The Cupertino giant has recently shown efforts for consolidating it’s proprietary developer programs under a single roof as we reported earlier. A new development with regard to this — the company has now increased the number of devices developers can register under a single account.
Previously, the number was restricted to a hundred devices, but has now been increased to a whopping 500 devices per account. According to Apple, developers can have 100 devices registered under each of the supported platforms, the platforms being the iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Apple Watch, and “Apple TV”.
Yeah, you read us right. Apple TV it is!
Apple has allotted 100 slots for Apple TV alone. And as we know, this software platform doesn’t yet include its own App Store. Rumors have been flying around for a long time about this, though.
Apple, apparently, has been working on an upgrade to Xcode which would include developer tools that help app makers build third-party applications for Apple TV. According to The New York Times, Apple delayed the launch of Apple TV for after the WWDC this year because the device wasn’t ready. The new product hardware is said to have under-the-hood improvements as well as an App Store of its own and an Internet-based TV service.
The registration slots that Apple provides developers are used by them to test their apps ahead of an App Store public launch, as well as to test new versions of Apple software, like iOS releases.
The appearance of Apple TV as a supported device type for developers to register with Apple is not exactly new. The important change here is that Apple TV was included as an optional device in the past, as pointed out by several developers. Developers could install beta builds of Apple TV software, and they had to add Apple TV to a device list for the purposes of AirPlay beta testing.
The other side of the reasoning can be, that Apple might have provided 100 slots per platform just to keep a uniform approach.
However, more likely is the fact that this change might be an indication that the company is opening up to Apple TV development and will support third-party applications and games. Presumably, when developers start beta-ing their apps for the hardware, they might need more slots, like for devices like the iPad and iPhone.
MacRumors, which reported on the increased limits after developers began tweeting about the changes to their account also noted that some developers were bumped up to 200 devices a few years ago. That change wasn’t of much significance and certainly was not universal as opposed to the change brought about today.
The device number increase surely isn’t a definite proof of the App Store for Apple TV being for real, but it certainly allows us to predict what’s to come.
