Apple’s fours-generation Apple TV is getting a proper remote app described as a viable replacement for the bundled Siri Remote, John Paczkowski, Managing Editor with BuzzFeed News, wrote this morning.
In an interview with Eddy Cue, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, Paczkowski learned that a much-improved remote app for the Apple TV 4 is currently in the works.
Wouldn’t it be nice if you could use the Siri Remote that came with your new Apple TV to control media applications on your Mac? After all, the remote is Bluetooth-based and Mac itself has robust support for Bluetooth networking.
With SiriMote, a new freeware app, now you can. Created by Vienna, Austria-based Eternal Storms Software’s Matthias Gansrigler, SiriMote lets you control various functions of the Mac using your Apple TV’s Siri Remote.
A United States company called Innovelis today announced that its brand new flexible mounting system for the fourth-generation Apple TV set-top box and Siri Remote is available for purchase exclusively via Apple’s retail and online stores around the world.
Retailing for just $29.95, this useful accessory is especially convenient for Apple TV fans with a wall-mounted TV.
Dubbed the TotalMount Pro, it attaches your Apple TV directly to the back of a television set, helping eliminate both the clutter and the need to tunnel the HDMI cable through the wall from your TV area.
You’re sitting on your couch watching a movie. You reach for the Siri remote to adjust the volume, and once again, you accidentally scrub forward or backward when your finger touches the Touch surface. Now you’re struggling to scrub back where you were until you find the right spot.
If you own the new Apple TV, you have most likely faced this annoying situation several times. Thankfully, a quick press of a button can fix this problem and take you right back where you were before you accidentally scrubbed.
The Apple TV Remote Loop is a $12.99 accessory for the Apple TV Siri Remote, and it essentially functions as a lanyard to keep the remote securely within your grasp. This can be important when using the Siri Remote to play games, as some titles may require you to wave the remote around, sometimes aggressively, to control certain on screen elements.
But the Remote Loop is sold separately, and doesn’t come bundled with the Apple TV. With this in mind, should you consider buying it? Is it a wise decision for gamers who’ll be using the Siri Remote’s sensors to play Wii-inspired games? Read our full review to find out the answer.
Siri has apparently gained some new functionality for Apple TV, at least on the tvOS 9.1 beta. You can now direct the remote assistant to play any song or album directly from Apple Music, even if the song or album isn’t in your library. Siri can even search for songs on Apple Music, play Play Beats 1 radio, and more.
This makes Siri a lot more useful on Apple TV, and means that you don’t have to look at the interface to start playing a song that you want to hear. The lack of Siri integration for Apple Music has been a popular pain point for early adopters of 4th-generation Apple TV.
I’m running the 9.1 beta on my Apple TV. For the record, Siri search for music was said to come as an update early next year, so it’s highly likely that this could be a beta-only feature. Other iDB staffers have tried to replicate this functionality on tvOS 9.0 boxes to no avail.
Watch our video that shows Siri integration for Apple Music on the Apple TV…
Your universal infrared remote which used to control your old Apple TV should work just fine with the fourth-generation Apple TV right out of the box. In some cases, however, your legacy remote might need configuring in order to learn the signals that the Siri Remote generates.
In this post, we’re going to show you how you can program a universal infrared remote that came with your TV, cable box or DVD/Blu-ray player in order to navigate the entirety of tvOS, or use it with a prior Apple TV model.
The new Apple TV ships with the same remote everywhere but Siri on the set-top box is only supported in these eight languages and countries: English (Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States, German (Germany), French (France), Spanish (Spain) and Japanese (Japan).
Why is that? After all, Siri on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad support the most basic features in a total of 29 countries, as per Apple’s iOS Feature Availability webpage.
Based on an interview that the German-language blog MacPrime conducted with several Apple TV project managers, it’s all about the differences in the pronunciation of actor names, films and directors in various countries. But rest assured, Apple is already hard at work on training the Apple TV’s Siri for additional countries.
In addition to using your Siri Remote to navigate the tvOS user interface and play games on the fourth-generation Apple TV, you can program it to control power and adjust volume levels of your television set or home theater receiver.
That’s because your Apple TV and the Siri Remote that came with it are compatible with HDMI-CEC and outfitted with a built-in infrared receiver and blaster.
This means owners of the new Apple TV can adjust the volume of their TVs and home theater receivers via the HDMI cable or line of sight, using just their Siri Remote.
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to program your Siri Remote and configure it to work with your home entertainment equipment.
In this tutorial, you’re going to learn how to check out the battery level of your Siri Remote or a Bluetooth gamepad paired with an Apple TV.
Just like your iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Mac, your Apple TV also lets you easily close a running app in order to free up system resources.
In this tutorial, we’ll detail personalizing the Siri Remote to your liking by adjusting the sensitivity of its Touch surface.
