Apple disappointed fans when it failed to reveal an updated version of its Apple TV set-top box product (neither hardware or software) during either of its two media events earlier this year. However, what it has been doing is adding more third-party media apps.

And today the company announced that it was adding support for a PBS television app, which has been available on other popular set-top boxes like Roku and Xbox 360 for a while now. Apple TV is also getting a native Yahoo Screen app, a new service for iOS devices Yahoo debuted back in September to take advantage of watching streaming video from its content library (which includes SNL clips, Colbert Report, The Daily Show, and others) via the Airplay screen mirroring tech.

[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":862325,"post_type":"story","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"media,mobile,","session":"A"}']

Apple TV does actually have Yahoo Screen before any of the other set-top box platforms, but those other devices still trump Apple TV with hundreds of quality media apps. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the relatively young Chromecast media stick from Google ended up matching all of Apple TV’s apps within another six months.

The point I’m trying to make is that Apple is still taking its sweet time when it comes to adding third-party media apps. It’s apparent that either Apple clearly has no clue what it really wants to do with Apple TV, or the company is still hard at work on the revolutionary TV product/service that we’ve only heard about in rumors over the past two years.

That said, I’m sure plenty of people will welcome both the PBS app and the native Yahoo Screen app — especially since both offer free premium video content. Both new apps should be available to all Apple TV users via a software update that rolls out today.

Via 9to5Mac