Integrating your app with the Apple TV app

App integration overview

Before you begin integrating your app with the Apple TV app, you’ll need Xcode 8 or later, iOS 10.0 or later, tvOS 10.0 or later, and macOS 10.11 or later. Visit Apple Developer for the latest iOS, tvOS, macOS, and Xcode downloads.

The integration process has two tracks of work: XML feeds and app APIs. 

XML feed integration

Your delivery will include catalog and availability feeds. While you need to provide only one catalog feed, you must include a separate availability feed for each territory where the integration will launch. The catalog feed has metadata about the content offered in the app. The availability feeds have window start and end dates, which determine when content goes live and is removed, as well as open and play deep links where the content can be found and played from an app. 

App API integration

There are three APIs an app will need to employ within the app:

• The subscription API indicates whether a user is authenticated in an app and is entitled to play content.
• The NowPlayingInfo API tells Apple what content the user is playing and the elapsed time if the player is paused. 
• The NSUserActivity API is used on asset detail views in an app to inform Siri what piece of content the user is viewing in an app. 

Additionally, the app needs to handle deep links from the availability feeds for content playback.