Automatic discovery
Through Apple's own Bonjour responder, so no unusual network entitlement is involved and nothing about your network is inspected by the app itself.
For iPhone and iPad
TV Remote for iPhone & iPad
The whole remote, on iOS: discovery, pairing, the D-pad, the keyboard, voice search, app shortcuts and casting. Two features are genuinely missing, and this page says which and why — before you install, not after.
- iOS & iPadOS 15.0 or newer
- $2.99 once — no ads, ever
- Everything included, no in-app purchase
- No special network entitlement
Everything in the press path works exactly the same
Add a television by IP
Always available, and the answer whenever Local Network permission or your router gets in the way.
Pairing with an on-screen code
The same six-character handshake, with credentials stored in the iOS Keychain.
D-pad, touchpad and keypad
All three pages, with haptics through the Taptic Engine and hold-to-repeat.
Volume, mute, channels, power
Including the live volume readout from the television itself.
Keyboard typing
Your iOS keyboard, typed straight into the television's text field. Paste works, so password managers do too.
Voice search
Speech turned into text on the iPhone using Apple's Speech framework, then typed into the television's search box.
App shortcuts
Four applications on the face, chosen and reordered.
Casting photos, music and video
From your photo library and files, served by the iPhone itself over your Wi-Fi. Nothing is uploaded.
Dark, light and system themes
All three, on both platforms.
Sleep timer and automations
Included. On iPhone you buy the app once and nothing inside it is locked.
Unlimited televisions and video casts
No tier, no counter, no upgrade prompt — the Android app charges for these and the iPhone app includes them.
Two things iOS will not let this app do
Both are platform limits rather than choices, and we would rather you read them here than discover them after paying.
There is no home-screen widget on iPhone
On Android the widget is a real remote — the D-pad and OK, Back, Home and volume, each press reaching the television with the app closed. On iOS a widget cannot do that reliably: network calls made from a widget's App Intent are widely reported to fail when the host app is not running, and Local Network permission is per-app and unpredictable on recent iOS releases.
A remote button that works only when the app is already open is not a feature. What was left — a tile showing which television you are driving, with one tap to open the app — is what the home-screen icon already does, so TV Remote does not ship one on iPhone rather than take up space claiming to.
iOS cannot mirror its screen to an Android TV
AirPlay is Apple's protocol and Android TV does not speak it; the mirroring transport an Android TV accepts is not available to a third-party iOS app. There is no workaround that would actually work, so TV Remote does not offer one and does not charge for one.
Casting your own files still works. Photos, music and video go from the iPhone to the television normally — it is only mirroring the live screen that iOS rules out.
There is no Quick Settings tile on iOS either — iOS simply has no
equivalent surface for a third-party app to occupy. Nothing was removed; the place
to put it does not exist.
What iOS will ask you for
Four prompts, each tied to something you asked the app to do.
| Prompt | When it appears, and why |
|---|---|
| Local Network | On first use. Without it, iOS blocks the app from seeing or reaching your television at all. If you decline, Enter IP address is the way in — and the app will tell you rather than spinning a search forever. |
| Microphone | Only when you first hold the voice-search button. |
| Speech Recognition | Alongside the microphone, to turn what you said into text that can be typed into the television. |
| Photo Library | Only when you first cast a picture, so you can choose which ones. |
| Never shown. TV Remote on iPhone and iPad is a paid app with no advertising in it, so there is nothing to track you for and the prompt does not exist. The app never reads your advertising identifier. |
If discovery finds nothing and never has: that is almost always
Local Network permission. Open iOS Settings › TV Remote and turn Local Network on.
On some iOS versions a restart is needed before a re-granted permission takes
effect. In the meantime, Enter IP address works regardless.
Step by step
How to use your iPhone as an Android TV remote
- Install TV Remote from the App Store and open it.
- Allow Local Network when iOS asks. This is what lets the app see your television.
- Check the Wi-Fi — the iPhone and the television must be on the same network.
- Pick your television from the list, or tap Enter IP address and type the address from the television's Settings › Network.
- Type the six-character code shown on the television screen.
- Press a key. The pairing is stored in the Keychain and reused automatically.