Eddie Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, takes the stage to discuss Apple TV during an Apple media event in San Francisco, California, September 9, 2015. [Photo/Agencies]

"We've been working really hard, and really long," on TV, Cook said, emphasizing the word 'long' in a nod to the time it has taken the company to produce an ambitious TV product.

The new set-top box will include an app store and let developers create new software for Apple TV, including video games.

"I'm all about this new #AppleTV. Shut up and take my money," wrote Twitter user Ethan Anderton. Others joked that they would have to buy a TV for the first time to use the Siri remote and app store.

Absent from the new TV interface was any agreement for new content despite Apple's efforts to negotiate deals with a wider array of TV networks to provide live or on-demand content.

A stylus?

Many of Apple's new features are based on technology that has been around for some time, but never caught on. Apple has a long history of creating successes where others could not.

Years ago a Blackberry featured force-sensing touch. The new iPad has an optional $99 stylus, called the "Pencil", which amused many on social media: in 2007 Apple then-CEO Steve Jobs told a tech conference, "Yech, nobody wants a stylus."

Apple is coming from behind in the streaming media market. Nearly 20 percent of U.S. broadband households already own at least one media player that streams content from the Internet, according to research firm Parks Associates.

Roku accounts for more than a third of all streaming devices sold in the United States in 2014, followed by Google Inc's

Chromecast and Amazon.com Inc's Fire TV, Parks said. The Apple TV box came in fourth.

Landis said that while he liked the updated TV product "the numbers are so small that they won't move the needle because the iPhone is such a big business now."