Getting to know your remote a little better makes it a lot easier to navigate the Apple TV menus.
The Apple TV remote has become ubiquitous in households that favor the company’s ecosystem of products. However, people can do more with this little oblong doodad than just browse streaming apps for something to watch. There’s a whole hidden world in there, for those willing to experiment. Here’s some of the handy shortcuts and useful little things that people can do with the remote that accompanies an Apple TV streaming box.
Force quit apps
This is a shortcut that most people know, but is always worth repeating. It’s extremely easy to force-quit apps on an Apple TV box. All you have to do is double-press the Home/Control Center button on the remote. That’s the button with the TV on it, which is typically located on the right just above the volume controls.
This pulls up windows of all of the open apps, just like on an iPhone or iPad. Use the clickpad buttons to navigate between these windows. Select an app you want to close and swipe upward on the center of the clickpad. This is helpful when an app glitches or freezes and it also frees up some computational power.
Quickly change up the audio source
Modern households typically have speakers all over the place, though it can be frustrating to switch things up on the fly when watching stuff. However, the Apple TV remote makes this easy. Just press and hold down the Home/Control Center button, which is one with the TV icon. This will bring up the Control Center. This lets you change all kinds of settings, including the audio source.
Once the Control Center opens up, click the Audio Controls icon. This will list all available speakers. Pick your favorite and have at it.
Do all kinds of other stuff with the Control Center menu
The Control Center is extremely useful beyond swapping audio routing settings. This menu lets you change the wireless network, add Bluetooth controllers, access your smart home dashboard and a whole lot more. Remember, just long-press the Home/Control Center button, which is the one with the TV on it.
Scrub through video
The clickpad on the remote doubles as a timeline controller, offering precise controls that aren’t available with many rival products. Press the Play/Pause button and slide your finger left or right to rewind or fast-forward. You can also draw circles on the clickpad to scrub back and forth, offering an even more intuitive control option. If you have an older Siri remote that lacks a clickpad, you can do the same thing on the touch surface at the top of the device.
Use the VoiceOver system
VoiceOver is Apple’s audio description system that reads menus and descriptive text aloud as you navigate. This feature was originally designed for those with vision impairments, but it’s useful to anyone who enjoys spoken feedback. You can turn this on in the Accessibility settings.
Instantly switch between lowercase and uppercase
We all hate entering passwords with a remote control, which is why people sometimes use their phone to control an Apple TV. The actual remote, however, does have one feature that makes entering passwords a bit easier. You can instantly switch between uppercase and lowercase text just by pressing the Play/Pause button as you type.
Summon screen saver images
Apple’s tvOS offers access to some visually striking screen saver images. The platform also lets people use their own pictures from the cloud as screen savers. It’s really easy to initiate this process, even if the TV hasn’t been idle. Just double-press the back button, which is also called the menu button on older remotes. This is the one with the symbol of a triangle pointing to the right.
