Master Your New Apple TV With These Tips, Tricks and Shortcuts

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Whether you’re shaken by the 4th generation Apple TV or not, there are tons of interesting things that you might not have realized what you could do with it. Here’s how to get around some of the inconveniences of Apple TV and turn it into the perfect home entertainment machine.

System and settings

First, let’s start with some basic tweaks that can improve your overall experience. There are a few new toys here that weren’t found on previous Apple TVs.

Control apps on your home screen

On older Apple TVs, you had slightly less control over the home screen and the location of your apps. This, however, makes it much easier to move your favorites to the top just by using the trackpad. Hover over the app you want to move, then press and hold the trackpad. You will see the app enter what is called “wiggle mode”, which should look familiar if you’ve used other Apple devices before. When the app starts wiggling, you can move it with the trackpad. This is great if you have a few apps that you use the most and want to be the center of attention.

While the app is dancing wiggle, you can also uninstall it by clicking the Play / Pause button. Select “uninstall” when the menu appears and this application, along with its associated data, will disappear.

Pairing additional Bluetooth devices

The new Apple TV makes it easy to connect Bluetooth-enabled devices such as game controllers and audio devices. You can play games with the Apple TV remote, but dedicated game controllers can take you to the next level, and Bluetooth support means you can even connect wireless speakers. However, Forbes’ Brad Moon is arguably making the best use of Bluetooth functionality: pairing Bluetooth headphones for wireless, personal listening. Wireless Bluetooth headphones let you hear what’s on your TV without disturbing others, and without cables or needing to be in front of the TV. Plus, you don’t need to connect to the remote like you do with the Roku. Other devices like the Roku are already doing this, but it’s definitely a welcome feature. Here’s how to pair your Bluetooth devices with Apple TV:

  1. Set your bluetooth device to pairing mode or discoverable mode. If you don’t know how to do this on your device, a quick Google search will help you find it out in no time.
  2. On Apple TV, go to Settings> Remotes & Devices> Bluetooth.
  3. You should see your Bluetooth device listed under Other Devices.
  4. Select the device you want to connect.

The device should now appear in the My Devices section. If you’re using wireless headphones, you can switch between headphones and TV speakers by sliding the trackpad down and pulling down the Swipe Down for Information tab. Once there, navigate to Audio and you can decide where the audio will play.

While in the Bluetooth menu, you can also check the remote control battery by going to Settings> Remotes and Devices> Bluetooth. It will only show you a battery symbol with a graphical representation of the remaining charge (no percentage or time remaining), but Apple says the new Apple TV remote can last for months on a single charge.

Get cool new screensavers

The Aerial screensaver that Apple includes with its 4th generation device is beautiful, but you might get tired of seeing the same footage of New York and San Francisco every day. If you want more immersive views, you can go to Settings> General> Screensaver and change the Upload New Videos field from Monthly to Weekly or Daily. However, keep in mind that downloading each batch of new splash videos from the air will take up about 600MB of your bandwidth every day, week, or month , whichever you choose. Also, you cannot customize which videos will appear on the splash screen, so once the package is streamed, it becomes part of the splash screen’s repertoire.

If an air splash isn’t your style, you can use photographs instead. You can choose from Apple’s collection of photos of animals, flowers, landscapes and nature, or use your own photos. Go to Settings> General> Screensaver> Type> and select My Photos or Home Sharing. The My Photos section will display the photos you’ve synced with your Apple ID’s iCloud, while Home Sharing lets you use photos from your local Apple devices, whether they’re synced to iCloud or not.

Add multiple Apple IDs to your Apple TV

If you have multiple people in your household, each with their own iTunes account, Apple TV may support several different Apple IDs for purchasing specific apps, services, movies, and TV shows:

  1. Go to Settings> Accounts> iTunes & App Store> Add New Apple ID.
  2. Enter your new account information.
  3. Once added, you can switch accounts by going to Settings> Accounts> iTunes and App Store and then choosing the account you want to sign in with.

