- Why yes, it is thicker, longer and heavier
and of course, I'm talking about the new Siri Remote
for Apple TV.
Hey, I'm Jerry and one of the things
I was most excited about after Apple's Spring Loaded event
was the new Siri Remote.
Why, I don't know, it's just a remote, right?
The second generation Siri Remote for Apple TV
has a number of great design changes
and a couple of omissions
compared to the previous generation Siri Remote.
Now, I've been an Apple TV user since 2007,
since the original with the big square box
that you had to sync from iTunes
or actually stream from iTunes.
Unfortunately, I don't have the original
Apple TV remote anymore
but I do have the second generation remote
along with the first generation Siri Remote.
The new Siri Remote is definitely the biggest,
the thickest, the heaviest remote of the three
and I think that it has some advantages over the others.
First off, the original Apple TV remote just used infrared
and it had just a D-pad, a Menu button
and a Play/Pause button.
The first Siri Remote of course
brought that big full touch pad up top,
the Siri service that you can use to search the apple TV
for movies or genres or even actors
then of course there's the gyroscope and the accelerometer
built into this Siri Remote that can be used in games
and other things for the Apple TV.
There was a number of things that people did not like
about the original Siri Remote
and one of those is that it was too symmetrical.
You got a flat surface up here, a flat surface down here
and buttons in the center
and when you picked it up in the dark, it was hard to tell
if you were picking it up in the correct orientation
and it was very easy to accidentally swipe
when you didn't wanna swipe
and you'd mess up whatever show you were watching.
You'd pause it or you'd skip forward or backwards
and it was kind of annoying.
Another issue people had with this remote
is that it was very slippery, very thin
and it was easy to lose.
You could lose it just sitting on a table
'cause it was hard to see
but it would also slide between couch cushions.
I was able to solve those issues mostly for me
with this silicone case for the Siri Remote.
It solved the issue with not being able to see it on a table
because it's nice and bright and red, it's much grippier.
You can actually feel what orientation you have it in
even in the dark because only one side is nice and smooth
and then of course it was more difficult to lose
between couch cushions
because of the grippy texture of the silicone case
and then a lot of people just did not like the touch surface
of the remote.
They wanted a D-pad.
They wanted to go up, down, left, right.
So the new second generation Siri Remote
solves most of those issues.
You have of course a D-pad built into the top
that is also touch sensitive
so you actually get the best of both worlds.
You can swipe if you want
or you can be more precise and click up and down.
The remote itself is actually thicker and heavier
and has this rounded edge on the backside
which makes it really just easy to hold.
The Menu button has been changed to a Back button.
We now have a Mute button down below
and then the Siri button has been moved around to the side
and we actually get a Power On/Off button
and the Power On/Off button is actually pretty nice
even though you could easily turn the TV off
by holding the Apple TV button and then just clicking Sleep,
holding just the one button to turn everything off is nice
and you can actually feel it
despite what it looks like probably in this view right here.
It's actually raised just a little bit
so you can easily find it with your thumb or finger
as you swipe over the top of the remote.
The buttons on this new remote are very clicky.
It's like.
Yeah, you can hear that, right?
It's a very satisfying tactile feedback on these buttons
compared to the previous generation and I really do like
that they moved the Siri button to the side.
It's very much like using the Siri button on an iPhone.
So if you're used to using it on an iPhone,
it will be very familiar to use on this remote.
One of the best features of this new remote
is the new circular scrolling that you can do.
Just like iPods with click wheels
where you could scroll through menus
or scroll through the different parts of a song,
you can now do that in videos on the Apple TV.
So let me show you how this all works.
First of all, to pair the remote within existing Apple TV,
you need to hold the Back button and the Volume Up button.
After a few seconds, you'll get a message on the screen
saying to bring the remote closer to the Apple TV.
A couple seconds later, you'll get a message saying
that the remote is now connected to that Apple TV
and you're paired.
Since the D-pad on this remote
is actually all touch sensitive,
you can still swipe up and down, left and right
like you did before.
So on this home menu, you can swipe up and down,
left and right to get to the application you wanna use
or if you wanna be more precise,
you can use the D-pad and click up, down, left, right
one at a time and then click the center button to select.
So I actually started getting frustrated
when I first tried to use this feature.
I would hit Pause and then I would scroll around
and the playhead would just go right and left
and right and left.
It wouldn't actually keep moving like I expected.
Well, as it turns out, you actually have to rest your finger
on the remote for just a moment
until a little icon pops up on the scroll bar
and then it will work as expected
and you can scroll as fast or as slow as you want.
You can actually get pretty precise
with where you want to get in the video
by scrolling fast at first to get in the general area
and then you can slow the scroll down
to get to exactly where you want to be
then press the center button to hit play.
Now, as it turns out, this does not work for every app yet
so I don't know if apps need to update or what
but it did work in Netflix and Hulu and Amazon Prime
and Apple TV and HBO.
I was not able to get this new scrolling feature to work
in Plex and Disney+ or even YouTube.
Now, if you remember having iPods,
you use that scroll wheel for like all of the navigation.
So you get to a menu of songs
and you just scroll and scroll and scroll
to scroll through the list of songs
and I wanted to know if this would work
in the Settings menu or any other menu that's in the apps.
Unfortunately, it doesn't.
It just kinda works as a normal swiping gesture
of up, down, left, right
so you can't just scroll through menus
using this new circular scrolling feature.
Now, if you're somebody who hated the swiping gestures
on the previous Apple TV remote
and you really don't wanna use swiping gestures
on the new remote,
so you can actually turn that off by going to Settings,
Remote and Devices and then Clickpad
and you can change it from Click and Touch to just click
and now you can just use the D-pad as a D-pad
without any touch gestures in the whole operating system.
Now, like I said earlier,
this new Siri Remote does not have a gyro or accelerometer
so if playing games on your Apple TV
is something that you like to do,
you're gonna have to stick with the previous generation
Siri Remote or get something more dedicated
like an Xbox or PlayStation controller
but overall, I like this new Siri Remote.
I think it looks better, feels better
and for me, for what I use the Apple TVs for,
it's more functional but what do you think?
Do you have questions about the new Apple TV Siri Remote?
Are you gonna be getting some
or are you getting the new 4K Apple TV?
Let me know below.
I'm also making videos about all of the other things
that were announced at the Apple Spring Loaded event
including the new iMac and iPads.
So look at this video right over here.
Hit the thumbs up button if you liked it.
Hit Subscribe if you want and I'll see you next time.
(calm music)