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Apple confirms Siri is coming to Apple Music on the new Apple TV from early next year

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While early reviews of the new Apple TV are somewhat muted, Apple isn’t finished yet. It has confirmed to Buzzfeed that the new device will add Siri support for Apple Music from the beginning of next year.

This means that using the Apple TV remote control, people will be able to say, “Play ‘Hotline Bling’” or “Play the newest Taylor Swift album,” and Siri will take it from there.

Reviewers have praised Siri’s universal search feature, which allows system-wide searching for video content, and the box will now be capable of carrying out similar searches for music. The move should be good news for Apple as well as for its customers … 

By extending Siri search for music to the TV platform, it provides an additional incentive to hand over the cash for an Apple Music subscription. Apple recently revealed that so far 6.5M users are paying for the service at the end of their three month free trial.

The new Apple TV has started shipping, and we learned yesterday that it will also go on sale in Apple’s retail stores as of tomorrow.

Siri has already been spotted trying to encourage customers to sign up to Apple Music.

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Comments

  1. Wonder what happened here. They already do this on the phone.

  2. TeamTyrion9091 - 8 years ago

    I did not continue Apple Music after the free trial as I found myself listening to it more through my home theater system instead of on the go. Siri compatibility with Apple Music on the Apple TV will be the ONLY criteria for me to subscribe to them. Glad to hear they are working on it…. if I can say “Play My Passion by Akcent” from the home screen of the Apple TV… you are very welcome to take my money.

  3. o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

    Apple is becoming a joke. To not have this at launch is yet another pathetic blunder by Apple. It’s becoming all too frequent. They work on a product for 3 years behind the scenes, it launches and they can’t even match functionality currently available on the iPhone.

    Yes, they still make the best products, but recently there’re just more and more things you could honestly laugh about. I want insane attention to detail, not just in the amazing screensavers. It has to be in everything the company does.

    • oOsmoothiesOo

      Learn to be patient. I mean seriously. You can’t even wait a few months? You can already use airplay if you are that desperate to listen to AppleMusic on your TV

      • PMZanetti - 8 years ago

        Apple Music is built in day one. The only thing missing is Siri’s ability to search that 30 million song catalog.

    • I don’t know about a joke, but this is most definitely a feature that should have been baked in from the start as part of “universal” search. There’s nothing universal about a system that only works in part of the UI with only a portion of the content.

      This didn’t used to be a thing at Apple, shipping a product missing core functionality – now it’s part of their M.O. I agree it’s a problematic issue that needs to be resolved going forward for future releases, but it’s still far from making them a joke when everyone else i the market still ships far inferior products.

      • johnmfoley - 8 years ago

        Sure it would have been nice to have. But we waited like 3 years for copy and paste to come to the iPhone… so I can wait 3-6 months for Siri music control. Which will only be useful to the 15 million or so who are current Apple Music subscribers–far less than the overall number of boxes they’ll sell. I’m glad they didn’t wait to release the product until this feature was ready. Also, Apple never called it Universal search–that’s been a tech blog term.

      • freediverx - 8 years ago

        “we waited like 3 years for copy and paste to come to the iPhone”

        That’s different. They were focused on more important features plus it too time to get the user experience right for copy/paste. With Apple TV and Siri, the technology and interactions were already created long ago. They just didn’t implement it in time.

    • Bill Steve - 8 years ago

      At least you have Siri – many countries don’t ….. Siri is the key differentiator, and it’s almost unacceptable to have launched this in countries without Siri (We live in Switzerland)

  4. johnmfoley - 8 years ago

    So to all the complainers, I think this sounds reasonable to me that it’s a feature Apple is working on. I would imagine that they want to get the primary purpose of the device, watching movies and tv shows, working 100%. If I say show me some thrillers, I wouldn’t want Michael Jackson to start blaring by mistake. Or if I want to watch Star Wars, I’d be slightly disappointed if the sound track started playing instead.

    So even though the phone already has this feature, the phone has less other entertainment related search features. Meaning that there are less search collisions that the iPhone needs to worry about. Also, I’d imagine Apple may want to collect more voice/search data that’s just focused on video at the moment so that they can fine tune their algorithms for that before introducing a new content type.

