A tvOS update may include new firmware for the Siri Remote to fix bugs, improve reliability, and add new features. Improve your Apple TV experience by learning how to effortlessly update your Siri Remote, and stay in control with the latest features and improvements.
Apple is working on a brand new Remote app for the fourth-generation Apple TV that will be a full replacement for the functions provided by the included Siri Remote, said Eddy Cue, Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, who was joined on The Talk Show podcast with Daring Fireball's John Gruber by Craig Federighi, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering.
The upcoming software will be a new app, not an update to the existing Remote application for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad which in December 2015 gained keyboard and basic navigation support for the new Apple TV.
It seems like every time there's a new tvOS beta, an interesting new feature is included for us to talk about. With tvOS 9.2 beta 3, that new feature is the ability to use Dictation on text input fields. It also includes the ability to dictate—character by character—usernames and passwords.
Along with the new Dictation feature, comes support for searching the App Store using voice input from the Siri Remote. Have a look at our video preview that showcases each new feature in action.
Don't you wish there was a hassle-free way to bring your Mac apps, documents, media, games and more to the big screen—and control them? Enter Remote Buddy, a sweet little app by Roth, Germany based developer Felix Schwarz.
This high-performance screen sharing software—along with its tvOS, watchOS and iOS apps—streams your Mac's screen to the new Apple TV and turns the Siri Remote into a trackpad, a full virtual keyboard and an advanced remote so you can control Mac apps with gestures and shortcuts, without getting off that couch of yours.
Building on the latest GPU and CPU technologies, Remote Buddy uses a proprietary engine to deliver up to 60 frames per second with a latency of around 0.1 seconds so you really get a smooth, high-speed screen sharing experience.
Having taken Remote Buddy for a quick spin, I'm happy to report that it works incredibly well and really comes in handy when you want to do simple tasks on your desktop-bound Mac without actually sitting in front of your computer.
Apple is researching a pair of interesting new features to give its fourth-generation Apple TV some new smarts and make the box more TV-like. Titled “User detection by a computing device” and “Input device & user interface interactions”, these inventions outline a fresh new user interface for changing channels on an iOS device and a presence-aware remote to keep playing content as long as someone is in the room.
Better Touch Tool, one of the most useful power-user utilities available for macOS has been updated to include support for Siri Remote control. The update, which is currently available as an alpha version download, lets you control your mouse with the Siri Remote, as well as assign shortcuts and mouse clicks to the Touch Surface and each of the remote's buttons.
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...