As reported a few days ago, Apple's Senior Vice President of Software and Services, Eddy Cue, along with the Senior Vice President of Software Engineering, Craig Federighi. They have provided some interesting details about the Apple ecosystem during the John Gruber podcast.
In addition to the numbers they provided that were abysmal, they also revealed great news for Apple TV 4 users. In this podcast they confirmed that Apple was planning to launch a new 'Remote' app for the Apple TV 4.
Here is an excerpt from podcast:
Eddy Cue: Soon something important will come out on this topic, more specifically in a few months, and it is a new remote application so that if you have an iPhone, you can use the iPhone keyboard to do that (Eddy Cue was referring to the previous discussion over Bluetooth adding keyboard support in tvOS 9.2).
Craig Federighi: And more than that really, the full control of Siri for the phone, and the communication with the TV, is a great update for that application.
John Gruber: Is there a Remote app for the iPhone that can be connected to the Apple TV?
Eddy Cueu: There is nothing like Craig said, only the keyboard can do it. The new 'Remote' application will do all the capabilities that the existing one does, now with Siri.
John Gruber: Ah.
Craig Federighi: Like the gestures for example. Because obviously the remote control touch panel function can be done with your phone also in the distance, so it is really a complete replacement.
John Gruber: I think this could make a lot of people happy. Will it work with some of the games, so if there is a two player game you can use your phone and you will have the slider.
Eddy Cue: Yes, that's exactly… You can use your Apple TV remote for one person and your phone for the second person.
They haven't provided a release date for the new app 'Remote' yet, but it is a confirmation that is coming for this year.