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Apple TV is adding music to Siri’s search repetoire.
The 2015 edition of Apple TV comes packed with the Siri voice assistant to help you perform tasks and search for items by voice. In terms of finding media, the search option is limited to tracking down movies and TV shows, though you can search across multiple content sources. Apple TV is run by a remote control that includes a button for Siri.
Starting early next year, Apple TV owners will be able to ask Siri to search for songs, albums and artists accessible through Apple Music, Apple confirmed to BuzzFeed News on Thursday.
The addition of Siri to Apple Music could bolster the fledgling service, now up to 6.5 million subscribers, as streaming music services compete for listeners, especially those willing to pay a monthly fee. Voice commands have increasingly become the de facto way to conduct a search, whether on a Roku television box or an Apple or Android smartphone.
Siri’s current video search is a smart one as you can fine-tune your requests. Beyond asking for specific movie and TV show titles, you can pose such queries as “Show me funny TV shows” or “Show me animated family movies and just the new ones.” Extending Siri’s powers to music on the Apple TV should let you voice such requests as “Play the top 10 songs in the Alternative genre” or “Play the top tune from 1982.” That’s how Siri already works on iOS 9 devices, so the same capability on Apple TV seems natural and essential.
At this point, Siri can also do more than just queue up a video. You can tell it to fast-forward during a specific scene or rewind a certain number of seconds or minutes. You can ask for information about a particular TV show or movie, such as the name of the star or director or the release year, and Siri will flash the information at the bottom of the screen.
If you get bored watching a video, you can ask Siri for the current weather or sports scores, and again the information appears at the bottom of the screen.
The new Apple TV costs $150 for the 32-gigabyte version and $200 for the 64GB version. You can order it though Apple or Best Buy.
Apple did not immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment.
