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Future of TV Applicaster Apple TV

Applicaster launches platform to make it easy to develop for Apple TV

By Benjamin Lichtman, Contributor

October 28, 2015 | 3 min read

There has been a lot of buzz this week following the release of the newly designed Apple TV, which seems poised to be another hit for a company that can seemingly do no wrong (it posted an astonishing $11.1bn profit last quarter). Part of what makes Apple TV so intriguing, and a potential game changer, is that Apple has designed a new operating system (tvOS) and will allow developers to create new apps on the new system. And as Apple’s own website plainly states, “It’s all about the apps.”

Applicaster

Applicaster

Applicaster, an Israeli company that's been building apps for the TV world for years, like Apple itself, sees enormous changes ahead in the TV industry. As CEO Jonathan Laor explained at MIPCOM, “Everything is changing. The experience. The content. How it’s being produced...Distribution changed (which) affected the digital department, but now it’s the time where content itself- the formats are changing- and it’s something the TV industry is going through from end to end.” Applicaster has responded to those changes by putting forth an SaaS (software as a service) platform which will make it easy to develop new apps generally and more specifically, for Apple TV. Its new Broadcast Fast Track App will provide broadcasters with the “fastest way to join the (Apple) Store via complete development and deployment service.”

The company raised $10.5m earlier this year in Series B funding and is now backed by C4 Ventures, and its founding partner, Pascal Cagni. Cagni was a former VP at Apple, overseeing growth in the EMEIA division from $1.2bn in 2001 to $40bn in 2012. Cagni, along with Laor, see eye to eye with Apple itself, viewing apps for tvOS much like the development of apps for iOS dating back to 2008, as both Applicaster and Apple insist that the future of TV is apps. If both are correct, one can only envision the growth potential. As Laor notes, “The much anticipated Apple TV App Store comes at a perfect timing for us and our customers.”

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Future of TV Applicaster Apple TV

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