MacDirectory Magazine

Ergo Josh

MacDirectory magazine is the premiere creative lifestyle magazine for Apple enthusiasts featuring interviews, in-depth tech reviews, Apple news, insights, latest Apple patents, apps, market analysis, entertainment and more.

Issue link: https://digital.macdirectory.com/i/1384448

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when using an Apple TV. For instance, if you have a favourite weather app on your iPhone or iPad, you may also be able to find a tvOS version of that app to use on the big screen, and of course, all your preferences and settings will sync seamlessly through iCloud. This also applies to many games — not just Apple Arcade games, but even other iPhone games often have an Apple TV counterpart, allowing you to pick up where you left off in a game between your Apple TV and your iPhone. 2. iCloud Photo Screensavers Lots of smart TVs offer photo screensavers, but only the Apple TV will let you use the photos that are already in your iCloud Photo Library to power your screensaver. Although the Apple TV now includes a gorgeous screensaver made up of stunning aerial images, it actually began years ago with screensavers based on your own photos, and these are still available. There’s even one that can use album artwork from your music library too. One of our favourite tricks is to use a Shared Photo Album from iCloud as your Apple TV screensaver. As you and your other family members add photos to the shared album, they’ll automatically show up on your screensaver too, as it remains in sync with your iCloud Photo Library. 1. HomeKit Secure Video The Apple TV may be one of the best things about using security cameras with HomeKit, since you’ll be able to view all of your camera feeds right from control centre. HomeKit Secure Video allows you to configure up to five compatible security cameras to stream video through HomeKit and securely record it to your iCloud account, and while the Apple TV doesn’t include an explicit Home app like you’ll find on your iPhone and iPad, you can pull up all of your HomeKit controls — including your camera feeds — by holding down the Home button on t he Siri Remote to access the tvOS Control Centre. Or you can just call up a specific camera by pulling up Siri and making a request like “Show me the front porch,” and the best part is that you can do this without interrupting whatever you’re watching, as it overlays the camera view in picture-in-picture mode. This can be great when waiting for your pizza to show up, monitoring the baby’s room, or even just keeping an eye on what’s going on around your home. Further, if you have a HomeKit-compatible doorbell camera, you’ll get a notification when somebody is at your front door, showing a PiP preview of the camera over what you’re already watching, and even supplying their name if a picture of them happens to be in your iCloud Photo Library. You can order the Apple TV 4K on Amazon.

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