If you are like me you are using your Apple TV to access more and more content. You might also be a little annoyed at the not-particularly-intuititive interface. Well, there are a number of ways to enhance your experience and make your Apple TV a bit easier. As Apple adds more and more content, you might find some of these helpful.
Remote
You can control your Apple TV with your iPhone using Apple’s Remote App. I find navigation a bit easier using this app but let’s go over some interesting things you can do with your remote.
Subtitles
Watching a video and want to access subtitles, closed captioning, or speaker settings? Hold down the select button (the round one in the middle) for about 3 seconds and you will have that menu. This also works when listening to audio if you want to access stuff like Genius, Up Next, browse artist, etc.
Organize
With more and more content, your Apple TV home page is getting a bit crowded. Just like on your iPhone you can get the icons to jiggle and then you can move them around. Just hold the select button until the icon wiggles and then use the remote to move it up/down or side to side. Press select again and it stops wiggling. But there are some of those icons that you are probably never going to use and it would be nice to just get them out of the way. Easy to do! Select the icon you want to hide and hold the select button down for a couple of seconds, then press Play/Pause to hide. If you are going to hide a bunch of them it might be easier to go to Settings > Main Menu > Toggle Show to Hide.
Getting Home Faster
How many times have you had to hit the Menu button multiple times to get back to the Home screen Particularly annoying if you are waiting for stuff to load as you back up through the menus. Well there is an easier way. If you hold down the Menu button for a few seconds it will take you Home.
Use a Keyboard
Using the remote to enter letters can get tiring. If you have a Bluetooth keyboard you can pair it with your Apple TV. Make sure your keyboard is discoverable and then using your remote navigate to Settings > General > Bluetooth. You should see your keyboard listed then and you can select it. The Apple TV will give you a 4-digit pairing code which you can then enter on the keyboard.
Got any tricks or tips you use with your Apple TV? Drop me an email and I’ll include them in a future issue of Kibbles & Bytes.