Apple Releases tvOS 13.4 for Fourth and Fifth-Generation Apple TV Models

Too bad it doesn’t include a new remote.

Am I the only one here who actually likes the Apple TV remote? It’s small, thin, light, makes for smooth and quick scrolling / scrubbing, and isn’t crowded with tons of useless buttons I will never use.

You're expecting new hardware from a software update?

Sarcasm. Noun. “the use of irony to mock or convey contempt.”

I like the Apple TV remote.

I am only compelled to mention this at all because of the constant need for some to rag about it. It is like they get pleasure from doing so. Even in articles about software updates.

In fact I just got a new TV on the weekend and gave Mrs Entropy the unasked for pleasure of my rant about the clunky remote’s button proliferation, random location of functions and indeed, it reminded me of Jobs’ intro of the iPhone and the problems of keyboards. It is inelegant compared with the Apple TV remote.

And here is a tip. Use a decent modern HDMI port and you can even control the Apple TV with that badly thought out remote that comes with your TV. And then you clowns can forget about whinging.

Too bad it doesn’t include a new remote.

Too bad it doesn’t include a new remote.

You're expecting new hardware from a software update?

What do you mean by that?

Although it is available outside of the U.S., Siri's availability on the Apple TV is still fairly limited compared to the iPhone and iPad, where it's available in about 36 countries. On the Apple TV, that's limited to only 13, and it was even less than that a few years ago. The difference seems to be due to challenges in reliably looking up things like movies and TV shows in other languages and dialects — those 13 countries where it is available only cover 8 languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Japanese, Norwegian, and Swedish), but even then there are some surprising omissions like New Zealand and, perhaps ironically, Portugal (although it doesn't get Siri at all anyway).

Multiple user profiles were added with tvOS 13.

In a pretty limited fashion. It's pretty much only good for managing history, "Watch Next" queues and playlists on the TV and Music apps. It doesn't even yet do things like enforce parental controls on a per-user basis, so while my daughter can switch to her profile on the Apple TV to continue watching her shows, she also gets access to the entire library of purchased iTunes and Apple TV+ content unless I set the parental controls on the Apple TV globally, which makes it a pain for when I want to watch stuff using my own profile. It also has no effect on any other apps that are installed on the Apple TV — even things like Photos the photos app doesn't switch profiles, but only syncs with the main user's account.