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Chapter 3 of “Take Control of Apple TV” Available

We’re back with the latest chapter in “Take Control of Apple TV.” With setup complete, author Josh Centers turns his attention in Chapter 3, “Control Your Apple TV,” to teaching you all the different ways to make your Apple TV do your bidding. The obvious approach is with the included Apple Remote, but Josh also explains how you can use Apple’s free Remote app for iOS, any random infrared remote you may have, or even a Bluetooth keyboard.

Why might you want to go beyond the Apple Remote? As Josh explains, the Apple Remote is small and easily lost, and its hunt-and-peck approach to entering text is painful. The just-updated Remote app makes typing easier, and offers direct control over content (so you can play or pause a movie from your iPhone, rather than mess about on the TV screen). But when you do need to use the Apple TV’s normal interface, the gestures in the Remote app are a bit slippery. Apart from typing, teaching your Apple TV to respond to a standard infrared remote is a surprisingly good option, especially if you can map Apple TV functions to unused keys on your TV’s remote, as I’ve done. And while a Bluetooth keyboard (or a Mac running Type2Phone; see
Type2Phone: Use Your Mac as a Keyboard for iOS Devices,” 10 April 2013) may seem like overkill, it actually works well, particularly if you do a lot of searching, such as for videos in the Apple TV’s YouTube app. And please, keep those comments and questions coming!

As with Chapter 2, “Set Up Your Apple TV,” this chapter is available for free, but only to TidBITS members; everyone is welcome to read Chapter 1, “Introducing Apple TV,” to see what Josh plans to cover. The full ebook will be available for purchase by everyone in PDF, EPUB, and Mobipocket (Kindle) formats once it’s complete.

Publishing this book in its entirety for TidBITS members as it’s being written is one of the ways we thank TidBITS members for their support. We also hope it encourages those of you who have been reading TidBITS for free for years to help us continue to bring you carefully considered, professionally written and edited articles each week (for more details, see “TidBITS Needs Your Support in 2013: Join Our Membership Program,” 17 December 2012).

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