Developer Steve Troughton-Smith has been pouring through the new Apple TV’s operating system, and has found some code that hints at the device’s future abilities and features, including app folder support!
As seen above, Troughton-Smith cobbled together code, or “abused llbd” as he says, to enable the creation of app folders in the shipping version of tvOS that mimic those found in iOS. Each created folder shows up on the tvOS home screen as one would expect, with its own title and nested app icon previews.
The folders appear to support renaming, and stored apps can be repositioned and deleted via the familiar “wiggle mode” most of us are familiar with from iOS. Folders would be created by dragging one app onto another, much like in iOS.
We were disappointed when we found that the current version of tvOS did not offer folders, as our new Apple TV’s screen has quickly become cluttered with the icons of apps we have downloaded from the App Store. Folders would go a long way toward cleaning up the tvOS screen, just as folders capabilities in iOS has allowed users to categorize their apps into folders.
Apple has made moves to improve the Apple TV user experience during this, its first week of availability by adding “Top Charts” and “Categories” sections to the App Store over the last few days. It’s not known when, or even if, Apple might enable folder capabilities on the Apple TV, but MacTrast hopes it is sooner, rather than later.
