An In-Depth Look at Storage and App Thinning on the New Apple TV

[unplugme71]

I'm going to take a guess and either

1) they raise the limit to 500MB per app
or
2) you can host the app contents on your Mac mini/iMac/MBP and use Home Sharing or something to get the full payload.

 

[TsMkLg068426]

If Steve Jobs was around the new Apple TV would have 4K and 3D streaming options available by now, Tim Cook seriously lacks in imagination.

 

[shiseiryu1]

Hoping Apple would use the Apple TV more as a media hub with storage. Manage music, photos, content for IOS devices. Essentially remove the need for a Mac in the home environment. Oh well just another streaming device that at this point I do not need. See how Apple TV develops over time before making any final decision.

It doesn't make sense for Apple when they want you to buy everything from them (or lease with with Apple Music). However, I suspect that very quickly apps will appear which will let you stream media to your AppleTV. I have FileBrowser for the iPhone and it's very quick at getting media from my Time Capsule. All we need is something like that or Plex and you will be able to remove your Mac from the equation.

 

[shiseiryu1]

I'm half with you, half against. The Apple Watch, while nice, really just isn't the product it should be and it does seem underwhelming at the moment. As for this new Apple TV... With you on the game controller, but think Siri will be really useful. Personally, I use Siri A LOT on my phone. As an educator (among other things!) the unplugged HEY SIRI function is truly the best thing Apple has done in yonks. For personal use I wish it would work through the mic on the headphones though.

I'm going to wait and see how this new ATV turns out. I have one and use it with BEAMER and streaming Rugby League matches via LiveStream and love it for that. But don't really need it for anything else unless Apple can show me something worthwhile.

I use Siri for specific things fairly often. I think it will be useful for the AppleTV...especially in comparison to searching with the crappy ATV3 remote.

As for the Apple Watch...I think it will be the most fun if two people have it (like husband/wife). However, I'm hoping that they'll come out with a version 2 next year and I'll definitely get that. I think this watch is like the iPad 1...it was ok but iPad2 was a lot better.

 

[AbSoluTc]

That's exactly what YOU should do. Again, better hardware will play whatever you think is ideal that is not 4K... be that 1080p or 720p or even SD. It doesn't force you to buy a new TV or rent or buy any 4K video or anything else. What it does do is allow other people- who are not you- to get something they want too. Whether they can see a difference or not, or whether you laughing at them can be heard by them is irrelevant. In my scenario, you are completely unaffected but they get what they want from Apple too. In your scenario, they are excluded because they can't see things as YOU see things.

But again, I expect to see you ripping on Apple when THEY embrace 4K in the "5". That's what I don't see much from you. Instead, it appears that Apple is pretty much always right in your eyes. And thus 4K is to be ridiculed for this particular Apple product right now because Apple did not embrace it here. But I don't see much from you ridiculing Apple for putting 4K recording in iPhones or 4K editing in iMovie & FCPX or touting 4K editing in new iMac 5K and 4K models, etc. Seems like if it's ridiculous here in this one product, it would be just as ridiculous there in all those other products. But Apple has embraced 4K in those... so it must be right.

Just give it a rest already. If you have 4K, go watch your movies. If you don't, whatever. We get it, you support a format that hasn't been fully adopted yet. You spent money and are "ahead of the curve" and want everyone to know. We got it.

I have an iPhone 6S Plus - 4K recording is OFF. Have no need for it until there's more of a standard. Yay I can watch it on my computer which is only 1080p. Oh and my tv and my phone and everything else.

Got it! When 4K is mainstream like 1080p is right now, then we can talk. Until then, it's useless.

 

[2010mini]

That's exactly what YOU should do. Again, better hardware will play whatever you think is ideal that is not 4K... be that 1080p or 720p or even SD. It doesn't force you to buy a new TV or rent or buy any 4K video or anything else. What it does do is allow other people- who are not you- to get something they want too. Whether they can see a difference or not, or whether you laughing at them can be heard by them is irrelevant. In my scenario, you are completely unaffected but they get what they want from Apple too. In your scenario, they are excluded because they can't see things as YOU see things.

