Any information on Apple TV controller support and siri access for voice game input yet?
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That would interest me too. As Galaxy on Fire and Crossy Road are at least two Unity titles they showed, that are coming out on that the new Apple TV. The controller support should possible. Siri access would be nice.
I also would be interested to know how to access the accelerometer on the new Apple TV controller in Unity.
Guess we have to go native at the moment and dig into the beta documentation for nowā¦
Is AppleTV supported with standard iOS development with Unity? I suppose there will need to be additional tvOS support but will that just be lumped under iOS?
Iām guessing controller support will work like it does currently with iOS.
At the moment we are still experimenting what is the best way to integrate Apple TV support, but it looks like it will be separate build target. Though of course it will share a lot of implementation details with iOS.
Remote control will be supported in the same way as current iOS Game Controllers are supported: http://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/iphone-joystick.html. Accelerometer will be available as simple as Input.acceleration.
We donāt have plans for Siri at the moment, but should be possible via native plugin.
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I thought I read that universal apps were possible, so the user could buy the app once for both tvOS and iOS? I donāt know if that is separate binaries, but invisible to the user, or a single binary. Target device options in the Player settings sounds like a better option, especially if it is a single binary.
But whatever works well, as long as it isnāt a separate licence.
These will be separate binaries. Itās more an App Store thing, I think Apple is calling it Universal Purchase rather than Universal Application.
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Not so far off the Windows 10 idea or console cross purchase. Seems pretty much the new thing (it is a little ridiculous buying the same game/app for different hardware really).
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Is it possible at all to build for iOS target and then tweak XCODE to build the TV binary?
Also, what about Unity 4.6? I, and I think a lot of mobile devs, are sticking with 4.6 at this moment in time for mobile, and so it would be unfortunate if an entire new āplatformā which is just a slight build off of iOS is not on 4.6 at all.
UI experience and interaction on big TV screen is significantly different from touch based navigation on phone screen, some of gameplay elements most likely will differ too. Crossy Road local multiplayer with two users playing on the same TV is good example how games could evolve for better experience on TV. Thus having single Xcode project build for iOS and TV makes little use. At the moment we see them as two separate Xcode projects built from single Unity project, with different scene and Asset Bundle content included into them.
Apple TV will be supported only on latest Unity 5.x.
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I completely understand being two different Xcode projects.
Can you give me any reason at all why this wouldnāt be made Unity 4.6* compatible?
Cannot speak for Unity but 4.6 did also not have Windows 10 support, so they trying kill it off, makes sense not to go backwards! Killing of BlackBerry on 5.2 evenā¦ So best thing is just have multiple versions of Unity installed!
I didnāt realize 4.6 was pretty much done withā¦ anything.
Thereās enough performance issues/glitches for mobile, in many different aspects, that itās still too early to completely switch over to Unity 5 in my opinion, though Iād pay $10k for a Unity 5 that worked great with all mobile devices at this stage!
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Totally agree, for mobile Unity 5 has taken number steps back, I think iOS Team are pretty good and only platform that not had any issues with so far except still some deep under the hood performance that can be done. But for small games no one really notices.
If you encounter iOS performance regression issues with Unity 5 please post bugs and send me case numbers via PM.
Thanks!
Itās not just about performance. Thereās potentially showstopping functionality changes/losses and breakages.
If youāre working on a mobile project with a lot of baked lighting, moving to Unity 5.x just doesnāt seem viable right now. Too many issues with lightmapping and lightprobes, some which are showstoppers. Problems that donāt exist in 4.6.
I was particularly disappointed to discover that the ābake probesā button is gone in 5 - you canāt bake lightprobes independently of lightmaps (to have more control over lighting of dynamic objects, and to work around this rather old but serious bug)
Iād hoped that lightprobe functionality would have improved with 5.x, rather than regressed. Weāre still missing the ability to additively load lightprobes, and have any ability to manipulate the baked probes at runtime (e.g. moving/rotating the probe cloud - something essential for procedural levels build from pre-baked tiles)
It feels like in the push for high-end features, critical-for-mobile (but fairly low-tech) graphics/lighting features have been left broken and poorly supported, leaving 4.6 as a significantly better option.
None of the shiny new high-end rendering features are of use to those developing real-world mobile games which need to run on todays mid-range devices.
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@Mantas-Puida Thanks for your helpful info on this. Are you able to give any rough estimate of when we might see Apple TV support in Unity? The Unity Roadmap currently has Apple TV under āLong or Uncertainā, which gives the impression itās a way off?
Right now they have to wait for devices to actually run stuff on, just like the rest of us, and Apple havenāt given any exact dates for when theyāll be in peopleās hands. Thereās also a very limited selection of countries that even can get devkits before October. If UT got some kits this week, they might manage at least a beta by the time the rest of us can order ATVs, but nobody even knows IF theyāre getting them yet.
@Mantas-Puida yes Iād also be very interested in tvOS support for Unity 5 and an estimate on when to expect that, since Iām seeing online the device is coming out late October. Would be great to get an ability to publish to it sooner (preferably in advance of release) rather than later-- hoping thatās doable since tvOS is likely super similar to iOS and the new Apple TV uses the A8 chip same as iPhone 6.
Unity roadmap structure doesnāt always work precisely for Apple platform support, as everything is moving super fast. āIn developmentā means that we actually doing work on it, and most often we ship as soon as it is ready on Unity version, which is most fresh at given time.
While technically iOS and Apple TV are similar, it needs a lot of extra polish from content side to get shippable TV experience. iPhone6+ attached to TV via HDMI + MFi game controller is good start for those who didnāt get devkits. Though I wouldnāt be brave enough to ship without testing it on real device with new remote.