15 Apple TV Tips You Need to Know!

• The Apple TV offers a wealth of features and tips to enhance your viewing experience.
• Automatic captions are a game-changer for movies and shows.
• Creating individual user profiles personalizes content and recommendations.
• Spatial audio and enhanced dialogue improve sound quality significantly.
• You can streamline home screen organization and app management easily.
• AirPlay and smart home integration enhance usability across devices.

the Apple TV is a great device I've been using them for years and I think to really get the most out of your Apple TV you got to learn the good tips so in this video I'm going to share with you some of my favorite tips to help you get more out of this device.

I'm going to start off strong with one of the best tips out there. I'm not going to make you wait till the end this first one is automatic captions. I love this feature! It's perfect for movies and shows where the dialogue is too low. It's a problem now; it's like come on just turn it up a little please.

Uh, before you put this out or maybe you or your partner's guilty of staring at the phone instead of paying attention—I know I'm not! But let's say someone is guilty of that and you need to back up. Well, with automatic subtitles, however long you back up, subtitles will come on. So if you couldn't understand what they're saying, you could at least read it, or the person not paying attention can read it and hear it again.

Automatic subtitles also come on when you mute. Now, if you want to turn this on or off, you go into settings, go to video and audio, and pick whether you want it on or off. Unfortunately, automatic subtitles don't work with all apps. So instead, you could use this trick: you can ask Siri, "What did he say? What did she say?" Siri will jump back automatically, turn on subtitles for the period of jumps back, and then turn them off.

Now number two, this is one of the most important ones: creating users. It is so nice to have everybody's content split out, and by creating individual users, you'll get a more personalized experience. So when you ask for recommendations or look up something, you'll get more personalized responses back, but you'll also be able to separate out your content in the "up next" section.

The "up next" section is great for keeping track of the shows you're watching and when new episodes come out. If you only have one user set up, that's going to get crowded with everybody's content. Now, to add a user, you can hold down the TV button, and it'll bring up the control center, and you'll see the users up in the corner. You could choose to add one there, or you could go under settings and add a user there.

If you want to switch users, hold down the TV button; it'll bring up the control center, pick the user you want, or my favorite is asking Siri to switch to my profile. If you allow the Apple TV to recognize your voice under settings, what'll happen is it'll recognize your voice and switch to your profile. So instead of going through the control panel, it’s much quicker.

Even if you don’t have it recognize your voice, just asking to switch to my profile brings up the profiles, and you select the one you want, so you still skip the control center.

Next is the up next section. This is another favorite of mine; it is great for keeping your content organized. The way it works is when you launch the TV app, across the top you'll see "up next," and that's all your shows from different services that you've been watching.

Now, it doesn't work with all services unfortunately—like YouTube TV and Netflix, it won't. I don't know why, but it doesn't keep track of those shows. But for Hulu, Peacock, Discovery, Disney+, and many other apps out there, it'll keep track of the shows. If you’d like to see different episodes of a show, you can select it and do a long press on it, and then look at the show.

It’ll show the different episodes or details about that episode. Holding down that button gives you the option to mark a show as watched. If you've already seen an episode, you mark it as watched—it'll put the next episode up in front. With all the different streaming services I watch, at times it’s nice to have all my shows in one place.

Next is a section that has multiple tips: cleaning up your home screen. If you’d like to move apps around, you could do a long press on it, and it’ll give you your options there. You can also create folders, and you can move folders and apps around. It’s nice to be able to get your screen all cleaned up. A great tip to clean up your home screen if you have multiple Apple TVs is to go under settings and turn on "one home screen."

Whatever you do on one Apple TV, it'll do the same on the others so they all match. I love it—it’s the way to go. I don’t want to set every device!

Yeah, this next tip has a couple of remote tips in it, starting off first with this TV control center button. You can have it go straight to the Apple TV app, and that’s how I have mine set up. So it brings up my "up next" screen, and I can see all my content, so it's really quick and easy.

The other option is if you press it a second time, or you program it to be its default, it'll take you to your home screen with all your apps. For this, go into the settings under the remote; you would pick what that TV button does.

