Apple TV Remote Tips and Tricks
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Last week we made a video on some on best Apple TV games I played last month, and most of them felt rather smooth with the Apple TV remote which got me thinking about how good the remote in itself is.
We found some of the coolest tips and tricks it could do and here are a few of them.
Well, there's more of them, but these are the ones that we found interesting.
1. Pair Bluetooth devices and change audio output
The fourth-generation Apple TV supports Bluetooth headphones, which is great for some late-night TV if you’ve got flatmates or kids around.
To pair your headphones, just make sure they're in pairing mode first. And then go to Settings > Remotes and Devices > Bluetooth. Click the headphones which you want paired with. It’s pretty self-explanatory.
Now, here is a quick way to switch your Apple TV's audio output to a Bluetooth device or other devices (oh btw, did you notice with the recent update the Apple TV 4K now supports Dolby Atmos as well? I wonder If the other streaming devices follow suit. Anyway, hold down the Play/Pause button on the Apple TV Remote, and in the menu that comes up, simply select the device you want to link with by clicking on the Remote's touchpad.
2. Search efficiently with easy backspace
When typing on Apple TV, if you ever make a mistake, you'd have to swipe all the way to the far right of the screen to select the backspace key. But it turns out, there is a better way to do it.
Simply by tapping on the Apple TV Remote touch surface and holding it down a character overlay would appear. And a quick left swipe will now automatically delete the last letter you’ve entered in the input field.
Here is another one that comes in handy while typing in your password, you can avoid the switching between lower and uppercase layout, simply by just pressing the Play/Pause button on your Apple TV Remote. This instantly switches the letters from lowercase to uppercase and vice versa.
3. Quick Apple TV restart
If you're troubleshooting your Apple TV and need to restart it, going through the settings screens to select Restart is a bit of a reach around. Well, here is a quicker way to do it. Simply by holding down the Home and Menu buttons simultaneously for six seconds, you can restart your Apple TV.
4. Put your Apple TV in Sleep Mode
Just like the previous one, you can always go into your settings menu and put your Apple TV in Sleep Mode that way. But it’s even easier to just click and hold down the Home button until the “Sleep Now?” confirmation pops up. Just hit “OK” there to send your Apple TV to sleep.
5. Manually activate the Screensaver
With the recent tvOS 12 update, Apple TV will get some new screensavers from NASA.
Apple TV’s screensaver would toggle automatically if it’s left idle for a few minutes, but you can activate it manually by just double-clicking the Menu button while you’re on the home screen. It’s a trifling feature but something to keep in mind if you want to use on a rare occasion.
6. Switching between and Force Quitting Apps
The Apple TV has an app switcher similar to what iOS has on the iPhone and iPad. You can activate it by double-clicking the Home button on the Apple TV remote. Once activated, you can use the trackpad to swipe between apps.
To force quit an app, navigate to it, and then swipe up.
7. Playback gestures
Clicking the right and left edges of the trackpad skips a video forward or backward by 10-second increments.
You also can scrub through a video quickly in order to get to a specific spot. Simply pause the video, and then swipe in either direction on the trackpad to scrub forward or backward.
8. Rearrange and Delete Apps on the Home Screen
Just like on your iPad and iPhone, the Apple TV lets you rearrange apps how you see fit. Just hover over the app you want to move, and then click and hold down the trackpad. The app will begin to wiggle, and from there you can swipe on the trackpad to move it to where you want it.
While in this mode, you can also click on the Play/Pause button to bring up more options for the selected app, such as deleting it or moving it into a specific folder.
The delete option comes in real handy when I’m in the middle of downloading a big game and then I no longer want to download it.
Two extra ones discovered by us
9. Mute
We discovered this fortuitously and took us a while to understand how to get used to the way it works for Apple TV. All you have to do is double click on the volume up button to mute your TV; it's a nifty trick to mute your TV if you’re in a tight spot or your phone is ringing.
10. Double tap to zoom in
Another tip that’s discovered accidentally the other day is that you can double-tap (not click) the trackpad to zoom your 1080p or 4K content to go full screen. This basically helps you zoom into the video like you do on iPad or iPhone. I'd recommend this for most 4K streaming like for Netflix.
Well, these were some of my fav Apple TV remote tips, perhaps my favorite one is attaching a rubber band or color sticky notes to the back of your remote. God forbids, how many times I have grabbed it by the wrong end.
Anyway, do let me know what’s your favorite Apple TV remote tip in the comments below.
Like with these tricks Apple is just way more user-friendly than most other streaming devices that we've used.
We’ve done a few videos on Apple TV and its coolness so give them a watch. We’re no Apple fanboys but this is one pretty darn cool.
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