The Remote Strikes Back

The box for the new Apple TV 4K is funny. It’s literal. Meaning, it’s a picture of what you’ll see when you open the box. It’s like if the outside container were clear. But it’s not. It’s a picture. A picture of what is literally inside the box.

This is almost true of some other Apple products. Namely, the iPhone and iPad boxes showcase the devices you’re about to unbox, but it’s different as it shows what they look like with the screen on. Except without apps or anything else on the screen besides a wallpaper. The Apple Watch boxes vary but often show a random watch face. Again, not what you’ll literally see when you open the box. The Apple TV 4K box does that. Which isn’t that interesting other than what it highlights beyond the Apple TV hardware itself: the remote.

If it’s not exactly the star of the show, it certainly upstages the device which actually does all the computing. And that’s because it’s not just better than the remote that came before it, it’s roughly a hundred million trillion billion million times better. Actually, that’s incorrect. Because the last Apple TV remote was a zero. And zero times anything is zero. So instead let’s say that this new Apple TV remote is wonderful and the last one was total shit.

And that’s putting it nicely.

Anyway, it seems clear that Apple is well aware of both how bad and how hated the last Apple TV remote was. This doesn’t explain why they kept it in place for six years.¹ But it does explain why they put it on the goddamn box. And why they updated iOS to include the iconography of the new remote before anyone even had one in their hands. It may have taken six years too long, but Apple was ready to move on. So say we all.

I won’t go into all the ways the last Apple TV remote was bad, but mainly so I don’t trigger PTSD. If you’ve used it, you know. The order may vary in terms of what you hate the most versus my own list, but we all have the same list. And new users, well, may you never know such pain.

And you won’t because I’m happy to report that the new Apple TV remote is not just good, it’s very good. I’m not sure it replaces my old TiVo “peanut” remote as my most favorite remote of all time, but it may eventually with usage. Certainly in terms of clean design it tops that remote. And pretty much any other remote I can think of. Except for maybe the first and second Apple TV remotes, both of which had fewer buttons. Most remotes are comically complex and look like they were designed by children. Not this one.

But my friends, as we learned the hard way, design is not just how something looks. So how does this one work?

The new buttons on the Apple TV remote are key to functionality. They include a power button — imagine that! Yes, power control is something which you could get the old abominable Apple TV remote to do, but it required a secret learned combination of long-presses and swipes. And a mute button, something which I specifically was hoping they would add as it was a core reason why I kept my old, actual LG TV remote alongside the Apple TV remote all the time. Now the only reason I could think of to need that other remote is to change inputs. And I’ll be doing that less now that the Apple TV has a good remote. So yeah, it’s a much better remote.

It’s also clever. Apple was able to take one core thing from the last Voldemort remote and translate it here: a swipeable area. But instead of it being the entire top of the remote and the main way to navigate and frustrate, it’s an almost hidden option unlocked by discovery. Simply glide your thumb over the top of the directional pad and voilà! You’re swiping. If you don’t wish to swipe, you don’t have to. You can click away to your heart’s content.² But actually swiping is a very useful method of input for much of the Apple TV’s core navigation. It just was absolutely awful for other bits. This remote gives you the best of both worlds.

The new remote also features a back button, something which is, dare I say, Android-like. I’m still getting a bit used to it, but it certainly makes a lot more sense than the old ‘Menu’ button it replaces. As such a button never actually brought up a menu. It was always a back button, and now it’s simply called a back button. Funny that.

Also new: shoving Siri to the side, quite literally. If you wish to invoke her now, her button is now a jagged little pill on the right hand side of the remote. I do use Siri to search quite often on the Apple TV. And yes, I’m quite often frustrated with the results, especially since Netflix content doesn’t show up. But it’s still much easier than clicking and pecking (or swiping and pecking) to type the name of a show and/or movie. I’m glad the button is still here, but I’m also glad that it has been moved out of the way a bit.

Then there’s the TV button. I still don’t fully understand this button. I know what it does: takes you to the Apple TV area of Apple TV which mainly highlights Apple TV+ content. (Yes, this is laughably confusing from a branding perspective.) But I wish you could program it. Say that you watch mainly Netflix content, it would make sense to have the TV button take you there. Or even better, YouTube TV since it’s actual TV content.³ I’m very happy we don’t have branded buttons on the Apple TV remote, but I would love some level of programmable granularity here.

