TikTok has launched an official app on Samsung TVs, allowing users to scroll through their feeds and view videos on the big screen.
Samsung said the TikTok app can be downloaded from its app store and is compatible with all of its TVs dating back to 2018. Best of all, the app will be rolled out to Samsung TVs in the U.K. and Europe first of all.
For the unfamiliar, TikTok is a Chinese-owned social media app that has taken the world by storm this year, becoming the most downloaded non-gaming app of all time. It’s especially popular with teenagers and its viral trends, which usually involves crazy dance routines to popular tunes, has helped it spread like wildfire across the world.
The Samsung TV TikTok app closely resembles the mobile version, showing videos from user’s feed in a strip across the top. However, it’s a bit more curated than the mobile version, which relies more on algorithmic chaos, with several different categories available. They include “everything from gaming and comedy to food and animals”, Samsung said.
Users can view videos, add reacts and comment on each video, and block or mark content they’re not interested in. Samsung says the TikTok TV app also provides additional security settings not found in the mobile version. For example it’s set in “Restricted Mode” by default, which means it filters out content that may not be appropriate for all audiences.
Most interesting perhaps is that the TikTok app on Samsung TVs will continue to display content in a vertical aspect, the same way as it works on smartphones.
That of course makes it ideal for a very specific Samsung television, the rotating Samsung Sero TV (pictured below) that can orient itself vertically. The company said at the time of The Sero’s release in 2019 that it’s aimed at heavy social media users and influencers. But although The Sero was praised for its novel design, it came with a serious limitation. The only way to watch social media content was by casting it from a Samsung mobile to view those apps onscreen. There weren’t any native social media apps available at the time.
The arrival of TikTok on Samsung TVs changes that and should make The Sero more attractive to its intended audience, though Samsung will probably need to add a few more dedicated Smart TV apps to its catalog before it can claim the concept is a success.