But again, I expect to see you ripping on Apple when THEY embrace 4K in the "5". That's what I don't see much from you. Instead, it appears that Apple is pretty much always right in your eyes. And thus 4K is to be ridiculed for this particular Apple product right now because Apple did not embrace it here. But I don't see much from you ridiculing Apple for putting 4K recording in iPhones or 4K editing in iMovie & FCPX or touting 4K editing in new iMac 5K and 4K models, etc. Seems like if it's ridiculous here in this one product, it would be just as ridiculous there in all those other products. But Apple has embraced 4K in those... so it must be right.

Apple has failed many times before. Not releasing an ATV today or with 4K is not one of them. Not when 4K TVs, as it is right now, is a fad. 4K for iMovie, iMac and other PCs and the iPhone make sense when you see how pro-am and professionals are using them TODAY. People use them to make ACTUAL movies that do not show on 4k TVs but rather in theaters. Right now the majority of those "everyday" life moments shot iPhone in 4K will never be shown on any 4K TV. They will be viewed and shared from phone to phone and other mobile devices. Only a small percentage of the population will shoot video on their iPhone just to view on their TV. When you are in the business of capturing the largest market. You don't get bogged down with the niche or miniscule.

Don't fear though... its not all bad. in 10 years 1/2 of all US households will have a 4K TV. There will be tonnes of content to watch through you then 4K supported ATV.

Cheers.

 

[RnSK]

So...there is (still) clearly a lot of confusion about capabilities. As a long-time iOS Dev, here's a ProTip™:

When you read a dev complaining about something they have to do on a blog somewhere, take it with a grain of salt. it isn't about the capability, it is about the work

There are no current console games on the market that cannot work on AppleTV, should the developer decide to put in the "work" of implementing on-demand resource loading. It is literally about 2 hours of rework from what I've seen/helped a couple of indy dev implement.

The way Apple designed the system was really meant to be as pain-free as possible to realistically support multi-gigabyte game titles without having to resort to high-heat, high power fixed disks. A little planning on a "look-ahead" scheme makes the whole thing transparent to end users. The implementation in reality is very similar to what Sony and Microsoft have on their consoles.

-K

I'm going to take a guess and either

1) they raise the limit to 500MB per app
or
2) you can host the app contents on your Mac mini/iMac/MBP and use Home Sharing or something to get the full payload.

Why would they? ATV supports apps up to 20GB in size via on-demand. Really, you have to see it in action to understand how it works. Like many things "new" and "different" there is push-back due to lack of understanding. End users in almost every case would not experience any detrimental effects:

1. Go to App store, download something. Instead of taking hours, it takes moments
2. Start App - While the splashes and stingers are running, a large chunk of the beginning of the game is downloading
3. "Main menu" - stuff is still fetching in the background, tutorial/level one/whatever is already waiting
4. Start playing.

It is a really elegant and simple scheme designed for a better user experience. Why people seem to believe things that are demonstrably not true, I do not know

-K

 

[jamesryanbell]

1080p at 60fps is fine for now. At least for me.

 

[LordBeelzebub]

It might not makes sense for you, but it makes sense for many others.
Im a photographer and my boyfriend is a videographer. Our drone, camera and videocameras all shoot in 4K, we edit in 4K. The ATV4 would be a fantastic way to get it onto our tv and see all our footage pixel for pixel. I, like many others, were pretty disappointed that they left 4k out considering the new iPhones shoot 4K also.

I 100% agree. New iPhone can shoot 4K, but no way to get it to the TV to see it.

What happened to Apple being the pioneers for next gen technology? Looks like they decided to play it safe and wait for others to to take the lead then release a 4K AppleTV after everyone else did all the work...rather than Apple doing it.

6S has 4K capability? So what, no easy way to get it to a 4K tv. So much for Apple ecosystem.

