Apple TV App Store Online: TwivelStats Combines Black Magic & An Apps List To Create A Searchable, Unofficial tvOS Store

Neil Cameron, a tvOS developer based in London, has combined sugar, spice and a continuously refreshed apps list to create an online, unofficial Apple TV App Store called TwivelStats. The front page of TwivelStats has a simple search bar, the top six paid/free tvOS apps, and a section where users can view the latest nine arrivals to the Apple TV store.

Apps in TwivelStats can be filtered by chart type (Top Free Apps, Top Grossing Apps, Top Paid Apps) or category, and the unofficial store supports an advanced search (Created By, Release Date, Description) as well.

Apple has declined to make tvOS apps available to be viewed publicly on the internet, meaning the only way to view the Apple TV App Store is via the latest generation of the Apple TV itself. This makes linking to tvOS apps quite difficult, but the rationale behind the decision is understandable in a certain sense.

“One big problem with problem with ATV apps is distribution. There is currently no way you can go from reading a tweet about an apple tv app to installing it with one click,” Cameron said. “Perhaps they are trying to solve this call to action issue before they open the ATV app store outside the ATV.”

App Store entries for iOS apps can be launched via their webpage (see iOS Netflix vs. tvOS Netflix), but there’s no way to send a link to an Apple TV, or browse the Internet, the same way you can on an iPhone or iPad.

Cameron’s day job is the founder and developer of Twivel, a platform for creating Apple TV apps without the need to actually code anything. Think Squarespace, but for apps, or more specifically, video-based apps.

“Our mission is to make TV better by empowering the next wave of video creators with awesome tools,” Cameron said. “We imagine a world where you can watch niche content (Judo documentaries, economics lectures, classic car repair how-tos) as easily as you can watch mainstream content now.”

The apps themselves are created and configured with drag and drop actions, and Twivel supports provides hosting for video content as well as the ability to manage episodes, series and categories.

Imagine a church, a high school football team or even a university department with hours worth of footage, but no way to make it available without relying on (and getting lost in) video hosting services such as YouTube.

With Twivel, those organizations could have their own dedicated app on the Apple TV. This is partly why Cameron created TwivelStats.

“There was nothing out there that did the job well enough,” Cameron said. “I'm constantly thinking ‘do company xyz have an app yet?’ and there is no way to easily search for that. Until now.”

Cameron says he plans on introducing cross-platform capability with other devices to Twivel as well, such as iOS and Android. This would mean Twivel users could create one app, manage it in one place, and push it out seamlessly to a variety of different devices.

Twivel is currently in a closed beta, but will be officially launching very soon according to Cameron.