Last weekend, I was lucky enough to get the new Siri Remote for my Apple TV HD.
This is the second of new Apple products that I have received this year, with the first one being the new AirTags Apple released last month.
I recently wrote a first impressions article of the new Siri Remote as well.
When it comes to the design of this new Siri Remote, it is great that Apple was able to merge the two worlds of the previous Apple TV remote and the previous generation Siri Remote.
What I think is impressive about this is the fact that the navigating click wheel is a lot like the iPod Classic, and that you can either use the old way of navigating like the Force Touch trackpad from the previous generation Siri Remote or the previous generation Apple TV remote. It makes the experience a lot better than it used to be.
Plus, the addition of having the silver and black colors to the remote has been a great look on it. The new mute button is good too.
The next part of the design is the moving of the Siri button to the right side of the remote. It’s a nice touch and makes the remote not seem as high maintenance.
However, although the look and navigation have gotten a lot easier, there have been two flaws I have noticed with it.
The first issue with it is pairing the device to the Apple TV itself (Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K). In my experience, it took me hours to get it to pair. I was never even successfully able to do it. I ended up getting it to work overnight, which even as I am writing this, I still have no idea how I did it.
Another problem with it is Apple should have put the play/pause buttons where the mute button is at. My thumb tends to get confused between the two buttons and it ends up choosing one or the other. However, it is not always what I want.
One last feature that I do like about the new Siri Remote is Apple did not have it transition to USB-C for its charging port and still has it use Lightning. It may not sound like much to some, but with all of the lightning cables I have and only one USB-C cable, it is great to not have to worry about changing to a whole new port.
In finality, I’d say the new Siri Remote is worthy of a 3/4-star review. It’s not perfect and Apple does have some issues when it comes to pairing it to the device, as well as the mute button and play/pause button being below where it should be, but at the same time, the experience of the Apple TV with its tvOS operating system has gotten so much better in the past week that I have been using it.
Apple’s Siri Remote currently costs $59.
Rating: 3/4 stars
