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Apple TV Made Talking to My TV Seem Totally Normal

The latest Apple TV combines the immediate benefits of Siri voice control with the promise and potential of an App Store.
Image: Apple

Apple TV is back, and this time you can talk to it.

Announced on September 9 and just now trickling into stores, the latest version of Apple's streaming set-top box (which starts at $150) has three headline features: Siri, which lets users search for movies and TV shows using their voice; a dedicated App Store where users can download games and other apps; and an all-new, touch-sensitive remote control.

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It's the first major revision of the device since 2010, with Siri and the App Store having the potential to fundamentally change your perception of what "TV" can actually be.

Let's look at Siri first.

Image: Apple

When the Apple TV was first announced back in September, we were blown away by the apparent accuracy and utility of Siri, Apple's familiar voice recognition and digital assistant software. The promise made by Apple that afternoon was that users, thanks to Siri, would no longer have to peck away on a tiny remote control whenever they wanted to pull up The Big Bang Theory on iTunes (pictured above). Instead, users would merely have to tell Siri (by pushing and holding a dedicated button on the included remote control), "Play The Big Bang Theory," and they would automatically be whisked away to the series' landing page with all episodes at the ready.

That promise has largely been fulfilled.

Image: Nicholas Deleon

Being able to say, "Find me movies starring Daniel Craig," then being able to select between titles like Quantum of Solace, Cowboys and Aliens, and Defiance (pictured above, among a host of others), and then being able to say, "Only the good ones," and have Siri whittle down the initial search results to his critically acclaimed movies (Skyfall, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and Layer Cake, again among others) elicits that wonderful feeling you get when consumer tech just works and appreciably makes your life that much easier.

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Image: Nicholas Deleon

At launch, only a handful of apps, including HBO Go and HBO Now, Hulu, iTunes, and Netflix (but not YouTube, crucially) support the most thorough Siri searches, letting users pull up specific episodes of specific shows on these services. "Find me the second episode of True Detective" brings up "Seeing Things" on HBO Go (for me, at least), while asking for "the fourth episode of Halt and Catch Fire" brings up "Close to the Metal" on Netflix (pictured above).

Image: Nicholas Deleon

Still, Siri is not flawless. Ask it to find Oscar-winning movies, and instead it notes (pictured above) that it doesn't "know about awards" (though it can "search for movies by ratings," using Rotten Tomatoes as its database). You also can't search by a specific topic: asking Siri to find "movies about World War II" returns (as seen above) "Sorry, I can't search that… But I can search by title, actors, year, and categories like romantic comedies or sci fi." Ditto with asking Siri to find Spanish- or French-language films: don't bother. And while the accuracy of the voice recognition was generally spot-on, Siri did trip up on certain words, like sometimes hearing "the tutors" instead of "the tudors" (as in the Showtime show).

You also can't use Siri to search for apps in the App Store, nor can it search Apple Music, Apple's Spotify-like streaming music service. Support for that is reportedly set for early next year, but it's a curious launch omission nonetheless.

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What about the App Store?

Image: Nicholas Deleon

At launch, two of the best examples of what an Apple TV native app can be are the home shopping QVC app (pictured above) and an exercise app called Zova. The QVC app includes a livestream (no cable authentication required) of the shopping network, with on-screen links to buy what the hosts are discussing. Zova includes a number of different exercises (some are free, while more advanced plans require an $8 per month subscription) that you can follow along with the instructor to perform in front of the TV.

Image: Nicholas Deleon

Other apps are less impressive. Periscope, for example, only provides a highlight of popular streams that are occurring right then and there (pictured above), and does not allow you to log into your account. That makes it that much harder to view recent streams of your friends or budding "Periscope stars" like The Interrobang's Chris "Scope Bros." Stanley.

But just as with the iPhone, I suspect that as more and more Apple TV units wind up in consumers' hands, developers will take notice and craft more compelling apps better suited for your TV. Be on the lookout for Plex, a popular home media server that already has apps for Amazon Fire TV, Roku, and the PS4, which launched for Apple TV shortly before this review was published.

And while Apple this time around is also placing a much heavier emphasis on gaming, I readily admit that, as someone with a PS4 and high-end PC, these games aren't necessarily aimed at me. (Think Nintendo Wii here, not Xbox.) Crossy Road, which can charitably be called a Frogger facsimile, is fun in short bursts, though.

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And the remote?

Image: Nicholas Deleon

Even though it would have been hard for Apple not to have improved the Apple TV remote compared to the previous version, this new one is still so much better (old one's on the right). For one it's Bluetooth, meaning you no longer need a clear direct line of sight to use the thing. And Apple has replaced the circular D-Pad thing in the previous model with a touch-sensitive pad that's similar to a laptop trackpad. Moving around the user interface is merely a matter of sliding your thumb across the pad left, right, up, or down; clicking the center of the pad, again like a laptop trackpad, selects items. You can adjust the sensitivity of this touchpad as well.

Beyond the dedicated Siri button, the other new button is one that automatically takes you to the Apple TV's home screen—no more having to repeatedly press the Menu button to exit your current app and return to the home screen.

Image: Nicholas Deleon

So all of this means what, exactly?

In isolation, the new Apple TV is a great little device: hook it up to your TV, and you've got an internet's worth of movies and TV shows at the ready. Great! Siri dramatically improves search (where applicable) and discovery of new content, while the App Store has the potential to change what we expect a TV to actually do (though this is entirely dependent upon developers coming up with compelling apps).

The thing is, the Apple TV does not exist in isolation. Anyone merely concerned with watching Narcos on Netflix or endless repeats of Seinfeld on Hulu on their TV can do so without spending the $150 that the Apple TV costs. Many newer TVs come with these apps built in, and other streaming devices from companies like Amazon, Google, and Roku can approximate the experience of an Apple TV, including rudimentary voice control support, for far less. (A Chromecast will only set you back $35, for example). And the Apple TV does lack at least one higher-end feature, 4K support, found on the newest Roku ($130) and Amazon Fire TV ($100).

So what's important to you: a highly refined, transformative user interface and the potential for genre-defining apps, or saving more than a few dollars while still be able to binge on episode after episode of Restaurant Impossible and The Property Brothers?

Decisions, decisions.