We also have received new Siri Remote last Friday to use with my existing Apple TV 4K. We spend one night using it and here’s my first impressions.

  • There’s no ergonomic issues, top from bottom can be distinguished easy by touch or look
  • A bit heavier and larger body, easier to grip
  • A bit sharp but not as sharp as the previous aluminium design
  • Siri button is on a side, helps in the dark
  • I needed to look at the surface glyphs to find pause button, this should get better with training because the back button has different surface shape, so you can find it and then go one row below, no need to look
  • There’s lightning cable in the box
  • Using the power button to turn off TV is great, and apparently there’s protection from accidental input as tvOS instructed me to hold it and only then the TV went off

At first I have attempted to read the manual which has very tiny print, and the room was dark. Still I glanced through first 2 pages and have not found any information about pairing. Then I just pressed a button, don’t remember which one and a popup window appeared on my TV with a tip to hold my remote near the Apple TV box in order to finish pairing. I did just that and it paired successfully.

I am still unable to decide should I use the click only mode which is disabled by default or should I use both click and touch. Initially my motivation is to disable the touch completely as I am so sick of accidental or imprecise input. However because this remote has new navigation buttons which can be used while the touch is enabled I will give it a shot and will update this post in couple of weeks. My main idea is to use the buttons for all UI navigation except video scrubbing and my main fear that I will trigger unwanted gestures when navigating.