Apple's Single Sign-On Service Now Live

Apple today officially launched Single Sign-on, the service designed to allow cable subscribers to sign in once with their cable credentials to gain access to all cable-restricted content in iOS and tvOS apps.

Single Sign-on is limited to the United States, and according to a support document, is available for the following providers: CenturyLink Prism, DirecTV, Dish, GVTC, GTA, Hawaiian Telcom, Hotwire, MetroCast, and Sling.

While Single Sign-on was introduced and tested in the tvOS 10.1 and iOS 10.2 betas, the feature was remotely released today to all iOS 10 and tvOS 10 devices. Using Single Sign-on does not require one of the betas, and is instead immediately available to all iPhone and Apple TV users running iOS 10 or tvOS 10.

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With Single Sign-on, customers with a supported provider will use the Settings options in iOS or tvOS to sign in with their cable credentials. From then on, when accessing a supported app that requires a cable subscription, the app will ask to use the saved sign-on credentials.

To get to Single Sign-on on iOS devices, open the Settings app and scroll down to "TV Providers." The process is the same on the Apple TV - open the Settings app and choose the TV Providers option to sign in.

Most cable channels and content providers offer individual apps on the Apple TV and iOS devices, but still require cable authentication before users can access content. Prior to Single Sign-on, customers were required to enter their credentials in each individual app, a frustrating and time-consuming process.

Single Sign-on will play a key part in the upcoming "TV" app that's set to debut in iOS 10.2 and tvOS 10.1. The TV app serves as sort of an Apple-designed television guide that lets customers find new content and keep track of what they were watching across multiple devices.

At the current time, Single Sign-on is available to a limited number of customers, but its availability will expand as Apple signs the necessary deals with cable providers. Single Sign-on also requires apps to implement support for the feature, and many apps have not yet introduced Single Sign-on support.

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Top Rated Comments

Aquaporin Avatar
112 months ago
Stupid comcast.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dr Kevorkian94 Avatar
112 months ago
Stupid Time Warner...doah! I mean Spectrum.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
44267547 Avatar
112 months ago
Stupid comcast.
Comcast is absolutely worthless and a bottom feeder provider. But they manage to survive.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
coolbreeze Avatar
112 months ago
I'm so pissed off that U-verse isn't supported. I've been chatting with a tech. No date for SSO yet.
It's really not something to get all huffy about. Just sign in to the apps you want to use. Makes life a tad bit easier, but getting "so pissed" is a bit overboard.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
auriconis Avatar
112 months ago
Shocking, Veri-suck is late to the game. I'm sure this feature will be supported by them in iOS 13.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dannyyankou Avatar
112 months ago
Come on Verizon, get off your lazy ass and get this done
[doublepost=1481057780][/doublepost]
Glad they got all the major service providers on board!
You forgot the /s
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)