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Apple TV Markup Language

developer.apple.com

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Re: Apple TV Markup Language

#21

Post by tcdent »

rjvir wrote: post #17
tcdent wrote: post #8

I'm a little surprised they're jumping into the literal "TV" namespace so wholeheartedly. Is the future of this ecosystem really exclusively limited to the Television? Gaming is already an explicit part of this, which undoubtedly will include VR, which is theoretically suited to Television-like content. If they do this right, the source code running on your VR gogs will mention "TV" everywhere, much like the the curr…

The iPhone name worked out pretty well, even though the phone functionality is just a small fraction of the iPhone's value proposition.

Apple's phone SDK's are not prefixed "Phone", nor is it called the "Phone OS".

Exactly to my point: It's called iOS because the breadth of it's applicability was recognized from the beginning.

Edit: You're right, and it's different: naming of the mobile OS and namespacing were independent, allowing for a public re-brand without changing any code. Seems the TV is not going that way though.

Re: Apple TV Markup Language

#23

Post by steego »

bcruddy wrote: post #10

Another mark up language? Why? What was wrong with HTML here?

I'm not sure I'd qualify TVML as another mark up language. It looks like an XML standard that adheres to a particular XML schema. Asking, "Another XML schema?" would sound like a silly question because that's the whole point of XML.

As for why not HTML? I think there's a lot of really good reasons why HTML would be a poor choice. If you want to restrict Apple TV apps and channels to rely on Apple approved idioms, HTML would be a terrible choice. Apple isn't as interested in creating an open TV browser as much as it's interested in creating a unique and positive TV experience. They can shape that with their own standard.

Re: Apple TV Markup Language

#24

Post by spicyj »

tcdent wrote: post #21
rjvir wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone name worked out pretty well, even though the phone functionality is just a small fraction of the iPhone's value proposition.

Apple's phone SDK's are not prefixed "Phone", nor is it called the "Phone OS". Exactly to my point: It's called iOS because the breadth of it's applicability was recognized from the beginning. Edit: You're right, and it's different: naming of the mobile OS and namespacing were independent, allowing for a public re-brand without changing any code. Seems the TV is not going that way though.

It was called iPhone OS for a few years.

Re: Apple TV Markup Language

#25

Post by [deleted] »

tcdent wrote: post #21
rjvir wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone name worked out pretty well, even though the phone functionality is just a small fraction of the iPhone's value proposition.

Apple's phone SDK's are not prefixed "Phone", nor is it called the "Phone OS". Exactly to my point: It's called iOS because the breadth of it's applicability was recognized from the beginning. Edit: You're right, and it's different: naming of the mobile OS and namespacing were independent, allowing for a public re-brand without changing any code. Seems the TV is not going that way though.

[deleted]

Re: Apple TV Markup Language

#26

Post by kposehn »

tcdent wrote: post #21
rjvir wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone name worked out pretty well, even though the phone functionality is just a small fraction of the iPhone's value proposition.

Apple's phone SDK's are not prefixed "Phone", nor is it called the "Phone OS". Exactly to my point: It's called iOS because the breadth of it's applicability was recognized from the beginning. Edit: You're right, and it's different: naming of the mobile OS and namespacing were independent, allowing for a public re-brand without changing any code. Seems the TV is not going that way though.

Splitting hairs here: it was originally iPhone OS in the beginning, but moved to iOS in June 2010

Re: Apple TV Markup Language

#27

Post by mozumder »

jerf wrote: post #20

If any of the authors are reading, you really ought to consider putting this into an XML namespace. It can just be a mysterious invocation to most users today, but if you need to extend this in the future (inline SVG? inline XHTML?), it'll save your bacon to have done it in the first version.

Why would anyone add complexity to the syntax when you can make it simpler by removing the XML namespace?

If you need to add namespaces, then you have already failed.

Re: Apple TV Markup Language

#28

Post by wvenable »

tcdent wrote: post #19
Xero wrote: post #2

So it's just HTML? Is there a reason (legal or otherwise) that they can't just use HTML?

I have no idea how it's actually implemented, but it's quite likely TVML is powered by HTML (and WebKit). Rather than expecting developers to use an open-spec-compliant generic toolkit, they've just built modules on top of it to both make development easier and more importantly maintain a consistent UX. You could just have pre-defined CSS classes and do much of the same thing, but it will not be as elegant nor as con…

Implementing this with WebKit would be massive overkill; I'd say it's quite unlikely it's implemented with it.

Re: Apple TV Markup Language

#29

Post by msie »

0x0 wrote: post #18

I believe this XML+JS thing was the only way to write apps for the old Apple TV. Various postings on the internet seem to suggest this from way back; the old SDK was probably only ever available to a select few handpicked appletv channel partners. What's new in the new tvOS SDK is that you can also write native apps in Objective-C/Swift, with a main() function that starts up UIKit, and with access to most of the norm…

I was confused at first because TVML seemed more prominent in the marketing/developer materials. But we just saw a game run on Apple TV so yeah, you could write native apps w/o the TVML.
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