Unlocking the World of Apple TV Development: Swift for Beginners
In 2007, Apple Inc. launched the Apple TV for a new age of content consumers, with an interactive user interface, easy-to-use navigation by Siri Remote, and an introduction to a theatre-like experience at home.
What is tvOS?
Apple Inc. has designed and developed a new operating system, called TVOS, especially for Apple TV. TVOS uses the Swift language to develop applications. It is comfortable with both UIKit and SwiftUI.
In this blog, we will focus on UIKit and Swift. Here are some more key features of tvOS-
- Focus-based navigation that provides a smooth user experience.
- Siri Remote supports gesture-based input.
- Content-rich interfaces optimised for large displays.
Prerequisites
Here are the things that you need to start developing the Apple TV application
Requirements
Setting Up Your Development Environment
Before diving into coding, you’ll need to set up your development environment:
- Install Xcode – Go App Store -> Download the latest Xcode version.
XCode version
- Enable Apple TV Simulator – Open Xcode -> Window -> Device and Simulators -> Add required simulator here. Press (+) at bottom left.
Apple TV Simulator
- Create a New tvOS Project – Open Xcode -> Click on “Create New Project…” -> Select tvOS template -> Select App -> Fill all the required details like App name, identifier, and so on.
Create project
Create Project
- Set Up a Developer Account – You can follow the attached link to set up your Apple Developer account. Please go to: https://learn.buildfire.com/en/articles/477266-how-to-create-an-apple-developer-account-and-enroll-in-the-program
Key Components of tvOS Development
1. Focus Engine: The Focus Engine automatically manages user interactions and navigation between UI elements, ensuring a smooth experience on Apple TV. The tvOS has provided a default focus engine that works vertically and horizontally, but it does not work diagonally. So Apple Inc. introduces UIFocusGuide. To read more about this, please visit
Explain Focus engine
2. Remote Control Handling: Apple TV apps rely on the Siri Remote for navigation. The GCController framework handles different remote gestures such as swipes, taps, and button presses.
Remote Control Handling
3. App Navigation: Navigation in tvOS apps can be handled using UINavigationController along with UIFocusGuide to direct focus between elements.
Example Project:
Demo App
Demo AppLet’s start with some coding…. 👩💻🧑💻
- Firstly, I used UITabBarController() to create sticky tabs at the top. As you can see, I have two tabs at the top: home and profile. Here is the code for that:
AppDelegate.swift
- Once you have completed adding top tabs, now moving forward, let’s create a home page which is having UITableView for making sections on screen and uses UICollectionView for displaying videos and content. Note: You need to set false on canFocusRowAt to remove focus on table view cells. The reason we want used focus on inner cells. read more visit to https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uitableviewdelegate/tableview(_:canfocusrowat:).
VideosCollectionViewCell.swift
Here we are using “didUpdateFocus(in context: UIFocusUpdateContext, with coordinator: UIFocusAnimationCoordinator)” for making a custom focus. This method is used to handle focus, and we will get callbacks from user interaction. So you can modify and perfume focus-related functionalities here. You can set the border of focus, change background colour, and make a zoom effect for focused times. To know more about it, please visit- https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uifocusenvironment/didupdatefocus(in:with:)
I have attached the GitHub link for more info and the whole code. So, please go through and make your first Apple TV application that satisfies you.
GitHub Link: https://github.com/shephali30/AppleTV-MovieApp/tree/main
Conclusion
Apple TV development with Swift is a great way to build an engaging application that offers high-quality content, a user-friendly interface, smooth video play, animations, and so on. With the Apple TV development, you can take advantage of all the powerful features of tvOS and UIKit at the same time. In this blog, we have covered only basic concepts and the default focus. To make your application more attractive and playful, you need to explore UIFocusGuild and video playback, animation, and third-party integrations!
Happy coding!
