It was originally designed to control the Front Row media center program on the iMac G5 and is compatible with many subsequent Macintosh computers.

[1][2][3] The original Apple Remote was designed with six buttons and made of white plastic.

Other functions controlled by the remote can include putting a device into sleep mode, selecting a partition to boot from on startup, and ejecting optical discs.

[7] An iPod placed in a dock featuring an IR sensor can be used with the remote for music and media control.

The Apple Remote can also be used to control the iPod Hi-Fi or third-party devices tailored to it.

If iTunes is installed on the Windows partition, pressing the Menu button on the remote will start the program.

Earlier models of the iMac with polycarbonate enclosures featured a magnetic rest for the remote,[18] which was later removed.

Using Remote Buddy (from IOSPIRIT GmbH) or mira (from Twisted Melon), it is possible to connect an external USB receiver such as the Windows Media Center Edition eHome receiver, and use the Apple Remote on these machines with full support for sleep, pairing, low-battery detection and controlling a variety of Apple and third-party software.

For the Apple computers without built-in infrared receiver, there exists a miniature USB receiver (USB-A or USB-C versions), the SmartGUS,[19] which allows to retrofit the infrared functionality to iMac, MacBook and Mac Pro.

In this case, all compatible software (iTunes, Keynote, PowerPoint, OpenOffice Impress, QuickTime Player, iPhoto, VLC, Kodi, Remote Buddy, Mira ...) can use the features of the Apple Remote, the same as with the legacy built-in infrared receiver.

[20] The Apple Remote uses a modified NEC IR protocol[21] which consists of a differential PPM encoding on a 1:3 duty cycle 38 kHz 950 nm infrared carrier.