What shall we look at? You will probably ask your partner that question regularly. If you often search endlessly for something you both like, this feature from this tip is for you. The Apple TV can give you recommendations for films and series, for example based on your viewing history. But rating films and series also helps with this. In this tip we explain how to get recommendations on the Apple TV in the TV app.
- Recommendations for the whole family
- Find recommendations
- Institutions
- Rating movies
Recommendations for the family in the TV app
Since tvOS 15, the Apple TV can take everyone’s tastes into account by providing suggestions in the TV app. If you watch a movie with the whole family, the recommendations are not only based on the tastes of the logged in user. The group recommendations are based on what everyone watches using their own Apple ID. Anyone who wants to participate in the recommendation must create an account on Apple TV.
You can choose per user whether or not they will be included. If you have one horror fan in the house and the rest don’t want to know anything about it, then it might be nice not to include this housemate. The settings can be found in the TV app under the Watch Now tab. Scroll down until you reach ‘For you’ and configure the accounts via the button on the right of the screen. Select each user you want to include in the recommendations, so that you always get suggestions that suit everyone’s taste.
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Movie recommendations on Apple TV
You will find the recommendations in the TV app on the Apple TV. Open the Watch Now tab and scroll down. One of the rows you come across is titled ‘For you’. The list will be updated as you do new reviews and/or watch movies. You may need to restart the app if you have just reviewed something.
Unfortunately, Apple’s system only takes into account films and series that you have purchased or rented from Apple or that you have watched via streaming services connected to the TV app. For example, if you watch Disney+ a lot and have linked the service, your recommendations will appear here. The advantage is that films and series from different services are combined, provided you have linked the streaming service to the Apple TV app. For example, in the screenshot above you can see what happens if you rent a movie once in a while, in this case one from Marvel Studios.
In addition to the recommendations based on your viewing behavior, films and series that are shared via the Messages app also appear in a separate Shared with you block. This is a function of the iPhone, iPad and Apple TV that saves content from different apps if they have been shared via iMessage. Think of a link in Safari, a song in the Music app or a film and series in the TV app.
Change recommendations settings in the TV app
If you want to change recommendations settings on Apple TV, you can. This gives you control over how accurate your recommendations are.
You can change which accounts are included in the recommendations at any time:
- Open the TV app and go to the Watch Now tab.
- Scroll down until you reach the For you section.
- On the right you see the selected users. Navigate to this and check or uncheck the user you want to participate or not.
You can change this setting at any time. The recommendations are updated live for only the selected people or person. You can also change the setting via Settings > Users & accounts > choose the user > For everyone.
To determine whether your TV app play history is used for recommendations, do the following:
- Go to Settings > Apps.
- Choose the TV app.
- Turn off Use playback history.
Rate movies for recommendations
Strangely enough, you cannot rate a film on the Apple TV itself, but you will have to use your iPhone or iPad to assign a number of stars to films. That is striking, because you can rate tvOS apps on the Apple TV itself. Rating movies on your iPhone or iPad works as follows:
- Open the iTunes Store app on your iPhone or iPad.
- Search for a movie you want to review.
- Tap Reviews, followed by Write Review.
- Give the movie a number of stars and add an optional description.
Unfortunately, this tip does not work on the Mac. Previously you could easily rate movies here in the iTunes Store, but due to changes in macOS, the function is unfortunately no longer available. Also keep in mind that you can only rate movies with a star rating that are available for purchase or rental in the iTunes Store. Unfortunately, you cannot rate films and series that you find exclusively on streaming services. Your viewing suggestions will then only be based on your viewing history.
Do you ever watch movies in the dark? Then it is good to know that you can mute certain loud sounds from films. You can easily set this while watching a movie. This way you are less likely to wake up the rest of the house. You can read how it works in our tip.
