We now have a brand new developer beta for tvOS 18 — the software program that runs on Apple TV units — and with it comes our first have a look at a significant new function. InSight is Apple’s reply to Amazon Prime Video’s X-Ray, which supplies fast and quick access to who’s in a scene, and what music could also be accompanying it.
Other than some fundamental consumer interface variations like fonts and design parts — InSight definitively appears and looks like Apple, and X-Ray retains Prime Video’s less-sleek motif — they principally work the identical. Whereas a film or present is enjoying, you’ll be able to pause or press down (the latter takes you straight to the data) to see thumbnails of the actors on-screen, together with their actual title (or stage title, we suppose), and the character’s title. Click on via one of many thumbnails and also you’ll get extra details about the actor, and simple hyperlinks to different movies and reveals they seem in, in addition to roles they’ve served in another capability. Ted Lasso’s Brett Goldstein, for instance, has film and sequence thumbnails, and he additionally has tiles for producing and writing.
And Apple may be very good about the way it handles this. Whereas all of the associated film and sequence thumbnails are in the identical type, the place they take you will depend on the place the content material is definitely out there. It is perhaps one thing out there on Amazon Prime Video or Hulu or Plex – or another platform that performs properly with Apple’s TV app. (Presumably which means you gained’t discover any associated content material that’s solely on Netflix, which stays a holdout.)
InSight additionally hyperlinks you to music that’s enjoying on display. Clicking into it doesn’t mechanically open the track, however it does add it to a “Saved Songs” playlist in Apple Music. That’s properly completed.
The InSight function is at the moment solely out there within the tvOS 18 developer beta, so these not residing on the bleeding edge should wait a bit earlier than it seems within the TV app on Apple TV {hardware}. And it’s at all times potential that issues will probably be tweaked earlier than every now and then.
However to date, so good.
