Here is what may be a blasphemous confession: The seemingly universally despised Siri Remote, the symmetrical one with the trackpad that debuted in 2015, has never bothered me that much. There surely are annoying things about it—the lack of Power and Mute buttons is nonsensical for home theater setups—but, by and large, I never once have felt an urge to jab needles into a Jony Ive voodoo doll over it or anything.
The all-new Siri Remote, bundled with the refreshed Apple TV 4K and Apple TV HD, is a mea culpa from Apple to all the haters. The new remote is a better remote in every way, all the while retaining the touch-first spirit of the previous model’s trackpad. In many ways, the new Siri Remote is a throwback; it bears a strong family resemblance to the old Apple TV remote and the new trackpad (officially, a “clickpad”) is effectively an iPod click wheel reincarnated for your television. It’s certainly fair to wonder how and why it took Apple’s world-renowned industrial design group six years to address the old remote’s problems, but the retreat isn’t unusual. The company in 2010 put buttons back on the iPod shuffle after the previous version infamously had none. “People clearly missed the buttons,” said Steve Jobs at the product’s unveiling. More recently, Apple more or less apologized in 2017 for the “trashcan” Mac Pro while promising a new, modular machine that eventually would ship last year. Even the impending new MacBook Pros are reportedly said to include an SD card slot, an HDMI port, and MagSafe—while giving the axe to the also much-maligned Touch Bar.
Apple will never explicitly say “We were wrong and we’re sorry,” but products like the new Siri Remote are tacit admissions of guilt. Apple sent me the new Apple TV 4K (the $199 64GB model) for testing; after nearly a week, I can confidently say I love the remote. It is a night and day difference in terms of usability and accessibility.
The Siri Remote, The Star Attraction
Although the Apple TV box itself is a nice albeit iterative upgrade—more on that later—the true upgrade for the Apple TV as a product is unquestionably the new remote. It’s such a transformative product, in fact, that it’s worth paying the $60 to get the remote alone to use with an existing Apple TV instead of paying $179 for the entire kit.
In a tactile sense, the Siri Remote feels nice. Milled from a single piece of aluminum, it has substantial heft relative to the old remote. It is longer and thicker than its predecessor, yet remains razor-thin compared to competing remotes from Amazon, Google, and Roku. The buttons themselves have a distinct clicky sound and feel; from a sensory standpoint, the sound can be especially beneficial to accessibility as you can literally hear a button press when adjusting the volume or muting the TV. As far as buttons go, Apple knows how to make good ones; the Siri Remote’s are no exception.
Put another way, the new Siri Remote exudes niceness in ways that clearly outclass its competition. Others may be competent at being remotes, but none are as nice to hold or to use. The new Siri Remote is itself a device befitting of its premium status.
The Siri Remote’s new “clickpad” has worked really well in my testing, as I’m able to navigate tvOS with ease. It’s reminiscent of the click wheel on the iPod Nano I used back in the iPod’s heyday; it’s something that seems so obvious that you wonder why it didn’t exist long ago. As with the iPhone 12’s boxy physique and the new iMac’s colors, the clickpad is yet another example of what’s old is new again in Apple design.
Despite the Siri Remote’s welcome presence, it could use improvement. It would’ve been swell if Apple could’ve finagled the design so as to include haptic feedback on the clickpad. Haptic feedback has immense benefits to accessibility, and it would have made navigating tvOS a better experience. In a nutshell, it would’ve been great if you could feel yourself moving around alongside seeing it. This double dose of sensory input would’ve been especially useful in scrubbing through a show or movie timeline. In addition to seeing the scrubber move, you could feel it too—the combination of visual and tactile stimuli would be additional confirmation that something is happening on screen. It would not be insignificant to someone who, say, has low vision and can’t easily see the scrubber. Likewise, it would be nice if previews in the timeline could be magnified for said low vision person, akin to how one can magnify the Dock in macOS. (This obviously would necessitate Apple updating tvOS accordingly.) The only other gripe about the Siri Remote is how the Siri button favors righties. As a left-hander, I have to flip the Siri Remote on its side to comfortably access the Siri button with my thumb. The stated reason for putting the button there makes sense—Apple wanted to be consistent with the iPhone’s Power button also being used to summon Siri—but, as a person whose right side is partially paralyzed from cerebral palsy, its placement is far from ideal. But it’s not Apple’s burden to bear alone; the Google TV remote has the volume controls on the right side, so I have to tip over the remote as well to manage the volume. It’s a pain—sometimes literally so.
On a slightly facetious note, I’m a little surprised Apple didn’t include a hotkey for TV+ on the bottom of the remote, as it recently has done with Roku’s new remotes. I say this in jest because of Apple’s ever-present goal to maximize services revenue. As a practical matter, however, a TV+ button would help accessibility. To wit, someone with atypical cognition who wants to watch Ted Lasso needn’t turn on the TV and find the TV app; just press a hypothetical TV+ hotkey and it turns on the TV and launches the TV app, ready to go. Design snobs may forever sneer at this type of branding, but these shortcuts do serve a highly functional (and accessible) purpose for many people.
All told, the new Siri Remote is a clear winner and a must-buy if you prefer the Apple TV. Even for the last-generation A10X model, still no slouch when it comes to performance, the addition of the new remote will vastly improve the user experience. It assuredly is $60 well spent if you’re devoted to Apple TV for your TV.
Cursory Commentary on the Apple TV Box
There’s honestly not much to say about the new Apple TV. It does seem faster than the A10X model it replaces, but both are arguably over-engineered for their primary function of streaming TV. As a nerd and professional tech reviewer, I’ve liked having the new one because it’s new and has a faster A12 Bionic processor and has high frame rate HDR. In daily usage, though, the differences feel negligible. I literally unplugged my old Apple TV in the living room and swapped in the review unit using the existing cables. Everything else is exactly the same—same software, same industrial design, same I/O, same cables—except, of course, for the new remote control.
Unless you’re new to Apple TV or have an old one or simply really want the latest and greatest, there isn’t a super compelling reason to buy the box itself. It’s a very good product, but buying the remote separately and adding it to your existing Apple TV is the smarter play all-around. It’s way more economical—which, for many disabled people, is a huge consideration—and gives you 95% of the upgraded experience.
The Bottom Line
My recommendation in a sentence: Just go buy the new Siri Remote.
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