Apple TV 2015 review: fast and easy to navigate, but the on-screen keyboard is worse than on older Apple TV, Siri functionality is somewhat limited
Mossberg: The Apple TV gets smart — It seems like we've been waiting for years for Apple to reinvent the TV.
Context & Ripple Effects
The 2015 Apple TV arrived under a long wait — Mossberg framed his verdict around how long it seemed Apple had been promising to reinvent the TV — and the launch-week reviews converged quickly. A dev-unit hands-on days before release already flagged buggy Siri and games forced onto Apple's remote, and the same-day full Verge review called Siri drastically stripped down and most apps little more than larger iPhone apps.
So this verdict — fast and navigable, but a keyboard worse than older Apple TVs and limited Siri — was the consensus, not one critic's quibble. The complaint proved durable: it took until 2021, when reviewers praised a redesigned Siri Remote with a click wheel and power button, and even then Apple priced the fix at $59, sold separately.
First-order effects
- Buyers of the 2015 model get the fastest, cleanest Apple TV interface to date, but pay for it with worse text entry than the older boxes they may be upgrading from and a voice assistant that can't do much on-screen.
- Developers shipping tvOS apps at launch have to support Apple's remote for games regardless of fit, per the pre-release hands-on.
Second-order effects
- Six years of remote-and-Siri criticism eventually pushed Apple to redesign the Siri Remote entirely — click wheel, power button — and then sell that fixed input device standalone for $59, turning a review complaint into an accessory revenue line.
- Rival streaming boxes get their opening on exactly the axis Apple fumbled: input ease and voice depth rather than raw speed, since the 2021 and 2022 reviews show Apple winning on performance anyway.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, set-top-box differentiation settles on the input layer — remote design and assistant capability — while processors and UI speed become table stakes every reviewer takes for granted.
- Siri's constrained role on the living-room screen becomes a standing review criterion for Apple TV generations, capping how much software polish can move the product's reception.
The trend: Streaming-box competition is shifting from interface speed to input hardware and voice-assistant depth, with Apple's own remote-redesign-and-resell cycle marking the turn.