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Where is the remote?

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There it is. One of the minor announcements at Apple Spring Loaded Event

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was the update to the Apple TV. Now that's not as exciting as what comes with the Apple TV,

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which is a brand new updated Siri remote. We don't have to use this anymore.

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Now where'd I put that one?

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Ah, there it is.

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The new Siri remote does come with all the available Apple TVs

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like this new 4K model and the remarkably still available HD model.

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But if you're already the proud owner of an Apple TV,

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you can get the Siri remote on its own for $60.

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That seems a little bit steep. So to find out if it's worth the money,

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I'm gonna compare it to the old one and see just how it stacks up.

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But to do that, let's figure out what made the old one so bad in the first place.

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The old Siri remote was one of Apple's design failures

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of the last decade, like the butterfly keyboard. The design is a case of form compromising function.

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With early versions of the remote, people were having troubles telling which way was up

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in dark living rooms, cause it's black and all the buttons look the same

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with nothing really to orient it. They did add a white circle to the menu button to help,

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but that didn't solve the many other problems.

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The touchpad is just bad. You have to move your fingers so much

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just to navigate around the interface. And it goes from edge to edge while being clickable.

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So if you do find the remote in the couch cushions

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while something is playing and you don't grab it correctly, you'll pause your video.

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And if you grab it correctly from the bottom, you're grabbing the glossy part,

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which is so prone to smears and hand goop. It never looks good.

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You can clean it, but it's futile because you're going to need to wear white gloves

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if you don't want to make it dirty again. There's other stuff too.

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These volume buttons are convenient, but there's no mute button.

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And I can't get it to work with that old receiver there. It charges through lightning

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and the horizontal keyboard on TVOS is really cumbersome.

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This design is much, much better.

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Firstly, it's no longer black, so you can see it on a black sofa.

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It's much thicker and has a curved bottom.

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So it's less likely to slip between the cushions and feels much nicer in the hand.

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Still looks good too. I'd say these design improvements are worth about $15.

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Next is the D-pad. This has many benefits.

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Firstly, it's no longer too easy to press the select button

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when grabbing the remote because the button doesn't go to the edge and is clearly defined.

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It works like any other D-pad, but Apple has also kept it touch sensitive,

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like the old remote. You can turn that off if you want though.

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More interestingly is a circular jog control

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like you got on an old click wheel iPod, though it's not quite obvious how that works.

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To use it, you have to pause the video, then rest your finger on the edge of the click wheel

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until a little circular dial shows up on the progress bar

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and then you can swirl away. It's nice, but I think what I want

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is to be able to turn off the swiping gestures while keeping the spinny jog dial available

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with regular D-pad presses, but that'll be just yet another setting too many.

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Still, a little disappointing. I'd say that these improvements are worth another $15.

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Some other changes of value is the addition of a mute button,

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which I would say is worth about $4. There's a power button to turn your TV on and off, $2.

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What was once mislabeled as a menu button is now properly labeled as a back button, $2,

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and the Siri button has now been moved to the side,

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another $2. What won't add any value is the fact

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that the keyboard remains one-dimensional and lightning charging persists.

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So doing the calculations here,

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that comes out to about $40, which is $20 less than the $60

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that Apple asks for the remote. If you already got in Apple TV

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and are suffering with the old remote, that's a lot to swallow, but I guess it's better that you can buy it

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as a standalone option as opposed to having to upgrade to a completely new Apple TV for $180.

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And as for that Apple TV, well, the processor's been updated to the A12 chip,

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so that should mean it should run a little bit faster for a little bit longer through more OS updates.

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Functionality-wise though, all you really get is the addition of HDR

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at 4K 60 frames per second. That's great if your TV supports it

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and the content you watch supports it. And if you're among the few who own a HomePod

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or even two, this new box supports EARC,

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meaning you can send audio from your TV through the Apple TV to your HomePods.

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Minis will be supported in the fall. At $180 for 32 gigabytes of storage

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and $199 for 64 gigabytes of storage,

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it really is quite expensive in the world of set-top boxes.

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In the past, it was a bad option, quite simply because of that remote,

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but now it's a little bit easier to justify and less annoying.

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So that means that the final design failure

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that Apple needs to fix is the charging of the Magic Mouse.

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Thank you for tuning in to this Mac Address.

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Be sure to like and subscribe. One interesting thing I discovered

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is I have this original Apple remote

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and it still works with a current Apple TV.

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How cool is that?