Instagram Arrives on Apple TV With Reels, Longer Video and Live Shows

Instagram Arrives on Apple TV With Reels, Longer Video and Live Shows

Apple TV becomes Instagram's newest screen on October 23

Instagram is now available on Apple TV, bringing Reels, longer videos and live shows to Apple's streaming box for the first time. Users can watch videos from creators they follow, discover new content and resume watching across devices. According to MacRumors, Apple's TV-specific release metadata dates version 66.0 to October 23, while an archived App Store listing from October 19 still showed compatibility with iPhone and iPad only.

The pitch is watching together, not scrolling alone

Instagram describes the TV app as a way to watch together with friends and family, moving the video experience from the phone to the television. Digital Trends echoes that framing: favorite creators, discovery and cross-device resume, positioned as a shared living-room experience rather than everyone hunched over a separate phone. The company is not pitching creation or messaging on TV; this is a viewing app.

A year-long path from Fire TV to Apple's box

The launch caps nearly a year of television experiments. MacRumors reports that Instagram began testing its TV app on Amazon Fire TV devices in the United States in December 2025, expanded to Google TV in February 2026 and to Samsung smart TVs in June. The early version centered on Reels sorted into interest-based channels that played automatically. In June, Meta said it wanted to go beyond short clips with longer creator content, episodic series and live broadcasts, and the Apple TV listing now names longer videos and live shows alongside Reels.

Channels, up to five accounts and PG-13 guardrails

The TV experience carries over rules from the earlier rollout. Gossip Herald and thenews.com.pk report that at the Fire TV launch, a television could hold up to five accounts, and Reels there generally followed PG-13 standards. MARKETING-INTERACTIVE adds detail on the newer feature set: interest-based content channels, casting Reels from a phone to the TV, Stories on the big screen and support for horizontal video. Samsung support covers 2020 model-year sets and newer, suggesting a device-by-device rollout.

You need tvOS 26 and an App Store download

Getting started is simple but version-gated. Digital Trends and mactoreality note that the app requires tvOS 26.0 or later and is installed from the Apple TV App Store. MacRumors adds the timeline clue that pins the launch: version 66.0 dated October 23. Swedish outlet Magasin MACKEN cautions that the app does not yet appear available outside the United States, including in Europe and Sweden, so international viewers may have to wait.

After the iPad app, the last big screen falls

The Apple TV debut follows Instagram's dedicated iPad app from September 2025, which arrived after years of requests for a tablet interface. French outlet iGen frames the move as part of Meta's broader push to install Instagram in the living room, from Fire TV to Google TV to Samsung and now Apple TV. For creators, one Reel or live show can now reach a second screen in the evening; for Apple TV owners, as Digital Trends puts it, the question is whether group watching beats handing the whole household over to the algorithm for the night.