Limit to number of connected devices?

Is there a limit to the number of AppleTV Remotes, iPhones, iPod Touches, iPads or, Gamepads that are connected to the 4th Gen AppleTV at a single time?

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You can have 1 of the new Apple TV Remotes, plus up to 2 gamepads connected to your AppleTV at a single time.

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You can have 1 of the new Apple TV Remotes, plus up to 2 gamepads connected to your AppleTV at a single time.

So what about iPhones and iPod Touches (they mentioned support during the keynote, see https://forums.developer.apple.com/message/64279#64564)

Yea I am confused too:


Crossy Roads

"We've created a simple and easy way for anyone with an iPhone or iPad to jump right in to the action in this new Multiplayer-mode."(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSzxiKzy8lE&t=18m15s)


Beats Sports

"Music games are the most fun when you play with friends. So we've made sure to include support to up to four simultanous players. As long as you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, you are able to drop right in and join the fun."

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSzxiKzy8lE&t=22m13s)

So when looking at this demo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTDvSqoWKhc&t=3m51s). I assume you can hold your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad close to the AppleTV to pair.

iOS devices cannot currently directly pair with the tvOS device. You would need to create your own means of connectivity between an app running on the iOS device and that running on the tvOS device. You could consider Bluetooth LE or Wifi (Bonjour) for the task.

I know that they cannot currently, but are you sure that the remote app is not going to work after the commercial release? If not, I don't want to sound rude here, don't understand me wrong, I just don't get this decision: That would mean that instead of you, Apple, making available an app that is already perfectly functional with the old AppleTV and you would just have to unlock (since tvOS clearly uses the same logic as the old OS of the ATV3 and lower) and making this available to consumers as a second remote so they don't have to use their actual remote, you are going to have us make apps that will clutter the HomeScreen (or the Trash folder) of the iOS Device in question even (besides AdBlockers, Keyboards, Extensions, your Apps [e.g. Stocks, News, GameCenter] , ...) more (and will need development time). Specifically, this is bad for users (which is bad for you) and developers and you could change this with almost no action. So no one profits from this, everybody suffers or am I missing something?

I can't speak as to what the future plans might be here, but if you could please file a feature request describing the issue at hand and what you would like to be able to achieve, it would be greatly appreciated: bugreporter.apple.com

Thank you I have now submitted it.

It's great to have someone from the Apple Staff team answer to the question at hand. Appreciate that a lot.


Your answer: "You can have 1 of the new Apple TV Remotes, plus up to 2 gamepads connected to your AppleTV at a single time."


I count three devices. Beat Sports claim to have four: "So we've made sure to include support to up to four simultanous players". So does that mean the Apple TV can have 1 remote and 2 gamepads OR 1 remote and 3 three iOS devices connected through bluetooth?


And if we are on that subject, which framework should we use for this connection?

Our pleasure - great to see so much excitment and so many great ideas for the new platform.


We don't specify a limit on the number of concurrent iOS devices to be communciating with the Apple TV via Bluetooth LE (CoreBluetooth) or over a network connection (likely using Bonjour for discovery). It would be up to you to test your implementation to determine whether or not you are able to maintain the level of performance you require.

Ok to conclude, the AppleTV will support:

1x Siri Remote

2x MFI Gamepads

Xx iOS Devices (Over Bluetooth LE <CoreBluetooth framework>)


Since gamepads use bluetooth as well to connect, it's weird the new AppleTV limits itself to two gamepads. I am sure Apple has it's reasons 😉

Think like Apple, "Think differently"


Because of the shared frameworks and the way you can connect iOS devices through Bluetooth, you can now have an app that not only could have a stand alone version of the game, so you don't need AppleTV to play, but that could also function as a remote for if you do have an Apple TV. Play everywhere, anywhere, however you like. With friends on the couch or through Game Center online. On computer, tablet, phone or now even tv. It's truly amazing and I love it.


So to conclude. I don't think having a supportive app on your phone for a game is such a bad thing especially when people get really creative and it adds value. Though i do agree, it would be nice if Apple would update their Remote APP so for the simple games it's easy for people to connect and join because they would already have the app installed.

What's next? Well it's Apple, we never know, but my guesses (and hopes) are that now that they allow people to connect to CloudKit through web interfaces the next logical step would be to have GameKit accesable through the web interfaces, that way everyone can connect to your games, platform independent. As long as you have an Apple account of course.

According to this thread you can only connect two devices over core bluetooth. It looks like bonjour and wifi is the correct solution unless this is fixed in the next release.


https://forums.developer.apple.com/thread/18751

I've developed a framework that wraps Game Controller in a way that makes it easy to create an iOS-based game controller that appears as a MFi hardware-based controller: https://github.com/robreuss/VirtualGameController It utilizes NSNetService, and so primarily communicates over WiFi, with fallback to Bluetooth.

I'm currently using this framework by robreuss and it's an exceptional solution. Other then implementing a new remote app, I only had to search and replace the name of some classes in the Apple TV app.