How to Set Up New Apple TV

This guide will show you how to set up the new Apple TV, connect it to your HDTV, the Internet, and start downloading Apple TV apps on your new device.

The new Apple TV takes about 10 minutes to set up and set up on most home networks. If you want to use your iPhone or iPad to start the installation process, you must be on iOS 9.1 or higher. If you don’t have an iPhone or iPad handy, you can also manually connect to WiFi using the remote.

Apple sells Apple TV in 32GB and 64GB versions for $149 and $199, respectively.

The Apple TV box contains the Apple TV, the new Apple TV remote, the power cord, and a Lightning cable that you use to charge the remote. You will need an HDMI cable as it is not included in the box. You will also need a WiFi network and a TV with HDMI, projector or monitor to connect the Apple TV.

New Apple TV Setup Guide

The steps below walk you through how to set up the new Apple TV that Apple announced in late 2015. This guide works best if you have an iPhone or iPad to simplify WiFi setup.

Connect HDMI and power to Apple TV.

Connect the Apple TV to one end of the HDMI cable you purchased and the other end to an input on your HDTV. This is also a good time to connect the Apple TV power cord and plug it in. That’s all you need to do for the physical installation.

Turn on your TV and switch to the corresponding input where you plugged the HDMI cable.

Choose how you want to set up Apple TV.

The next few sections of setting up the new Apple TV are a series of options. You can choose the options you want. We will explain what we recommend for most users.

Choose Language and Region for your Apple TV. If you need to adjust something, you can change them later in the settings.

Place iPhone next to Apple TV when prompted.

If you see this Apple TV error message, trying again should fix the problem.

Choose whether you want to set up Apple TV with an iPhone or iPad or manually on Apple TV. We recommend that you choose to use iPhone or iPad. On the next screen, you’ll see instructions to turn on Bluetooth and place your iPhone or iPad next to the Apple TV. Do this now and wait until you see a small popup.

Tap on Continue to set up Apple TV using your iPhone. This will connect to the WiFi network your iPhone is using. In this step we ran into our first Apple TV issue. The message on Apple TV is “Failed to Activate Apple TV. Try again later. If the problem persists, contact Apple Support.”

We restarted this process and kept the iPhone next to the Apple TV again and it worked. If you encounter this new Apple TV issue, try this step. No need to wait to try again.

Enter your Apple ID and password to continue setup on iPhone or iPad. From here you can choose options related to Apple TV features and data sharing. These are the options and our picks.

Finish choosing your Apple TV options.

1. – Enable location services so apps know your approximate location. Useful for weather and other apps.
2. – We select Use Siri so that we can control the new Apple TV with the voice assistant.
3. – We chose Auto Download for Aerial screensavers showing beautiful scenes.
4. – Send it to Apple. This is a personal preference, so choose what you want.
5. – Share with App Developers. Again, this is a personal preference.

Finally, accept the terms and conditions to start using Apple TV. Once this is done you will see the home screen of the Apple TV and you will be able to start downloading the apps.

Use the remote to select the App Store and then select an app and press the surface of the remote to start downloading. You will need to enter your Apple ID password. When you do this, you can choose to always remember your password or ask you after a certain time or every time.

Start downloading new Apple TV apps.

Tap on Download or buy and a popup will appear alerting you that you are about to download or purchase an app. This will help prevent accidental purchases.

That’s all it takes to set up the new Apple TV. Check out the slides below for some Apple TV accessories you might want to buy.