As the tvOS 16 cycle is ending, Apple has released tvOS 16.5 to all Apple TV users. In addition, HomePod 16.5 Software Version is also available for HomePod owners, although it’s unclear what’s new for Apple’s smart speaker besides minor enhancements.
tvOS 16.5 brings one major feature for Apple TV 4K users, the ability to watch up to four streams simultaneously. Unfortunately, at the moment, this feature is limited to the Apple TV app with the MLB Friday Night Baseball and MLS Season Pass. Apple is said to be ramping up multiple sports deals, but at the moment, these are the games you can watch simultaneously.
To start multiview mode, you first must watch a sport stream from the Apple TV app. If this feature is available, after you update to tvOS 16.5, a grid icon will appear in the control’s toolbar. This button will minimize the video into a floating window, and then you can select a few other live games happening at the moment.
Besides the multiview feature, tvOS 16.5 brings overall enhancements to Apple TV owners. Interestingly enough, the previous tvOS 16.4 was also all about general enhancements. tvOS 16.3, on the other hand, brought a handful of new features for HomePod owners. Some of them are:
It enabled temperature and humidity sensors for the HomePod mini and HomePod 2 models. It was already known that the HomePod mini offered these sensors. Still, they have been disabled from the start, and Apple decided to launch them now alongside a new HomePod model.
In addition, that operating system update brought remastered ambient sounds by making them more immersive and also able to be added to the Home app’s scenes, automation, and alarms.
If we learn more about the minor improvements Apple has made to the Apple TV and HomePod with tvOS 16.5, we’ll be sure to update this article. In addition, the company has released iOS 16.5, iPadOS 16.5, watchOS 9.5, and macOS 13.4.
