Apple unveiled its new Apple TV at a press event today along with its new operating system tvOS and the associated SDK and APIs.

The company re-built the Apple TV experience from the round up with new hardware and a new user interface that makes use of the Siri Remote. Apple says:

The new Siri Remote dramatically simplifies how you select, scroll and navigate through your favorite content while bringing unique interactivity to the new Apple TV by using a glass touch surface that handles both small, accurate movements as well as big, sweeping ones. Adding touch to Apple TV creates a natural, connected experience, even if the TV screen is on the other side of the room. Developers can take advantage of the built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, and the touch surface on the Siri Remote to create games and other app experiences that have never been seen on TV before.

With Siri, you can use your voice to search TV shows and movies by title, genre, cast, crew, rating or popularity, making it easy to say things like “Show me New Girl,” “Find the best funny movies from the ‘80s,” “Find movies with Jason Bateman” and “Find popular TV shows for kids.” Apple TV will search iTunes® and popular apps from Netflix, Hulu, HBO and Showtime, displaying all the ways the resulting TV shows and movies can be played. Siri also offers playback control and on-screen navigation, as well as quick access to sports, stock and weather information.

tvOS is based on iOS and lets developers create new apps and games specifically for the device. Users can discover the apps through a new Apple TV App Store.

The new Apple TV has an A8 chip for improved performance so developers can build higher-end apps It supports Metal for graphics and visual effects.

The device will run you $149 for the low-end 32GB version. It’s $199 for the 64GB model. Clearly they’re not looking to compete in the $35 Chromecast market.

Image via Apple