    • surfingarbo - 8 years ago

      I agree. Yes it would have been nice for this feature to be ready upon launch, but great that they’re working on it for early next year.

      For those who complain about not having the feature now, why not just wait until early next year to buy it? Nobody’s forcing you to purchase it now.

      • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

        I feel bad for you. It’s inexcusable Apple is failing to have things ready for launch. They are losing the attention to detail in many aspects of the company. You both are trying to excuse this but the sad truth is this one is inexcusable. This functionality should absolutely 100% be there right now. Period.

        I also want to point out that they still have no TV ad for the Apple TV? I guess their marketing team fell asleep. Based on their latest ads they seriously need help.

      • surfingarbo - 8 years ago

        No need to feel bad for me, but thanks anyway. I’m looking forward to this when it eventually does launch. It’s exciting.

      • oOsmoothiesOo

        No. I feel bad for you. You sound like a bitter and impatient person. Enjoy life and stop stressing over small details. See the bigger picture instead of the small faults in everything.

        I myself will enjoy my AppleTV and have a ton of fun with it. But if you choose to sulk in your dispair because of some small shortcoming go ahead. I feel bad for you. Life is to short to focus on small shortcomings of products that will be fixed in a matter of months.

      • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

        Attention to detail was Apple and still is in many ways, but it’s fading in some teams. They need to lock it down. Now.

        Finding the faults is what Apple needs to be doing. Looking for the faults, no matter how small or trivial is the definition of attention to detail. You seek out the imperfections and you remedy the problems. I fully accept bugs and the like, what I don’t accept is stupidity and lack of foresight and attention to detail from Apple. I think it’s in part because they’re working on so many things now, and in part because they don’t have enough employees.

      • oOsmoothiesOo

        So you rather Apple hold off releasing AppleTV till 2016 when Siri works with Apple Music?

        Guess what? Just buy the AppleTV in 2016 then. Me and millions of others can’t wait to get our hands on the device NOW.

      • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

        Hahaha. No. I rather them have the obvious functionality available at launch for a product they’ve been working on for years. I’d rather they have Siri functionality that is already available on the iPhone and iPad. It’s just an embarrassment. There are so many things I know of that would make iOS so much better too. It’s like Apple has no one working for them.

      • oOsmoothiesOo

        You should build your own smartphone and OS then.

        Cracks me up when people are so extemely negative. Must be a sad life.

  5. Rtweety (@ralphtweety) - 8 years ago

    I don’t think that Apple’s presenting an unfinished product makes them a joke, exactly, I think it makes them a symbol of everything that’s wrong with all aspects of the computer software and hardware industries. You see, the problem is that, we’ve all been aclimatised to receive, use, and re-buy, products that aren’t finished. Additionally, we buy products that, in some way(s) or another, become foundational to our daily existence and there is little to no legal, ethical or moral culpability from the companies that develop and sell us these products. Anything that can be construed to be a computer, inevitably comes with a warning that basically says, we [the company] are not responsible for anything that goes wrong in your existence as a result of using our unfinished product. This hand-washing was started with the advent of software development as a way to ensure that the industry could self-perpetuate by radically reducing the possibility that a single large incident, or a bunch of smaller ones, could create a scenario that would shut down further development. Said a little more succintly, all users agree to become perpetual beta testers. As a consumer, professional and personal, I want to buy products that are completed – finished. But we, consumers, have enabled a system that allows developers and manufacturers to compete with each other at our expense and with virtually no culpability. Actually, it’s not a joke, it’s a rather serious matter, and Apple is only one of many culprits.

    • PMZanetti - 8 years ago

      Oh yeah its SO serious. We should buy nothing instead of “unfinished” products. /s

    • Rtweety

      Just a little advice. Dont sweat the small stuff. Fact is no product is perfect. And especially not a 1st generation product.

      Enjoy life. Overlook the small stuff and see the big picture.

      I’m going to enjoy the hell out of the new AppleTV. If you want a more polished AppleTV then just wait a few years. No ones forcing you to buy anything.

      • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

        This isn’t the first generation Apple TV guy.

      • oOsmoothieOo

        Sounds like you should switch to Android since you are so negative on Apple.

        Very sad that someone can only focus on the few small negative things and miss all the great things Apple is doing.

      • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

        Haha nope I’m Apple for life. My respect for them is the driving force behind criticism of things I think they’re doing wrong. I hold them to a higher standard than what I’ve been seeing in some of the recent things they’ve been doing. They are the best and need to stop making so many mistakes. It’s unacceptable.

      • oOsmoothiesOo

        Please give me a list of Apple’s recent ‘mistakes’

      • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

        • 3D Touch launches and Apple’s own apps hardly support it. Quick Actions for the Music app are ‘Search’ and ‘Play Beats 1’ it’s sad.
        • 3D Touch on the edge of the screen uses a peek to swipe to the previous app, and a pop into multitasking switcher, however, it requires far too much pressure to pop into the multitasking switcher, and that’s with light sensitivity for 3D Touch. Peek and pop are also slow for this action, and make it far more of a task than a quicker way to multitasking. For example, the OS cannot ignore or quickly go through a peek, it’s unintuitive. If a user presses firmly enough, it should instantly skip the peek and go directly to the pop. Assuming a user wants to go directly to a pop they cannot do so by applying sufficient pressure, instead they must wait for the OS to go through the pop, this is poor design.

        Moreover, the 3D Touch on the edge for multitasking, pressure must be applied directly at the edge only, this is also not great design. Akin to how on an iPad the OS ignores a thumb on the screen, or on the new iPad Pro the screen ignores a palm when writing with the pencil, the edge based pressure should acknowledge the intent of the user. If pressure is being applied on the edge of the screen and being applied out onto the screen, it should ignore the pressure beyond the edge of the screen and know that the intent was for the multitasking gesture. Many users will find it difficult to use this gesture reliably because if you are using your thumb you must basically use the tip and press only on the very edge, but as I just described, this should not be necessary.

        One more current problem with it, is that if a slight swipe is being made before pressure is being applied it will ignore the 3D Touch gesture. For example, if you’re on the home screen and accidentally slide your finger slightly before applying pressure, it goes with the swiping motion and the OS is locked from going to the 3D Touch Gesture. This makes a user have to be very precise and accurate in applying direct pressure to an app. Again, these are things that should already be remedied.

        • Framerate issues galore. iOS 9+ is still full of slow Framerate even on an iPhone 6S. There should be 60FPS throughout the entire operating system. Dropped frames are unacceptable with the power of these devices.

        • Too many bugs not being fixed before major releases. Some bugs are going to happen, and that’s understood, but Apple must need many more people to get these OSs out on time with few bugs. Almost every year we here that Apple is redirecting many iOS engineers to OS X or vice versa, that means they do not have enough skilled software engineers for the time constraints they’re under.

        • HomeKit is an afterthought, and that’s not okay. If you decide to push out a new feature, you better have enough resources and have it high enough on the priority list to get it right, or else just sit on it and get it right behind the scenes. They released HomeKit back in 2014, and it’s still just launching essentially, and it’s honestly not an intuitive, great service, in any way. It’s a great basic idea, but the way they’ve gone about it is just a disaster really. Next to no one knows what it is, or how to use it. Moreover, instead of the common Apple simplicity which is great, HomeKit is trying for a simplicity that isn’t there. Firstly, there should be an app called ‘Home’ on iOS, OS X, tvOS, and watchOS. This app has the ability to have any HomeKit accessories actions built in so there is one, great, simple Apple designed app to control your home, not numerous third party apps which you have to use all of. And secondly the new Apple TV should be the true Homekit hub. Every HomeKit device should be able to connect directly to it, instead of each damn device having their own hubs. This way, you have 1 hub for all smart devices and it’s the Apple security and privacy everyone wants.

        Those are just a few things.

  6. davidwday - 8 years ago

    Has anyone heard what the status is of Apple’s remote app? Surely the iPhone has all the hardware to mimic the new Sir-enabled remote for Apple TV 2.

    • surfingarbo - 8 years ago

      I imagine the remote app will get updated within the next week. I guess Apple can’t update it now if nobody has their hands on the new Apple TV yet.

      • o0smoothies0o - 8 years ago

        Um yes they most definitely can, and should. The update should have gone live today, normal App Store updates day. The day before public launch. Another inexcusable thing from Apple.

  7. Kazuaki Hirama - 8 years ago

    It just works! Soon…

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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