Siri expands its reach to new Apple TV
Formerly limited to the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, Apple's voice assistant will be integrated with the new Apple TV.
Those of you who buy the new Apple TV will be able to search for content and find information by speaking your request to the Siri voice assistant, Apple revealed at its latest product launch event on Wednesday.
You can search for content based on context, such as "Show me funny TV shows." In return, Siri shows you a list of hopefully funny TV shows. Siri will let you tap into the universal search features on the new Apple TV, which can help you find content among different TV channels and services. So it will show you a list of shows and movies across a variety of channels, including iTunes, Hulu, Netflix, HBO and Showtime, all sorted by popularity.
"Today when you're looking for a particular TV show or movie, you have to open every app," Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services, said at Wednesday's event. "With Siri, it will search across all your content apps and give you your viewing options on a single screen."
You can get even more specific with Siri by posing a request such as "Siri, show me family movies. animated only, and just the new ones" or "Show me that 'Modern Family' episode with Edward Norton." And Siri will comply by displaying the right choice. With Siri, you can filter your search based on cast, director, date and even age rating.
You can also use Siri while you're watching a video. If you want to fast forward during a certain scene, you can tell Siri to "Skip ahead 7 minutes." Or if you miss a piece of dialogue, you can tell Siri to go back a few seconds and even turn on captions, so that you can hear and read the dialogue that you missed.
Further you can ask Siri for information about a particular show or movie. Watching a movie and not sure who the star is? Simply ask Siri: "Who stars in this?" In response, Siri will display its answer at the bottom of the screen so it doesn't interrupt your viewing.
And if you get bored while you're watching a show, you can ask Siri for other types of information, such as sports scores and the weather, and again Siri will display the answer at the bottom of the screen.
To use Siri with the new Apple TV, simply press the Siri button on the new Apple TV remote and tell Siri what you want to see.