[Update: As Eat Sleep Cook School! points out in the comments, you can actually reprogram this button in the settings of the Apple TV, but only to go to the Apple TV home screen, rather than the “Up Next” area of the Apple TV app. Nice, but it’s also something you can already quickly do by holding down the ‘back’ button.]

Otherwise, the remote is a dream come true. To use the overused Apple-ism, it just works. It feels good in the hand. It’s heavy in a solid way. It’s natural to use. It’s just good in all the ways the last remote was terrible.⁴

Of course, you can buy the remote separately without the need to buy the new Apple TV 4K alongside it. And if you have an old Apple TV 4K, you should probably do that. Because it’s hard to tell what else this new machine gives you. I know it has a faster processor, but in regular usage, it’s pretty hard to tell if it’s much faster than the last version.⁵ Perhaps if you play a lot of games on the device this speed increase becomes clear. But I do not play a lot of games on the device because Apple refuses, oddly, to focus on that element.⁶

I will say that the set up of a new Apple TV remains sort of a pain. It’s weird, Apple has made the very initial part a breeze — you just hold your iPhone close to the device and it copies over your main details like WiFi and iTunes login. But for each app you’ll have to re-auth in. And again, this sucks using a remote (as it does with any remote). It’s better using the software remote built into iOS, but it still sucks that you have to do this at all. And it especially sucks because it’s not just entering logins and passwords, but often using a phone or computer to visit URLs and entering codes to auth. Amazon is actually by far the best at this, as they give you a QR code to scan with your phone’s camera and you’re done. Everyone: copy this approach.

I also continue to be perplexed as to why Apple is offering two varieties of the Apple TV 4K — 32GB or 64GB of storage — but they’re only $20 apart in price. I would make the 32GB one at least $50 less. Why does Apple feel the need to sell a $179 version? That’s already insanely expensive for this category of device. Oh, they do this because not only is the under-powered Apple TV “HD” still for sale — with an A8 chip, yikes — but it’s $149.⁷ Come on Apple. Make this version with a chip that is six and a half years old $99.

But I digress. The only thing that matters here is the upgraded remote. It’s great. It’s not my dreamed-up remote, but in many ways it’s better. It’s certainly more practical. The new Apple TV 4K is nice, but so was the last one. The difference is what’s in the literal box when you buy one.⁸

¹ Only “upgrading” it to add a white circle — ? — to try to help users navigate the remote when the first Apple TV 4K rolled out.

² You have to wonder if there are other clever ways to use this tech, swipe-enabled physical keys. On a MacBook keyboard? An iPad keyboard accessory?

³ I can’t tell you how many visitors (well, back in a world when we still had visitors) I’ve had to walk through how to “watch TV” meaning “watch cable TV” meaning “watch YouTube TV” which is our “cable TV”. If I could just tell them to “hit this button” that would be amazing.

⁴ The one complaint you’ll here over and over again: it doesn’t include built-in “Find My” support. This is weird given that Apple just launched this as a platform alongside the AirTags. But it’s also true that you’re less likely to lose this remote than the last one. And if you do, yes, it’s probably in between the cushions, I’m not sure you need an app to tell you that. You just needed a remote that wasn’t an absolute slippery magnet to said cushion crevices.

⁵ And no, it’s not an M1 chip. Instead, it’s the A12 chip, the best chip before the M1 came out.

⁶ Yes, you can use an Xbox or Playstation controller with the device now, but they also removed the ability to use the remote that comes with the device as a gamepad — there, I found the one benefit of the last remote (which I admittedly never used). Given how big of a platform iOS is for gaming. And given how Apple has their own gaming service, they should probably focus a bit more on it with the Apple TV. Alas, there are a lot of things they could, and probably should do with the hardware that they just do not.

⁷ At least it also now has the new remote in the box!

⁸ One more oddity of the box: what’s on the back. That is, a picture of the HomePod. Not the HomePod mini, the HomePod big boy. You know, the one which Apple just discontinued. This is a brand new product touting a just-cancelled one. Weird, yes. But we all understand how lead times work. Still, this clearly indicates that Apple wasn’t thinking about cancelling the large HomePod all that long ago. Or if they were, no one at Apple TV got the memo. Or they were busy, building a working remote.