Apple TV Update Will Finally Let You Speak Your Password
G. Clay Whittaker
at 10:14 AM Mar 22 2016
Apple TV Update Will Finally Let You Speak Your Password
What a time to be alive...
Apple
Gadgets // 

The new Apple TV is about to get a lot easier to manage and use.

At its March 2016 event out of its headquarters in Cupertino, California, today, Apple announced a free update to newer versions of its streaming media set-top box (the ones released last fall, with the black Touch Remote and Siri built-in).

The update, which is available today, will give you folders to organize the apps on home screen. It will also add a voice dictation mode for Siri, allowing you to speak the digits of your usernames and passwords directly to Apple's digital personal assistant, in lieu of fumbling with the swipeable on-screen keyboard. You can also search for TV apps using your voice.

Apple announced that since unveiling its TV app store last year, it has grown to encompass over 5,000 apps. These include a range of things, from games and GrubHub, to the NCAA March Madness live app, which allows users to stream two games simultaneously, and monitor other game scores. While this pales in comparison to the hundreds of millions of apps in the iPhone App Store, it's a good start for Apple's new developer platform.

And it's a lot to flick through with a touch remote. Adding even a handful can also make the device's home screens tough to manage. So making it easier to take those extra clicks out of your process is going to cut the search for a new episode of Better Call Saul in half.

CEO Tim Cook said that at “the heart of the Apple TV experience is Siri--better search, searches popular apps so you don't have to.”

The update will also give you access to your entire photo library on iCloud, including Live Photos, Apple's animated, GIF-like photo option. It's free to download today.

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