If you want to stream to a TV in 2026 without using whatever came baked into the TV, you’ve really got three serious choices: Roku, Apple TV, and the really great Nvidia Shield. Read almost any tech site and the verdict is the same. Apple TV is the fancy one, the fast one, the one reviewers put at the top of the list.
And I get it. The box is fast and the interface is clean. But in a house with kids, the Apple TV has one giant problem, and you hold it in your hand.
The Siri Remote is a touchpad in a house full of sticky fingers
The new Apple TV 4K comes with a new Siri Remote, and Apple says it “keeps its familiar design.” (apple) That means the same touch-enabled clickpad, where you tap to select, swipe through lists, and run your thumb around the outer ring to scrub through a video. (apple) The headline new feature is Find My, so you can locate the remote when it slides into the couch. (macrumors)
Here’s my problem. Those touch features are way too touchy. A kid picks up the remote and the show jumps ahead. A thumb rests on the pad and the menu goes flying. Add fingers that were just in a bag of crackers and it gets worse, and I end up being tech support for my own living room.
Apple’s answer is a setting. Go into Settings, then Remotes and Devices, and you can switch the clickpad to “Click Only” or slow down the touch tracking. (apple) But if the fix for your remote is turning off the remote’s main feature, maybe the main feature was the problem.
The Roku remote is the opposite. Up, down, left, right, OK, back, home. Buttons that do one thing every time, no matter whose hands are on it. Boring is exactly what you want in a remote.
So I replaced Apple’s remote
I got fed up and bought a One For All URC1110 on Amazon. It’s a replacement remote made for Apple TV. It has real buttons, Siri voice control, keys that light up when you pick it up, and it can also run your TV and sound system. One For All says it works with Apple TV HD and 4K. (one for all) It’s around $38 on Amazon as I write this, which is less than the $59 Apple now charges for a new Siri Remote. (macrumors)
It works much better. Think about that for a second. The best way I’ve found to enjoy a $299 Apple product is to throw out the part Apple designed and use a $38 remote from somebody else.
CEC: Roku just behaves a little better
HDMI-CEC is what lets your streaming box turn on the TV, switch inputs, and control your soundbar volume. When it works, it’s magic. When it doesn’t, you’re digging for the TV remote anyway.
In my experience, CEC works slightly better on Roku than on Apple TV. Not night and day, but noticeable. Roku even has a plain support page walking you through the CEC settings. (roku) The Apple TV mostly works too, but I’m clearly not the only person who has watched it turn on the TV and then pick the wrong input. (apple community)
The price no longer makes sense
Here’s where it gets silly. The new Apple TV 4K comes in one version with 128GB of storage, and it’s $299. (apple) MacRumors points out the starting price was $129 earlier this year. (macrumors) It ships November 13.
The Roku Ultra is $149.99. Roku raised it from $99.99 in July, blaming the memory shortage. (the verge) For that you get 4K with Dolby Vision and HDR10+, Dolby Atmos, Wi-Fi 6, Ethernet, a USB port, and the Voice Remote Pro, which is rechargeable, has backlit buttons, and has a lost-remote finder. (roku)
So the Apple TV is now about twice the price of the Roku Ultra, and it comes with the worse remote. Yes, the Apple TV has a faster chip and some Apple-only tricks. For what most families actually do, I can’t make that math work.
And the Shield? Still really great, and still getting software updates. (nvidia) But Nvidia stopped making the regular Shield TV and raised the Shield TV Pro to $299 in October, on hardware that dates back to 2019. (techpowerup) So the Shield is now in Apple TV price territory too.
Yes, Roku has ads
Roku isn’t perfect. It makes its money on ads, and it shows. Its big home screen redesign in May put a large ad on the screen the moment you turn it on, and it stays there while you browse. (ars technica)
But that’s basically where it lives: the home screen. Once I open an app and start watching, Roku gets out of the way. The main exception I know of is Roku’s own free Roku Channel, where Roku says it does run ads when you pause. (android authority) I can live with a billboard in the lobby. I can’t live with a remote that fast-forwards every time my kid breathes on it.
My pick
If you’re a single adult with clean hands and a big Apple setup, sure, get the Apple TV. For a family, I’d get the Roku Ultra and save $150. If you’re already on Apple TV, do yourself a favor and buy a remote with buttons. Apple makes beautiful hardware, but a remote doesn’t need to be beautiful. It just needs to work.
