An M3U player for Apple devices

Paste the M3U or M3U8 link your provider gave you and Kanema fetches your live channels in their categories, with the guide.

Coming soon to the App Store

The TV guide on Apple TV: six favourite channels down the side, the morning’s programmes across, and a line at the current time. Beside the TV, an Apple TV 4K and its Siri Remote. — Demo playlist: the films are Blender open movies (credits) and the channels are made up. Kanema comes with nothing to watch.

Add your M3U link

Choose Add a playlist, then M3U link, and paste or type the address your provider sent, usually ending in .m3u or .m3u8. On Apple TV you can type it on your phone instead: scan the QR code beside the fields and fill in the page that opens.

Kanema then fetches the channels in their categories, and the guide if the playlist names one. Give the playlist a name if you like, and pick a mascot for it.

Adding a playlist, step by step

Adding a playlist on Apple TV, step 1, What are you adding?: five cards, Xtream Codes, M3U link, Media server for Plex, Jellyfin or Emby, HDHomeRun and Tvheadend, each with a line on what it asks for. Beside the TV, an Apple TV 4K and its Siri Remote.

Adding an M3U link on Apple TV: the playlist address and name fields on the right, and on the left a QR code and a four-digit code to type the address on a phone instead. Beside the TV, an Apple TV 4K and its Siri Remote.

When the guide gets a channel wrong

Providers often give a channel the wrong guide entry, so it shows another channel’s programmes, or none at all. Hold the channel (hold Select on Apple TV, or right-click on a Mac), choose Fix its guide, and pick the right entry from every channel the guide lists, with the likely ones first.

With Kanema Pro you can add more than one guide address: put a space between them, and Kanema reads them as one guide.

Fixing the guide for Meridian Action on iPhone: the entry it uses now, the likely match first, then every channel the guide lists, each with its guide id, and a search box.

What an M3U link brings

An M3U link brings live channels. The guide is XMLTV, either the one your provider sends or one from an address you add. Films and series come with an Xtream Codes login or your own Plex, Jellyfin or Emby server, and you can add those alongside your playlist.

Kanema opening for the first time on Apple TV, with a button to add a playlist.

Your channels, arranged your way

Rename, hide, merge, split and reorder categories, move any of them to the top, and arrange the channels inside them. A parental lock keeps the categories you choose out of search, the guide and Recently watched until the code is typed.

Live TV on Apple TV: categories on the left, and the Cinema category’s channels on the right, each with what’s on now, its times and a bar showing how far in it is, lined up in one column, and what’s next.

Set up once

Your playlists sync through iCloud, so a playlist added on one device appears on the others signed in to the same account. Nothing goes through a Kanema server, and you don’t need an account.

It doesn’t come with channels

Kanema plays the playlist you add from your own provider, and nothing else. Only add services you’re entitled to use.