Itsytv says “No Apple TVs found.”

Itsytv needs local network access to discover Apple TV devices. If you declined the permission prompt, open Settings → Privacy & Security → Local network and enable Itsytv. Your iPhone and Apple TV must also be on the same Wi-Fi network.

My Apple TV doesn't show a PIN code when pairing.

Your Apple TV is probably restricting which devices can connect. Open Settings → AirPlay and Apple Home, set Allow access to Anyone on the same network, and make sure Require password is Off. Then check Settings → General → Restrictions and confirm AirPlay Settings and Remote App Pairing are both Allow. Keep them there — Itsytv needs them that way to maintain a connection.

The remote panel closes a few seconds after connecting.

Your AirPlay access is set to Only people sharing this home. Open Settings → AirPlay and Apple Home on your Apple TV and change Allow access to Anyone on the same network. Done.

Now playing information isn't showing.

Itsytv relies on AirPlay to receive now playing updates. Open Settings → AirPlay and Apple Home on your Apple TV and make sure AirPlay is set to On.

Now playing shows the wrong show or movie.

Apple TV occasionally reports now playing information from a previously used app instead of the current one — a known quirk of the Apple TV protocol itself. Restarting the streaming app on your Apple TV or switching playback usually clears it.

Netflix doesn't show now playing details.

Netflix recently updated their Apple TV player and no longer reports show information to the system. That means Itsytv can't display the title, artwork, or episode for what's playing in Netflix. This is a Netflix-side limitation. Disney+, HBO Max, Prime Video, Apple TV+, and most other streaming apps continue to work normally.

Volume buttons aren't working.

Volume control depends on your Apple TV configuration. If your TV uses HDMI-CEC for volume, the buttons will work. If your Apple TV is set to control volume over IR (infrared), commands from Itsytv won't reach the TV. Check Settings → Remotes and Devices → Volume Control on your Apple TV to see which mode is active. The mute button isn't supported by the protocol yet.

On Mac: I launched the app and nothing happened.

Itsytv on Mac is a menu bar app — a tiny TV icon in the top-right, not a Dock tile. On MacBooks with a notch, macOS silently hides menu bar icons that don't fit behind the notch. Hold ⌘ Cmd and drag unused icons off the menu bar; when Itsytv reappears, ⌘-drag it somewhere safe.

Itsytv · Guide

Use your iPhone as an Apple TV keyboard.

Type passwords, search, and URLs from any device

The built-in Apple TV text input is a row of letters arranged horizontally, navigated with a thumb pad, one character at a time. With Itsytv, the iOS keyboard appears automatically when any text field is focused on the TV — password managers, autofill, emoji, and all.

How it works

When you focus a text field on the Apple TV — a search bar in YouTube, a password prompt in Netflix, an email login in Apple TV+ — the Apple TV sends a notification to nearby paired devices. Itsytv listens for this notification and instantly pops the native iOS keyboard into the remote. Whatever you type is mirrored back to the Apple TV in real time.

The integration uses Apple's MediaRemoteProtocol — the same channel the Siri Remote uses for text entry. Itsytv doesn't screen-scrape or emulate keypresses; it uses Apple's intended text-editing API.

What you can type

Search queries. “Succession” across Apple TV+ Search becomes four key presses instead of twenty.
Passwords with iOS AutoFill. Sign into Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, or any streaming service without typing a single character — your saved password surfaces the moment the password field opens.
URLs. Paste a long YouTube or Vimeo URL into a search field in one step. Long URLs are the worst on the Siri Remote; they're trivial with a real keyboard.
Email addresses. Creating new accounts on streaming services is fast when you're not pecking out n, @, and .com character by character.
Emoji and diacritics. The full iOS keyboard, including your language's diacritics and the emoji picker.

Using the Mac keyboard

On Mac, Itsytv lives in the menu bar. When a text field is focused on the Apple TV, Itsytv's menu-bar popover accepts typing from your physical Mac keyboard — no pop-up, no focus change, you just type. Paste works too.

What doesn't work (yet)

Voice dictation. tvOS exposes dictation only to Apple's first-party Remote in Control Center; third-party apps don't have access to the dictation API yet.
Hardware-only text fields. A few older apps bypass the system text field and capture key presses directly. Those won't trigger Itsytv's keyboard popup because there's no system text field to observe.

Why most other remote apps can't do this

Text input via the MediaRemoteProtocol isn't documented by Apple, and the handshake required is non-trivial to implement correctly across tvOS versions. Most third-party remotes either don't support keyboard integration at all or rely on brittle HTTP polling that misses the focus signals. Itsytv implements the protocol directly — the same way Apple's Control Center remote does.

Get Itsytv

$4.99 once, no subscription. Universal purchase covers iPhone (iOS 17+), iPad (iPadOS 17+), and Mac (macOS 14 Sonoma+). Download on the App Store →