At the company's WWDC18 conference in San Jose, California this week, Apple said it’s partnering with Charter Communications' Spectrum cable service to give the company's subscribers access to live channels and on-demand programming through Apple TV. Charter, which now serves 50 million homes and businesses after its $86 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable and Bright House Networks, will be the first US cable company to incorporate its service into Apple TV.

Apple TV has traditionally lagged in popularity in part because the product has been slow to adopt new standards like HDR and 4K, but the company insists it's potential partnerships with other cable operators will bring new life to the product.

"As more and more cable companies fundamentally shift how content gets to your TV, the typical cable box is becoming a thing of the past,” Jennifer Folse, lead designer of Apple TV, said at WWDC. "As these companies embrace Internet-based delivery, many of them share our vision of Apple TV as the one device for live, on-demand, and cloud TV content."

Given cable operators aren't keen on giving up their cable set top box monopoly, there's likely to be some notable caveats included in this new partnership. When asked if there would be any restrictions in regards to which users could enjoy Apple TV without a set top box, Charter gave a decidedly non answer.

"We are excited to be collaborating with Apple and look forward to be bringing the Spectrum TV App to Apple TV later this year," Charter said.

It's unclear what other cable operators will be willing to strike a new Apple TV partnership with Apple. If your cable provider does partner with Apple, you'll be able to utilize Apple's zero sign on effort, where the Apple TV unit automatically detects what cable provider you're connected to, then automatically logs you in to their authentication systems without the need to manually enter a username or password.