Any apps installed with other Apple IDs will appear on the Home screen regardless of who’s signed in, but you won’t be able to access them depending on the app or service.

Combine your remotes

If your TV supports HDMI-CEC , the Apple TV remote can also control your TV. You can adjust the volume on your remote and even turn off your TV by putting Apple TV to sleep. Your Apple TV will try to set this up automatically when you turn it on for the first time, but you may have to change your TV settings for it to work properly.

However, HDMI-CEC has different names depending on the manufacturer of your TV. For example, Samsung calls it Anynet +, Philips calls it EasyLink, and Sony calls it BRAVIA Sync. If you have an HDTV made in the past few years, CEC is bound to be somewhere in its settings. Chris Hoffman of How-To Geek has a complete list of HDMI-CEC trade names in case you still have problems.

If your TV doesn’t support HDMI-CEC, thankfully you can still set up a standard infrared (IR) universal remote for use with your Apple TV and have it all in one place:

  1. Go to Settings> Remotes and Devices> Learn Remote.
  2. Hold down the corresponding buttons on the IR remote control according to the instructions.
  3. Name your own remote.
  4. If your IR remote has buttons for play, pause, fast forward, and more, go back to Settings> Remotes & Devices> your own remote name.
  5. Hold down the corresponding buttons on the IR remote control according to the instructions.

You can now use your regular TV remote if you want and ditch the Apple remote entirely. This is great for those who aren’t interested in adding another remote to their collection, or want one universal remote that controls everything .

Correct the “Swipe down for information” problem.

Finally, some people (myself included) have encountered an issue where the “swipe down for info” warning at the top of the screen does not disappear after launching a video in apps like Hulu and Netflix. You can temporarily fix this by pausing and restarting the video, turning off the video and restarting it, or swiping down the menu and up again. This is not a final decision, but at the moment it is better than nothing.

Get more from Siri

The Siri button on Apple TV (the one that looks like a microphone) lets you quickly access all kinds of information and easily complete various tasks. If you press the Siri button and wait a bit, you can see a list of commands that you can send to Siri. However, by holding it down, you can actually execute these commands. You probably know that you can use Siri to check the weather, news and sports scores , but you can do other cool things too.

Find movies and TV shows with Siri

Siri will let you search movies by title, but you can also search movies by actor, director, or even screenwriter. In addition, you can narrow your search using search options such as Comedy Only or Good Movies Only, which will narrow your search to critically acclaimed ones. For example, your script might look like this:

  1. Show me the Bill Hader films.
  2. Comedy only.
  3. “Only good”.
  4. “Just show me the ones this year.”

This script will narrow you down to one click in seconds: Trainwreck . When you select it, you will be taken to the iTunes page of that movie. There, you can rent the movie, buy it on iTunes, or see which other apps (like Netflix, Hulu, or HBO Now) have it in your library.

Watching movies and TV shows with Siri

While you’re watching your movie or TV show, Siri can help you navigate and control your sound settings. For instance:

  • “What did he say?” will go back 15 seconds in what you are watching and show subtitles for that segment so you don’t miss out on what someone is saying in that particular scene.
  • Reduce Loud Sounds will lower the volume of the music and sound effects so you can hear the dialogue more clearly.
  • Play From Beginning will restart the movie or episode.
  • “Enable English Subtitles” or “Enable English Subtitles” will let you read what everyone is saying.
  • Fast forward X minutes and fast reverse X minutes will do just that.

You can also use Siri to stay informed about what you are watching and resolve any disputes about who made the movie, wrote the script, or even who played what roles. You can also ask what the movie’s rating is and when it was released.

Application and settings management

Siri is also a pretty easy way to open and close apps, and toggle settings on and off. For example, instead of clicking and swiping your finger across the screen, you could say something like:

  • Go to Netflix.
  • “Open the App Store.”
  • “Turn on Apple Music radio.”
  • Turn on VoiceOver.
  • Disable screensaver.

You can activate almost any app or setting with Siri, so go crazy and see what cool shortcuts you can think of. Siri may seem silly if you have a lot of people, but when I’m at home alone, I have no problem asking Siri to make things easier for me.

