And it’s just a lot easier to use than Roku or Chromecast, which require you to constantly click or hold to move throughout the interface. It’s the best of both worlds, as you can use touch when you want, but you can also physically click to navigate the interface. This entire clickable surface is a touchpad, which means you can still swipe across in any direction to navigate tvOS. The outer ring features four-way directional buttons earmarked as white dots on the black surface. The significant change comes in the form of a click wheel, which brings back heavy waves of iPod nostalgia. You’ll still charge the Siri Remote with a Lightning cable - Apple even includes one in the box. It has a slight curve on the back, which is more ergonomic than the previous model and stayed comfortable throughout. The remote is substantial in hand, but not to the point where it’s uncomfortable to hold. It’s a pretty hefty remote at 2.2 ounces and weighs about the same as two of the old remotes stacked together. For starters, it’s silver aluminum all around and is thankfully thicker than the previous version. It takes what worked on the original and mixes it into a fresh look with impressive functionality for a remote. We believe the updated Siri Remote will be a lot less divisive.
#APPLE TV TV#
And for whatever reason, it could control TV volume but not power.
The controversial touchpad interface at the top let us effortlessly glide from app icon to icon for easy navigation, but it did make scrolling to time stamps and precise movements a bit difficult. Now, we didn’t hate the original Siri Remote, which might put us in the minority. The new Siri Remote is practically perfect Lastly, the Apple TV 4K makes sense as a player for those in the Apple ecosystem, as photos, music and what you’re watching will sync across all your devices. Apple TV 4K runs tvOS and you have access to the App Store for thousands of streaming services, which historically have come to Apple TV before other platforms. At $50 for Chromecast or Roku Express 4K, you get similar features and support for core visual standards at a more affordable price, though we do prefer the aluminum and intuitive Siri Remote over plastic remotes bundled with Rokus. How it compares: The new Apple TV 4K is faster than competitors like the Roku Ultra, Streambar and Google Chromecast.
The new Siri Remote is a delight and the best remote we’ve tested. It puts all of the core services on the big screen and it’s controlled through an intuitive user interface that doesn’t hide content or apps behind many layers. What you need to know: The Apple TV 4K is a high-end streaming box designed from the ground up for the Apple user. Setup is much faster along with navigating tvOS, but your content starts streaming faster as well. If you’re still using an Apple TV HD, it’s a pretty clear night and day difference.
Unless you care about high-frame-rate content (and have content to watch that supports it), the speed increase from the newer processor won’t make much of a difference. Who this is for: If you currently have an Apple TV 4K, we’d buy the remote. Here are our thoughts: by CNN Underscored on Thursday, May 20, 2021 We’ve spent a week jamming out to music and binging more than 70 hours of content all in the name of testing the new Apple TV 4K and Siri Remote.