At long last, a feature that many of us have long been waiting for has been enabled by the folks over at Apple. I am referring to the launch of iOS single sign-on which will help smoothen out ruffled feathers, especially among those of us who tend to log into TV apps for our entertainment moments. With the iOS single sign-on now made available, it is a whole lot more convenient to log into TV apps. While this is a as good a start as any, one does still wonder why no additional effort is put into this particular exercise, as the available list of companies that support this feature at this point in time is not the strongest line up. Perhaps things will change in the future, or there are contractual obligations that we do know know about behind the scenes? Still, something is better than nothing, and I am quite sure that avid fans of TV apps which require logins would more than welcome this baby step.

This particular single sign-on feature available for iOS would require users to enter their respective account details for different cable providers who are part of the set up, of course. This will be a one time requirement (for obvious reasons), and then from there, you can enjoy the advantage of signing in automatically into TV Everywhere apps. No longer do you need to make sure that your cable account login details are entered for each single TV app that is on your iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV. After all, with so many tight restrictions on the password these days that require at least eight characters with alphanumeric or even special characters and a potent mix of upper case characters with numbers, it can get pretty confusing quickly. Hence, this initiative by Apple is more than welcome.

At this point in time, the number of providers who are supportd by the single sign-on feature in iOS comprise of the likes of cable and satellite companies such as CenturyLink Prism, DirecTV, Dish, GTA, GVTC, Hawaiian Telcom, Hotwire, MetroCast and Sling TV.

The list is obviously short of the big time players in the ilk of Verizon FiOs, Comcast, Charter, Time Warner Cable, and Optimum, although all hope is not lost yet. After all, this is Apple that we are talking about, and not some two-bit player in the market. Surely the big fish would want to see whether this is an exercise worth the effort in terms of participation. Apple has raised expectations among its users, with additional cable providers tipped to be added to the infantile list at this point in time in the weeks and months to come. At the bare minimum, at least the satellite department is more or less covered with DirecTV, Dish, and Sling TV. The latest DirecTV Now service does not look as though it is supported as at press time, though, but we do hope to be able to obtain additional information on that in due time.

One ought to take note that the single sign-on feature will only work for selected apps. To complicate matters a wee bit more, this would also mean it works sometimes only for the iOS or Apple TV version. Hopefully the networks and their respective app developers would see the benefit of going down this route for added convenience for the end user.