HowTo: Install Apple TV Screensavers on Mac

apple tv screensaver

When the new Apple TV (4th gen) was released a couple months ago, one of the things that caught people’s attention were the awesomely stunning screensavers of aerial footage taken by Apple through some of the beautiful and iconic locations in the world – Hawaii, China, New York and San Francisco.

Right now, these screensavers are an Apple TV exclusive and there’s no word whether Apple has plans of making it available to other devices like the iMac, Macbook Pro, iPad or iPhone. In the meantime, if you would like to get these beautiful screensavers on your iMac or Macbook Pro you can do it by installing the Aerial – Apple TV Aerial Views Screen Saver, which is a Swift app created by developer John Coates. Check out this YouTube video to see how the Aerial Views Screen Saver looks like.

FEATURES:

  • Auto Load Latest Aerials: Aerials are loaded directly from Apple, so you’re never out of date.
  • Play Different Aerial On Each Display: If you’ve got multiple monitors, this setting loads a different aerial for each of your displays.
  • Favorites: You can choose to only have certain aerials play.
  • Preview: Clicking on an aerial in the screen saver options previews that aerial for you.

HOW TO INSTALL AERIAL:

  • Download the Aerial app from Github.
  • Open the Aerial.zip file.
  • Double click the Aerial.saver file to start installation.
  • Open System Preferences, then go to Desktop & Screen Saver.
  • Click on the Screen Saver tab.
  • Select Aerial from the options available on the left pane.
  • aerial screensaver

  • To customize Aerial, click on Screen Saver Options.
  • aerial screensaver

That’s it! Now you can enjoy the Apple TV screensavers on your iMac or Macbook Pro. If you have a multiple-display setup, you can also configure it to play a different aerial on each display. Here’s an extra tip, you can control the aerials by pressing on the J (rewind), K (pause) and L (forward) keys on your keyboard.

In case your system will prevent you from installing Aerial, follow this steps:

  • Open System Preferences, then go to Security & Privacy.
  • Click on the General tab.
  • Under Allow apps downloaded from, select Anywhere.
  • Repeat installation process.

If you can’t open the Aerial.saver file, try placing Aerial.saver in ~/Library/Screen Savers. Since this app is written in Swift, it requires OS X Mavericks or above.

Aerial was one of the first things I installed on my iMac. I’ve had it for over a month now and so far I haven’t had any issues with it. There’s only one thing that I don’t like about it though and that is it requires an Internet connection to work and stream the screensavers. Hopefully, Apple will make this an official screensaver and include it in the next OS X update so that users won’t have to install a third-party app and be able to use the screensavers even without an Internet connection.

Btw, for Windows users who would like to have these screensavers on your PC, check out cDima/Aerial by Dmitry Sadakov.

Anyone else has Aerial installed on their iMac or Macbook Pro? How do you like the Apple TV screensavers? If you had the option, what other locations would you like to see added to it? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

This post may contain affiliate links that allow us to earn commissions at no additional cost to you. We are reader-supported so when you buy through the affiliate links, you are also helping or supporting us. 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

JaypeeOnline