5 Apple TV tips and tricks

In the last year alone, Apple TV has learned a lot of new tricks. Here are five tips and tricks to help you make the most of the new software from Apple TV. If you have home kit enabled smart home devices, you can actually use your Apple TV to control them. Just make sure you're signed into the same iCloud account in the home app as you are on the Apple TV And the Apple TV will automatically set itself up as a smart home hub, after you set up you can control your smart home devices by holding the SIRI button and speaking a command. Say something like turn on the lights, this also works when you're away from home. Just hold the home button on an iPhone or iPad and speak the command Your Apple TV back home will control your smart home remotely. You may have noticed after recent update the scoring on to a text over the Apple TV will trigger a notification on IOS devices. This is called the Apple remote keyboard and it works for the IOS devices and Apple TVs. Find it on the same Apple TV as long as bluetooth and Wi-Fi are enabled. To use on the feature put non the notification and start typing on the touch screen of the connected device. And the text you type on your phone or tablet will appear on the AppleTV. When you download a new application on your iPhone, that same application can be automatically installed on your iPad, your Apple Watch, and in iMessage. And with TVOS 10 you can do the same thing with your AppleTV. This feature is not enabled by default, so if you wanna use it go to settings, apps, and click automatically install apps to toggle it on. Also remember that this does not retroactively install apps. If you have any previously purchased apps that have AppleTV components, you will need to go to the App Store and click on the Purchase tab to download previously installed apps. Much like on iOS and MacOS, the photos app on AppleTV has been updated to include Memories. This Memories feature gathers all the photos from similar locations and dates and bundles them into collections. If you click on one of these collections, you can revisit the trips you took throughout the year. In order for this feature to work, you will need to enable iCloud Photo Library and iCloud Settings on your iOS devices. And once all of your photos have been uploaded, memories will do its magic. In a recent update, Apple rolled out its new TV app, which acts like a guide for all your favorite streaming services on Apple TV, except for Netflix. When you log into your TV provider in the settings app, any compatible streaming apps that support single sign on, will log you in. Then the TV app will begin tracking the shows you watch automatically and you can find that in the Up Next section of Watch Now. As new episodes become available, they will jump to the front of the queue for up next. If the TV app is tracking a show you no longer want to watch, you can remove it and you can also manually add TV shows and movies to your up next. For more on Apple TV and other tips and tricks, be sure to check out CNet.com/howto.