tvOS 9 is the first release of tvOS, shipped October 30, 2015, on the fourth-generation Apple TV. Its founding argument was Tim Cook's "the future of TV is apps": a full App Store on the television, native games and services, the glass Siri Remote with touchpad, and universal search speaking across streaming catalogs — the set-top box recast as a platform, replacing the fixed-channel Apple TV Software of the prior decade.

The tvOS App Store; Siri universal search across services; the touch Siri Remote; native games with controller support; aerial screensavers; and the focus-based interface built on iOS foundations.

tvOS 9 made the TV an app platform and its aerial screensavers a genre; the app-store model it bet on became the television industry's default shape — every smart-TV OS is organized this way now.