NBC fans and Apple TV users – if you’re a member of both these categories, it’s time to celebrate. NBC has finally updated its iOS app with AirPlay. So if you have an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, you can start streaming your favorite TV episodes on your HDTV, starting today.

This is huge for NBC lovers because it eliminates the need of an active subscription to watch some of their popular shows on television. Till now, these TV shows wanted you to sign into Hulu or to a cable subscription service, before you could catch their frames on Apple TV.

Now, with the iOS app, you can watch all of the full-length videos for free, once they’re aired via the cables.  In short, you can enjoy popular NBC TV shows like “The Voice, The Blacklist, About a Boy, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Days of our Lives” in full HD on the big-screen and for free.

This is the NBC app’s complete changelog:

*AIRPLAY MIRRORING – Finally! Wirelessly transmit whatever’s displaying on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch to your big screen via Apple TV.

*TRENDING CLIPS -Watch previews and highlights from NBC’s late-night shows, including The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night with Seth Meyers and Saturday Night Live – lots of new videos every day!

Get the updated NBC iOS app for free from the App Store.

Be sure to follow Apple TV Hacks on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ for all the latest Apple TV-related news.

The post NBC brings AirPlay to its iOS app appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.

The jaw dropping loading screen drives you into a grid of featured photographs, each having its own story to tell. Select one and your iPad shows the article in a typical blogpost fashion, while the Apple TV puts forth the featured image in full screen. You can select other pictures, country stats or author bio and all are stunningly animated on the Apple TV. Interactive pictures and slide show modes are also present.

So far so good. But is this update as huge as some claim to be? Not really. First of all, though shown in full screen, these are not HD images which look great from 5m aways, but fades, blurs and pixelates as you look closer. Reuters wants you to subscribe to a monthly ($1.99) or quarterly ($5.99) plan for the HD edition. Anyway that’s understandable, ‘coz these are some breath-taking pictures we’re talking about here.

But the whole AirPlay setup in The Wider Image app seems a little funny to me. Once you take up the post, the same photo is AirPlayed till you end reading and exit, unless you select another one. Selecting other images, country statistics or author info, would bring it up both on the iPad and the Apple TV, which doesn’t make sense. What a normal reader wants (at least for me) is to show the featured image when he starts reading and as he scrolls down and comes across another photograph, that should automatically be mirrored even without selecting it. This would help him to comfortably read the content, look up to the television for a good look at the image and continue downwards.

It is odd that the world’s greatest news agency has left such a large room for improvement in the user experience department. Hopefully other reviews and user feedbacks have already brought it up to their notice and they’ll be bringing changes in the next update. So if you’re really into photojournalism and can put up with a little hiccupps, you can get The Wider Image app from the App Store for free.

Other new features in The Wider Image 3.0 update:

– Infinite stream of stories on the home screen
– Search stories, photographers and countries across the archive
– Browse 10 new themes. From ‘Cultural Atlas’ to ‘Living Planet’, there’s something for everyone.
– Enjoy striking images on your widescreen television, streamed wirelessly to Apple TV
– Even more image detail for retina displays with optional HD subscription
– Redesigned Explore screen shows stories on a world map
– Redesigned My View screen enables you to select photographers and countries to follow. All your favourites are now in one place.

Be sure to follow Apple TV Hacks on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ for all the latest Apple TV-related news.

The post The Wider Image app from Reuters now supports AirPlay appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.

This setup is particularly useful for games. Imagine the game getting displayed on the 1080p screen and your iPod has all the controls. Your iPhone/iPad/iPod touch + Apple TV combo can very well replace your console. And the advantages of this over plain mirroring of games are:

• First, the black pillars on the sides of the screen will vanish (i.e. full screen gaming)
• Secondly, the gameplay will be a lot more smoother as your A5 chip doesn’t have to power two displays in two aspect ratios, simultaneously
• Lastly, it is annoying and distracting to have both devices running the same game together.

Despite the advantages, there is a real dearth of dual screen airplay enabled games at the App Store. In fact, I could only come up with about five worth mentioning in this article. Whatever the reason for that might be, if you’re looking for a console-like gameplay with your Apple devices but don’t want to spend for that MFi controller, here are the games to get.