Make the Apple Remote suck less

The new Apple TV remote looks pretty sleek, but not perfect. Here are some helpful tips for using your trackpad, as well as some simple shortcuts that can save you time.

Make your trackpad more accurate

The trackpad is a touchscreen square at the top of your Apple TV remote. Its surface looks matte compared to the shiny black surface on the rest of the remote, which can be really useful. Here are some things you might not know about:

  • The touchpad is speed sensitive. The faster you slide your finger across the touchpad, the faster you scroll the screen. If you use a large thumb movement, you can skip any video forward or backward. In addition, you can scan frame by frame by sliding your thumb slowly to the right or left.
  • If the trackpad is too sensitive for you, you can adjust its scrolling speed by going to Settings> Remotes and Devices> Touch Tracking. There you can change the trackpad speed to slow.
  • When you enter text with the Apple TV remote, you can hover over any letter on the keyboard, then click and hold the touchpad to open the context menu. From here it is much faster to add capital letters, accents, and use backspace.
  • While watching a video on Apple TV, you can fast forward by clicking the right side of the trackpad. You can do the same for rewinding by clicking on the left side of the trackpad. This is great for skipping titles you’ve watched a thousand times, or for quickly re-watching a particularly stunning scene from a movie. If you place your thumb on the right or left side of the trackpad, you’ll see a 10-second rewind or fast-forward symbol appear next to the current time stamp so you know before you click.
  • While listening to music on Apple TV, you can skip tracks by clicking the right side of the trackpad, restart the track by clicking the left side, and return to the track by double-clicking the left side of the trackpad.
  • When using the Apple Music app, you can press and hold a song to see more options for song, artist, and album.

Once you know all the cool ways to use a trackpad, it becomes less of a gimmick.

Instant activation of functions using the menu button

The Menu button is located in the upper left corner of the remote control – the one clearly labeled “Menu”.

  • Pressing it once will return you to the previous menu or screen.
  • Holding down the Menu button will return you to the home screen.
  • Double clicking on it will instantly launch the splash screen.
  • Triple-clicking it activates the accessibility context menu and lets you quickly turn on VoiceOver (which describes how to navigate the Apple TV menus) and Zoom (which lets you magnify certain parts of the screen), if you have it turned on. To enable it, go to Settings> General> Accessibility> Accessibility Shortcut. Once there, you can decide which accessibility options appear on the accessibility context menu.

If you can’t get the accessibility shortcut to work, then you haven’t enabled it properly. You need to dig into the menu to enable it if you didn’t do so during setup.

Switch quickly between apps using the Home button

The Home button or Apple TV button is in the upper-right corner of the remote and has a symbol that looks like a TV screen.

  • Tapping it once will take you back to the home screen no matter where you are.
  • Double clicking on it will bring up the App Switcher, which is similar to the App Switcher on other iOS devices. From here, you can quickly switch between apps or kill apps that might not respond or work as expected.
  • Holding the Home button will put your Apple TV into sleep mode and also turn off the TV if your TV supports HDMI-CEC.

Keep in mind that there is no need to kill apps with the app switcher to save memory. This is only really important when applications start running and need to be restarted.

Return to music with the play / pause button

The play / pause button is the bottom left button with play and pause (yes) symbols.

  • When entering text using the remote control, pressing the Play / Pause button once will toggle the keyboard from upper to lower case.
  • When moving apps in “wiggle mode”, you can uninstall the apps by pressing the Play / Pause button once.
  • Holding down the Play / Pause button will return you to the Apple Music app and the song you last played.

The ability to quickly jump back to Apple Music is great for starting a party background music or jumping back to where you left off as you wade through an anthology of a newly found artist.

Restart your Apple TV quickly

  • You can restart your Apple TV by going to Settings> System> Restart, but you can also force restart by holding down the Menu and Home buttons at the same time.

Hopefully you don’t have to restart your Apple TV very often, but it’s good to know that you can do it so quickly with your remote.

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