Gadgetory

so there's both so much to say about the new Apple TV and then really not that much at all on the one hand you could talk about what Apple wants you talk about the new Siri remote and TV OS and apps and how universal search and voice control bring everything together and create the future of television that's their tagline the future of television is here but that's what everyone's trying to do that's Roku that's Google that's Microsoft that's Amazon see everyone trying to reinvent television has the same problems it's hard and expensive to get deals with the cable networks and movie studios that own all the rights shows and movies are trapped in hundreds of different apps and navigating an interface that's ten feet away from you with a d-pad remote is pretty hard and it turns out that everyone has basically the same solutions to these problems you get all the video apps and platforms you build Universal search that can see into all of them and you control it all of your voice that's what Roku does it's what Google does is what Amazon does it turns out that's basically Apple's plan to but because it's Apple they've done some things a little bit differently and some things a little bit better the real question is whether all those little things add up to an actual revolution so the actual hardware of the new Apple TV is pretty and interesting it's a black box just about twice as tall as the old black box with a handful of ports in the back and a dual-core processor inside it's boring but it's supposed to be it's intended to fade away it's missing 4k support which is funny because the new moving picture of video loops are exactly the sort of demos that use on 4k TVs but honestly that might not matter until there's more 4k content out there anyway the real action is TV OS in the new Siri remote which has a glass touchpad at the top dual microphones for voice search and a handful of dedicated buttons there's also an accelerometer and gyroscope for gaming it's all of the basics of the iOS interface in a remote and it's what makes the Apple TV feel so much like a little iPhone under your TV it even charges over a lightning cable the same as the iPhone the remote connects to the Apple TV over Bluetooth and has infrared to control your TV's volume the one thing it doesn't have is a power button which means that if you have an older TV or a receiver that doesn't support taking commands over HDMI you'll be stuck with the second remote just to turn things on and off if you do have a newer TV with HDMI control support everything will turn on and wake up when you click a button on the remote and you can turn off by long pressing the home button and putting it all asleep it works but it'd be nice if there was a dedicated power button accidentally pressing a button on the remote to turn everything on once you're using the Apple TV it really is all about apps then if Apple is right that the future of TV is apps then it needs to spend a lot more time thinking about how to set up and get into all of those apps the new Apple TV can't restore your logins and most use apps from previous box so you'll have to go into the App Store to get everything and log into tons of apps all over again it's ridiculous that Apple can't just store a single cable company login to authenticate TV apps like HBO Go and WatchESPN everyone has the same problem there but if you really want to create the future of TV that's the one you have to solve once you do get all of your apps downloaded and set up things look pretty much just like the Apple TV interface we've had for a few years except that it's whitish gray instead of black but you're not really supposed to spend a lot of time banging around the on screen interface you're supposed to talk to it by holding down the Siri button and asking for things do the Eagles suck Siri is pretty smart you can ask for specific shows and movies you can search by actors you can ask for weather and sports scores you can even control back in interesting ways by saying things like what did she say which automatically rewinds 15 seconds and turns on captions so you can see where she said that just off the record okay once you've logged in to your various video app Siri can search them too so you'll see various HBO Netflix and Hulu options right any results you can also get pretty granular and ask for things like popular 80s action movies on Netflix which is pretty cool but Siri can't do everything they can't control music at all Apple only lets big players like Netflix and Hulu into those search results and you can't use it to search the App Store which is a huge oversight Siri also can't help you search inside an app or even dictate in text boxes which means YouTube search is still just hunt-and-peck with the remote it also doesn't understand netflix and chill' which is probably for the best of course you can also navigate using the glass touchpad on the remote it's really fun but it doesn't really add much the experience there isn't a single part of the Apple TV interface that I found that actually requires the touchpad not only does the old d-pad remote work just fine but you can even tap the sides of the touchpad to use it like arrow buttons if you want it's cool and fun to have a touchpad but until game and app developers really take advantage of it it's actually not that much better than the old remote in taking advantage of the new remote is really the point the entire future of the Apple TV rests on opening the App Store to new TV os apps and games but this first wave of TV OS apps is pretty weak most of them are just blown up iPhone apps so far an app like periscope feels like I'm just projecting my phone rather than actually running an app on my TV it's hard to see why things like Zillow or guilt or better when they're 10 feet away from you actually there's a secret I think the most interesting app on the Apple TV is QVC it's the only app that actually mixes television with interactivity lets you buy what they're showing in QVC I don't you buy anything on QVC but it's really interesting the other thing that's really fun is playing games on the Apple TV even if they're mostly just bigger iPhone games I love playing does not commute and jetpack joyride is pretty fun on a huge screen they don't look anywhere near as good as an Xbox one and ps4 but that's not the point there are really nice addition to an entertainment box and if you're bored they're waiting for you so there's the promise and then there's reality and in reality right now is the new Apple TV is the nicest TV streaming box available but it is basically the same idea is every other stream box out there it just has tons and tons of extra potential so if you need to buy a new TV stream box you should buy it you will be very happy with it but if you don't actually need to buy one I'd wait I'd wait for a future Apple TV with 4k support better apps and hopefully a bigger push from Apple towards the real future of teeth