14 DAY TRIAL // A big Apple TV software update is available this week from Cupertino, California, enabling some awesome new features for owners of Apple’s $99/€99 black box.
Apple TV Software Update 6.0 brings iTunes Radio, Apple’s all-new music streaming service which lets you create your own radio stations and listen to them for free. To remove ads, customers can purchase an iTunes Match subscription.
iTunes Music Store is now accessible from the puck-sized box, allowing customers to browse, purchase, and play music directly from the online venue.
Apple TVs running the latest software can now play video from a shared photo stream, as well as view photo streams from multiple contributors.
Users can sync podcasts (and stations) across Apple TV and all their iOS devices, and there’s now an automatic subtitle selection based on Apple TV language settings. You can now customize closed caption style.
For business and education environments, users can lock Apple TV into Conference Room Display. The set-top-box will now intelligently detect any new available software updates and keep itself up to date automatically.
“Keep your Apple TV always up to date by automatically installing software updates when available,” says the changelog. Those who are reaping the benefits of a jailbreak may want to switch this feature off.
Finally, thanks to this new update you can now use an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iOS 7 to automatically transfer your Apple ID, network settings and language preferences. iPhone 4 and iPad 2 devices don’t support this feature, Apple says.
Apple TV owners can download and install their new firmware directly from the Software Update menu on their set-top box. Apple offers a comprehensive updating guide on its Support site.
Apple TV Software Update 6.0 is available for 2nd-generation and 3rd-generation devices (including the revised AppleTV3,2 edition).