What you need to know
- Siri may have leaked Find My support for the Apple TV remote.
- When asked, Siri will attempt to find an Apple TV remote attached to your iCloud account.
Did Siri just leak another Apple announcement?
As reported by 9to5Mac, in iOS 14.5, Siri will attempt to find an Apple TV remote connected to your iCloud account. If you ask Siri to "Find my Siri Remote" or "Find my Apple TV Remote," the smart assistant replies that "You don't have any Siri Remotes linked to your iCloud account."
As the report points out, despite Apple announcing its new AirTag item tracker at its 'Spring loaded' event last week, Find My integration was not included in its new Siri Remote for the new Apple TV 4K. However, Siri seems to think that some level of Find My integration is coming or at least planned for the Siri Remote.
However, the fact that it attempts to execute your request at all is interesting. Asking for other unsupported devices (like an Apple Pencil) will result in a different failure response stating that this type of accessory cannot be used with Find My. So why does Siri believe the Apple TV remote can?When the new revamped Siri Remote was unveiled at the Apple event last month, one notable omission was the announcement of any kind of "beeper" to help users find the remote if it gets lost in the couch.In the run-up to the event, many people had expected that the new remote would integrate with Find My, perhaps embedding the U1 chip to offer the same functionality as an AirTag. In fact, Bloomberg said as much in a report about the rumored remote last year.However, Apple did not announce anything of the sort, and the tech specs page for the new Siri Remote on the Apple Store does not reference any such feature.
It's currently unclear if this was a mistake on behalf of the Siri team and the feature was scrubbed by Apple for now or if the company actually plans to release an update that would bring some level of Find My integration to the Siri Remote. It's also unclear if Apple would need to release a new Siri Remote or if it could bring the feature to its existing remote.
The new Apple TV 4K with the redesigned Siri Remote will be available for preorder tomorrow, April 30.
The new Apple TV 4K features the A12 Bionic, high-refresh-rate HDR, and a new Siri Remote.
