Getting Around the Apple TV

Introduction: I’m looking at all of the apps that I have installed on the Apple TV. And you probably already know how to move around, you basically move the cursor around. We can see that the TV app here is highlighted, so it is little bit larger. If I want to highlight the Movies app, I swipe over to the right, and now I’m looking at the Movie app. When I do that, the upper portion of the screen shows me different movies that are available. So what do you think’s going to happen when I go to TV Shows? It’s going to show me different TV shows. If I go over to Music here, it’s going to show me different music. Right now, it is showing me my Recently Added music, and then when I scroll up, we can also see that we have our Top Albums.

Now, even though I’m looking at about four albums here, I can view different albums if I swipe back and forth. This is the same way it works when I go back to Movies. So let’s go and select Movies. And then I scroll up. I have “Blade Runner” highlighted. I go over to the right, and we can select from different movies. 

View Information: To view information about a movie, we select it, so I click on it, and now I’m looking at information about “Dunkirk.” Works the same way with TV shows and movies. We can see a preview of it. I can purchase it for $19.99. I can rent it for $5.99. And then, I can also add it to my Wish List. Maybe I want to view this later, so I add it to the Wish List.

You’re going to see, we also have down at the bottom Viewers Also Watched, so these are other movies that viewers have watched. I scroll down, and now I can look at “King Kong.” I scroll over to the right, and I can view any one of these movies. I click on it, and it’ll open it up. Now I can also scroll down further. When I do that, I get different information about the movie I’m looking at, in this case, remember, it’s “Dunkirk.” Right now I’m looking at the Tomatometer. This has a rating of 92%. I want to read some reviews, I scroll over to the right, and I can read different reviews. If we go up towards the top, you’re going to see we have trailers here. So now I scroll up one. To scroll up, I swipe up with my thumb on the remote, and now I can view different trailers. 

Want to see iTunes Extras? I go over to the left, and we have iTunes Extras. I have the text here. How do I go and view more text? We can see that it says More at the end here. I just have to click on it, being that it is selected, and now I can view all of the text. How do we get back? We press on the Menu key on the remote, and it takes us back a screen. That’s how we go back a screen, just by pressing the Menu key on the remote. 

Down at the bottom here, we also have Cast & Crew. Right now, it is Harry Styles that is highlighted. So if I want to see more movies with him, I click on this and it’ll show me more movies with him. Now this works the same way with albums and with TV shows. 

Going Back: So how do we get back over to our main screen where we have all of our apps? Well, what I do is I press the Menu key. It takes us back a screen. Now right now, I am still looking at all of my movies. We can see up at the top here; we have a menu bar. I have my Wish List. This is where I can see all of the different movies that I’ve added to the Wish List. I have Recommended movies. And then I can also search for a movie. 

I press the Menu again to go back to where all of my apps are, and now we’re back at where all of my apps are. I scroll down, and I can select from any one of my apps. I’ll show you how you move around these apps later on in the tutorial.

Let’s take a look at Alto’s Adventure. This works a little bit differently. I click on it, and now we have our Start. So I click on the remote again, and it’ll start playing the game. But if we look in the upper left-hand corner, we have Menu. Now it just disappeared, so I’m going to tap on my remote, and it brings it back. How do I get to the menu? Or how do I get over to the Workshop? Well, I scroll up using my thumb on the remote, and now we can see Menu is highlighted. I click on the remote, and it’ll open up the Menu. I swipe over to the right, now the Workshop is highlighted. So if you’re not sure where the buttons are, what you may need to do is just swipe around and look for what changes. Right now, I’m looking at my Start bar. I scroll up a little bit; now I’m looking at my Options here. I scroll up again, and I’m looking at the Menu. And we can see that the button is highlighted. So if you’re not sure where the buttons are, you just swipe around on the remote, and then you can see the buttons.

Now I want to go back over to my apps. How do I do that again? I press on the Menu button on the remote, and we’re back. I want to get to the top of the screen, I can scroll up, or I can press on the Menu button again, and it takes us back to the top of the screen. 

Remote Tricks: What other things can we do with this remote? Well, if I want it to go to sleep, I press and hold on the button that looks like a TV. If I just press this, it’ll take me to the TV app. And we’ll talk about this later on in the tutorial. Well, I want to put it to sleep, well, then what I do is I press and hold on it, and now I can put it to sleep. I’m going to scroll down and tap on Cancel. 

I want to move to an app that I’ve opened before, so I want to go to the app switcher. Well, then what we do is we double-tap on this TV button, so I’m going to double-tap on it, one, two. And now, we can see we have my open other apps. So I just scroll around, and then I find the app that I want to open. Let’s go with the App Store here. I click on it, and now the App Store is open. Double click on the TV button on the remote, one, two, and we’re back at my app switcher. Let’s say I wanted to launch the screensaver. Well, then what I do is I double tap on the Menu button. So I’m going to double-tap on it, one, two, it takes me to the screensaver. I’m going to press on any one of the buttons, which takes me back to where I was.

So that’s a quick look at the interface, as well as some tips for using the remote on the Apple TV.