 

[Tech198]

I would have preferred more memory to load games vs "on demand" case ...

even if your favorite game console did that ? The only limitation would be your internet connection and so may be noticeable.. particularly 3D type games "Infinity Blade"

Unless Apple TV 4 is destined for only those users with cable, it would be like the Amiga days, loading from floppy disk it would have been better to be like xbox, what u download games to external hard drive, and play forever, rather than have pre-fetch that does help, bt only till u fetch something else.

Designed to help, but not in the long term.

 

[JimmyHook]

I'm going to take a guess and either

1) they raise the limit to 500MB per app
or
2) you can host the app contents on your Mac mini/iMac/MBP and use Home Sharing or something to get the full payload.

The limit is 2.2 Gb on device with 20 Gb of additional on-demand resources

 

[Gutwrench]

Gosh that was painful to read.

 

[JimmyHook]

The new Apple TV does support 4K. It can be turned on via a firmware update when the content is more prevalent. People need to stop whining

 

[garylapointe]

I honestly don't see why full size apps aren't allowed. They allow you to download 4gb apps that can take up much more space once installed, on 8gb iPhones as long as you have the space.

And everyone complains about the lack of space.

I see this as a sign of things to come: Apple having this same requirement for future iOS apps too.

Gary

 

[wigby]

So in other words, every developer is having to go throw lots of steps and lots of pain to make their app work because Apple is cheap and won't put in 64 GB and 128 GB?

I feel like the Apple TV is going to end up like the Apple watch, AKA no apps!

exact opposite. it's hard for any developer to justify charging more than a few dollars for any watch app because they are so small and simple by nature. apple tv is totally different. app developers will be charging $10 and more for many games. this is much more than iPhone and iPad apps so developers will be putting in more work for premium apps that cost more. they know this and so does apple.

 

[JimmyHook]

Does anyone remember when Amazon made that stupid Fire Phone??? Not relevant here... just thought about that garbage and laughed. I'm so glad one company, Apple, had such a tight ecosystem with easy integration. Google can't come close to the same level of integration, Amazon fails at hardware, MS doesn't compete here really, and that's about it.

 

[HoiPiet]

I'm confused why Apple didn't decide to support 4k out of the box.

I'd guess its because 4K is a resolution and the new standard that will include that resolution, but also much more, is still being formulated. I wonder if 4K from Amazon, Youtube, Netflix or whoever is the same as the others. I'd say its pretty unlikely that they'll guess right at the future standard. If people got an ATV that didn't do one or more of those well, then people would be angry and call them names and they'd also spend a lot on support. Then if the new standard comes out and the ATV doesn't perform well, more complaining et cetera.

 

[bluespark]

I'm about as big an Apple fan as they come but I will not be upgrading my current Apple TV, I'll be moving to Roku, at least for now. There are two main reasons, first (and most important to me) is the awful Netflix interface they have, regardless of content or resolution, navigation is clunky and unfriendly, this appears to have no update. The second is I want to be fully 4K compatible as soon as I upgrade my TV, my new iPhone will shoot it in, seems a shame that they don't provide you with a way to view it as well.

If you have a need for 4k, this clearly is not your device. But as to the "awful Reflex interface they have," who is "they"? tvOS runs apps, just like your phone. It's a pretty safe bet that once Netflix updates its app for tvOS, it will be as good or better than what it offers on any other platform.

 

[garylapointe]

I absolutely understand that this Apple TV cost less to produce than iPhone. The thing is that by putting 32GB as base storage on Apple TV and recommend people choice 64GB for large apps shows that Apple knows that 16GB isn't going to cut for any meanful way.

You might argue people buy 16GB that why Apple produce 16GB, then you gonna ask yourself, do people really gonna satisfied for 16GB? I always buying unlocked iPhone, and you know how expensive 64GB iPhone is. I am not willing to pay extra 100 dollar for the storage bump and I like iPhone.

Here is thing, if Apple can put 32GB on Apple TV, Apple can put 32GB on their base line iPhone. Even Apple store employee agree that 32GB should come standard.

