Apple quietly made a change to the Apple TV that is both annoying and self-serving
- Apple quietly changed the function of a key button on its Apple TV remote, seemingly overnight.
- Pressing the TV button no longer brings you to the home screen; it now brings you to Apple's TV app, where the company's TV Plus service will live starting in November.
- It's an annoying setting that can't be changed.
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Last night, I noticed one of the buttons on my Apple TV remote had suddenly changed its function.
For years, pressing the "TV" button on Apple's Siri remote control would bring you to the home screen of the Apple TV, where the rest of your apps live. It basically replicated the function of the home button on the iPhone or iPad, where pressing it brings you immediately back home instead of needing to press a "back" button repeatedly.
Now, though, pressing the TV button once no longer brings you to the home screen; it now brings you to Apple's TV app, where the new TV Plus service will live starting in November.
We reached out to Apple to get some more details and clarification on this change, but didn't immediately hear back.
I use the Apple TV every day to watch YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Video, and a host of other apps on my television, and I only noticed the change last night. Pressing the TV button one more time inside Apple's TV app will bring you back to your home page, but it's an annoying extra step since I don't want to visit Apple's TV app in the first place. I've scoured the Settings app for a solution but haven't seen any way to either change this setting, or delete Apple's TV app from the system to prevent this functionality from happening.
While Apple has separate operating systems for its mobile devices and its TV set-top device, this sudden change for the Apple TV remote reminds me of iOS 13, which also featured updates that felt like a step down in terms of quality or functionality.