Another remote tip is to double press that TV button, and it will bring up your apps that are running. From there, you can swipe through the apps and switch to another app, or you can swipe up, and it will close an app out.

Next is using your iPhone or iPad to control your Apple TV. If you take your phone and you swipe down from the top of the screen, you can select the remote, and if you have multiple Apple TVs, you can find which one you want to control. If you have one of the Apple TVs that has the aluminum remote that looks like this, you can actually find your remote through the app.

One of the tips that I love—and this is another reason to set up profiles—is if you use your phone and launch the remote app from your phone and you turn on an Apple TV, it'll switch to your profile automatically. So most of the time, if I go to a TV, I don’t know if someone else has been watching it. I’ll swipe down from the top on the control center, I’ll select the remote, I’ll grab the TV, I’ll hit the power button, and when it’s all turned on, it’s already under my profile.

Next tip is using Siri. A lot of times, using voice is a lot quicker with the Apple TV. Instead of trying to type and look up a show, just ask for it! You can even ask for an app to be opened up. You can ask for a show on an app: “I want to watch Impractical Jokers on Hulu.”

Siri was recently upgraded to have more personalized responses, so if you’re under your profile and you ask for movies, shows, or music, it's going to show recommendations based on things you actually watch or listen to.

Next is smart home control with Apple TVs. You could use them as a HomeKit hub. You do have some limitations with the most recent 64 GB model that doesn't have a thread hub built in. Just get the one with more storage; make sure you’re covered with the Apple TV.

If you go to the control center, you'll see a home icon. When you click on it, you'll see your cameras and your favorite scenes. If you want to add the scene, you choose as a favorite, and it'll show up on your Apple TV. Now, if you select a camera, you can actually see all the devices that are in the same room as that camera. Unfortunately, that is the only way to get to individual devices, but it is an option.

Next is AirPlay for wireless streaming of video or music to your Apple TV or sending photos over to your Apple TV. If you go to your iPhone or you go to your iPad or computer, you can go to the control center and click the AirPlay icon. When you click on that, you can see different devices that you can send video or audio to.

You can have the YouTube app—even if you don’t have it installed—you can send that video right over to the Apple TV or start a playlist on your phone and then just send it to the Apple TV. You can also use AirPlay for screen mirroring of iPads, iPhones, and laptops. So if I want to send something from my MacBook Pro, I select it, and I can have it mirror my laptop, or I can have it act as an external display.

AirPlay is a great way to get content from your other devices onto your Apple TV.

Next is pairing HomePods with Apple TV 4Ks. If you have a 4K Apple TV, you can do either one HomePod or HomePod mini, or a pair of HomePods or a pair of HomePod minis—you can't mix and match them. You'll create a stereo pair with your HomePods, and then you’ll use that pair as your audio source for your Apple TV.

Now, if you have an Apple TV 4K second generation or later, you can take advantage of ARC support. What that means is that if you plug the Apple TV into the HDMI port on your television, anything else you plug into the TV, such as a Fire TV stick, a Blu-ray player, a gaming console—any of the audio from those devices plugged into the TV will go through the HDMI and will come out of the Apple TV and the HomePods that are paired with it.

So if I'm playing Xbox on my TV, I can have the audio coming out of my HomePods. To turn this on, you would go under settings and choose the audio output there and then turn on ARC support. You will need to go into your TV most likely and turn on ARC support there, and probably turn off your TV speakers, so the sound only comes out of the HomePods.

Next is taking advantage of spatial audio. A couple of years back, Apple added spatial audio support to the Apple TVs. What this allows you to do is to take advantage of spatial audio with AirPods third generation, any of the AirPods Pro, or the AirPods Max. Now, spatial audio locks voices and sound to the TV and will give you a virtual surround sound.

So when someone’s speaking, the voice comes from the TV. So if you turn your head, the voice will still be coming from the TV. If you walk out of the room, you’ll hear the sound get left behind. It’s great for the virtual surround sound; you can hear stuff moving around you, you could hear detail in the sound that you're not going to necessarily get with a TV’s speakers.

It’s a great feature if you want to watch TV at night and you don’t want to wake anybody up. The way it works is users on the Apple TV can take their set of AirPods. When you put on the AirPods, you’ll actually get a little pop-up on the Apple TV asking if you want to use your AirPods for audio.

