As we reported yesterday, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software and Services, Eddy Cue, along with Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi provided some interesting details about Apple’s ecosystem during the episode of The Talk Show podcast by John Gruber.
However, in addition to the numbers, they also revealed some great news for Apple TV 4 users. Apple is planning to launch a new Remote app for Apple TV 4 that will have all the capabilities of the Siri Remote or Apple TV Remote that ships with the device.
Here’s an excerpt from the podcast:
Cue: We do have a little bit …. something a little bit better coming out in a few months, which is we have a new Remote app so that if you have your iPhone, you can use the keyboard on the iPhone to do that (Cue was referring to the previous discussion of adding Bluetooth Keyboard support in tvOS 9.2), and I think that certainly will get a lot more use.
Federighi: And more than that, really; the full Siri to your phone, communicating with your TV, and it’s a … it’s a great upgrade to that app.
Gruber: You can … There’s a Remote app for the iPhone now that you can connect to Apple TV.
Cue: There is. As Craig said, it can only do the keyboard. The new Remote app will do all of the capabilities that the existing, new Apple TV remote does, like Siri.
Gruber: Ah.
Federighi: And like gestures, for instance. Because obviously the trackpad function of the remote can be done with your phone now, too, with that Remote, so it’s a really full replacement.
Gruber: I think it might make a lot of people very happy though. Will that work with some of the games too, so if there is a two-player game, so somebody can use their phone, and have it be the slider, and somebody can use the remote.
Cue: Yes, that’s exactly .. you can use the Apple TV remote for one person and their phone for the second person.
They haven’t provided a release date for the new Remote app yet.
One of the best things about the old Apple TV was that I could use my iPhone to control it instead of using the Apple TV Remote (which wasn’t very good). With the new Apple TV, it has been the opposite, the drawback is that the Remote app currently isn’t a full replacement for the Siri Remote or Apple TV Remote. So I am really happy that Apple will be addressing it soon.
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