I see what you're saying but think about what Apple wants to do with the price point (keeping in mind Apple has been thinking $199 for the base iPhone for years now). Apple has a $69 AppleTV, they put on a better remote and increase the memory and the device hits the price point of $125 for a 16GB model and they think it's only $25 more for a nice "even" $149 and get it up to 32GB (and people won't complain about the space). BUT if they added that extra $25 to their $199 iPhone price, they get over that $199 price that they don't want to cross. Even with the 64GB they didn't break that $199 boundary.

Plus I also think it's less expensive memory in the AppleTV than the iPhone, they're not working with the fact that it needs to be miniaturized, low power and run extra cool. With a set top box you've got an option for some of the items to be less expensive (I'm just guessing here, but desktop equipment has generally been less expensive and have more power than similarly priced portable equipment).

Don't think of it as $100 more (than the $649 US) for what you need in a 64GB iPhone. Think of it as $100 less then the $749 for something inadequate for your needs, as you said even the Apple Store employees said 16GB isn't enough. I see Apple changing this since most vendors are getting rid of the subsidized iPhones, they can make the price be whatever they want and make the monthly payment plans be what looks like they have good prices.

That said, Apple Store employees don't make marking/pricing decisions (and I bet most of them don't get the 16GB model).

Remember the extra $100 used to only get you to 32GB, now it gets you to 64GB!

I think Apple should just put 32GB in their phones, only make 16GB accessible (and sell them as 16GB phones) then make the extra 16GB available as an in-app purchase later for $50 ($75?). They'll lose on some iPhones but the rest of the people that realize they need more will make up the difference.

Gary

 

[Juicy Box]

The new Apple TV does support 4K. It can be turned on via a firmware update when the content is more prevalent. People need to stop whining

This is the first I heard of this. Where did you get this info from?

People seem to be stuck on the lack of 4K. I wished it had 4K, but it is not a surprise that it doesn't support it.

In a recent Business Insider article about 4K adoption being faster than 1080p, their researchers claim that only 10% of the US households will have a 4K TV by the end of 2018. In 8 years, it will be at 50%.

It did not state the current adoption of 4K in the US, but it is safe to assume that it is way less than 10%. Lately, it seems that Apple does not cater to a small minority such as the 4K users.

But at the rate of new ATV models, ATV5 will be out in 2-3ish years with 4K, then the forums will be tons of posts complaining that it doesn't have 8K.

 

[HoiPiet]

New iPhone can shoot 4K, but no way to get it to the TV to see it.

No way?

Looks like they decided to play it safe and wait for others to to take the lead then release a 4K AppleTV after everyone else did all the work...rather than Apple doing it.

There are actually quite a few groups working on the next standard - 4K isn't a standard. Did you want Apple to demand something?

 

[Juicy Box]

In a recent Business Insider article about 4K adoption being faster than 1080p, their researchers claim that only 10% of the US households will have a 4K TV by the end of 2018. In 8 years, it will be at 50%.

I forgot to say that during ATV2 release, the adoption of 1080p TVs in the US was at 50%, and Apple still did not put 1080p on it. Other similar boxes at the time had 1080p, but ATV2 did not. It seems like Apple is following a trend.

 

[FreeState]

So in other words, every developer is having to go throw lots of steps and lots of pain to make their app work because Apple is cheap and won't put in 64 GB and 128 GB?

Nope - Apple is in it to make money. Putting more storage would not make them more money. However, changing the storage system to a required cloud will produce a monthly revenue stream from most of the installed user base at some point (5G is not enough to even back up my devices).

 

[Juicy Box]

There are actually quite a few groups working on the next standard - 4K isn't a standard. Did you want Apple to demand something?

After reading up on 4K and 8K, I might just skip 4K all together and wait a few years for 8K. Unless my current TV breaks, or 4K TVs drop in price a lot, I will hold on to my 1080p for a while.

I think the first 8K TV is huge and cost over $100k, but maybe by the time ATV6 comes out, they will be where 4K TVs are now.

 

[ghost187]

And everyone complains about the lack of space.

I see this as a sign of things to come: Apple having this same requirement for future iOS apps too.

Gary

Yes but even home internet has a cap nowadays. Some as low as 250gb, which you can easily pass by downloading 5x50gb PS 4 games.