Once you select that, sound transfers over only to the AirPods. When you’re done listening through the AirPods, you take them off, put them back in their case, and sound automatically transfers back to your TV or whatever your audio source is.

There are times I’m watching TV and my daughter will walk by, and her AirPods will pop up. If it’s something really boring, we know she won’t want to watch; it’s fun to sync it up to her AirPods and let her wonder what’s going on for a bit.

Now, the Apple TV also supports personalized spatial audio. If you're not familiar with that, if you go under your AirPods under Bluetooth settings, click on the "i" and choose a personalized spatial audio, you’ll actually use the iPhone to take pictures of your ears so that it can calibrate the sound better for the shape of your ears.

Whatever they’re running some magic virtual spatial surround sounds, yeah, so check it out. See if you like it!

Next is a new one that doesn't work across all apps unfortunately, but it is new and it will get implemented across more—it is enhanced dialogue. Enhanced dialogue is meant to counter the low vocals that you'll find in a lot of shows. Some of these shows are so dramatic that they end up whispering; you can’t hear anything!

Well, when you go into settings and you turn on enhanced audio, it’s going to boost the vocals so they don’t get lost, and you can actually hear them. So far, it seems like it's working. I’m watching TV shows and I’m not trying to hear people speak. I’ve noticed on certain apps it'll pop up and let you know that enhanced audio is turned on.

Next is using your phone for typing and passwords on your Apple TV. If you’re under your account and you’re doing a search for something or you’re trying to log in to an account, you might get a pop-up on your phone that gives you the option to select it to do the typing on your Apple TV.

It’s much quicker to input stuff that way, so you select that pop-up, you can then start typing. But another great option is if you need to fill in account information, you can use the autofill and your iCloud keychain passwords to automatically fill it. Instead of typing in your username and password, just select it and let it autofill for you.

Next tip is using color calibration. Instead of messing with the colors on your TV, if you take it out of the box, it looks pretty good. Just go under settings, select color calibration, and from there, you can use your iPhone and its camera to calibrate the colors of your TV. What’ll happen is it’ll run through this test; Apple takes the information that your phone sees and adjusts the color levels so that it matches the industry standard of DCI-P3.

And this is the color standard for movies, televisions, and high-quality video. After it does the adjustment, you can see what it looks like with it turned on or off to see if you like it. In theory, after doing this, when you watch something, you are now seeing color as it is meant to be—as it was produced, in theory.

Next tip is using your iPhone or iPad for FaceTime on your Apple TV. If you didn’t know, there’s a FaceTime app. When you click on the FaceTime app, it’s going to prompt you, and if you’re signed in under your account, it’s going to be there by default, seeing if you want to make that FaceTime call.

Once you select it to do the FaceTime call, you will use your phone as the camera or your iPad as a camera. A new feature allows you to take an iPad or an iPhone and make it a dedicated camera for the Apple TV. You would set it up as a continuity camera; by default, it would use that device for any FaceTime calls.

Now personally, I don't do any FaceTime calls, but I see the value in this for a family or a group wanting to have a FaceTime call; it’s pretty cool. You don’t all have to gather around the iPad.

Now, two bonus tips I’m going to throw in here real quick. I wasn’t going to add them, but just so you know, you can pair Sony Playstation, Xbox controllers, and other third-party controllers to the Apple TV, so you can take advantage of Apple Arcade or some of your iOS games on there.

Another quick tip: if you launch Apple Fitness and you’re logged in under your account and you have an Apple Watch, you can pair that to the Apple TV so that you have your real-time metrics show up on the screen. So if you want to know what your heart rate is at, you can look at the screen instead of having to look at your watch.

Now, if you add all those up, you’re probably closer to 20 plus tips. What are your favorite tips that I missed that you’d like to share about the Apple TV? Let us know in the comment section!

Now if you made it this far, please consider subscribing and giving this video a like. Next, check out this video over here—this has some HomePod tips. And you—35 of them! That’s a lot of tips there; check it out. Or check out this video up here—this is the one YouTube thinks you’ll like. I'll see you over there. Thanks for watching, bye!