• Real Racing 2 ($4.99)

This penultimate title in the Real Racing series would be the smoothest dual screen AirPlay game of all. It was real easy to get connected, no lags whatsoever and incredibly perfect controls. My TV showed awesome cut scenes while I was configuring the race and as soon as the whistle blew, it was HD rubber burns. In the meantime, my iPad displayed a mini map of the track, my position, laps, time and speed. The controls vary according to your settings of accelerometer or button controls. I was amazed at the flawless full screen quality of the game, despite using an iPad mini and keeps me wondering why Real Racing 3 didn’t include the feature.

TV screen:

iOS device screen:

• MetalStorm : Online (free)

This is the game which really gives some sense to dual screen AirPlay. Sporting only accelerometer controls, MetalStorm on iPad would’ve wanted your eyes to go in circles while maneuvering your fighter plane. Sending the display to the 1080p screen makes you enjoy the visuals of the game while your hands does all the twisting. Though not as intensive as RR2, MetalStorm gives a pretty decent graphics with no chokes at all. The controls hub (below) is one of the most realistic ones and they work seamlessly while AirPlaying.

TV screen:

iOS device screen:

• Race Illegal High Speed 3D ($0.99)

This one from Chillingo is another perfect execution of the dual screen functionality. The game has three levels of graphics and even the ‘high’ one doesn’t have any stutters. The game also has multiple modes of controls and different camera views to be set and they too work like charm. The control board at hand is simple with sticks (or blank for accelerometer controls), a map, the speedometer, the brake and a unique rear-view mirror too. You can also change the music track and camera angle here. Now that we think about it, it is comparable to Real Racing in its execution, keeping aside Unreal Engine graphics and the street racing theme.

TV Screen:

iOS Device screen:

• N.O.V.A. 3 ($6.99)

To tell the truth, I had high hopes for this game. An FPS game seems to be a perfect fit for dual screen gaming as you seldom need to look at the controls for using stick controls. And for the most part, N.O.V.A. 3 faired well too. But the game seems to be streaming at 15 frames per seconds or so. Yeah, there are so much dropped frames that at times, you wouldn’t even realize where you’re going. There is a high chance that it is due to my under-powered iPad mini but Real Racing 2 performed very well on the same device. So I would like my iPad Air friends to clarify this part for me.

TV screen:

iOS device screen:

• Beat Hazard Ultra ($4.99)

I took up the game just for this review, but once I did, I couldn’t drop it for an hour. It is a simple old-school Space shooter themed game in its core but on the outside, its spectacular and colorful. A techno beat plays in the background while your weapons vary with the tempo in its type, strength, colors and frequency of bullets. A minute into the game and it’ll light up all the pixels on your TV with those 16 million shades. Both single-stick controls with auto aim and dual-stick controls are available for the too simple iOS screen and the latter seems more challenging and addictive. Though the frame rates never took any hits, the sounds (the essence of the game) consistently takes some time to get going. Often the game starts with a mute but in about 3 seconds or so, it comes back on and what you have is a cracker-party!

TV screen (sorry about the glare, it’s so flashy, this is the best I could get and to put up a non-flashy snap would be an injustice to the game!):

iOS Device screen:

So these were some of the best dual screen AirPlay compatible games for iPhone and iPad. I wonder why such a great feature is utilized so little by the developers. Even giants like Gameloft and Electronic Arts aren’t seen to be implementing dual screen functionality in their games. Hopefully, there’ll be more such games in the future and we’ll make it sure to let you know.

Also read: 5 more great AirPlay-enabled dual screen games for Apple TV

Note: Dual screen apps will only work on:

• iPhone 4S or later
• iPad 2 or later
• iPad mini and mini with Retina
• iPod touch 5th gen.

Be sure to follow Apple TV Hacks on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ for all the latest Apple TV-related news.

UPDATE: We did some deep digging and found a few more dual screen games. We’ll put up a new post soon. So stick around! Here it comes: 5 more great AirPlay-enabled dual screen games for Apple TV

The post 5 best AirPlay-enabled dual screen games for Apple TV appeared first on Apple TV Hacks.