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Apple Engineers Reportedly Pessimistic About Apple's Living Room Hardware Strategy

I think he might be missing the big picture. What is the breakdown to where content is viewed? If content is increasingly viewed on mobile devices, doesn’t this make the “living room” less important?

I’m pretty sure Apple has data on where content is viewed and would make a decision based on this.
 
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I don't know, it's pretty useful if you have a display and not a tv.
Also it delivers the most versatility if you want to see 4K HDR content as it supports the technology on Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and Disney+, while the amazon firestick, chromecast or roku thingy don't allow them all, especially apple TV+
 
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QuarterSwede said:
Can you even tell the difference between TrueHD Atmos and lossy Atmos? I can’t. All of Disney+ is basically in Atmos and sounds great through my Yamaha TSR-700 receiver.
Click to expand...
I don’t have Disney+, but for me it is all about being able to watch Atmos movies from my Plex server. Currently there is no way to do this, unless Apple enabled passthrough. Unfortunately I just don’t see them enabling it.
 
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jlc1978 said:
WhileI agree, Apple tends not to go for the low end and a stripped down product would just cause people to complain "it don't do x lime the ATV."

I'd would love to have had the option instead of buying 4 ATV's for my house.
Which is why I went with Alexa instead of Homepods because I could get 4 or 5 for the price of 1 Apple product.



Yes, and Apple's fundamental reason is they want to sell a game box / home automation hub / media center when no one really cares about that, they just want to watch TV and have a decent UI. Having used Roku/Firestick I much prefer the ATV's interface and speed.
Click to expand...

just as an FYI Apple sold the iPod Shuffle and iPod mini for a few successful years. You figure an incredibly proficient beam counter for ceo with such long standing ties with manufacturers that a low cost product can still make a decent profit per unit sold.
 
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i thought they were going to give it the HOmepod treatment and make an Apple TV Mini aka ATV Dongle for $99.
 
The moment Apple allowed devs to implement their own gui’s, was the moment the hardware became irrelevant and the apps became the same as on any cheap Chinese media stick. BUT worse, because the swipe remote no longer worked cleanly as with apples own building blocks.

Over time I have seen many wonderful atv apps homogenising into clunky barely usable web based affairs. Pathetic strategy Apple.
 
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dukebound85 said:
There really isn't a benefit to apple tv over any competitors
Click to expand...

I agree. I loved my old Apple TV. My tv broke and ended up with a Roku TV. Is the UI as smooth? No, but it’s integrated into iOS pretty well and I can access all my iTunes stuff. Hard to justify spending almost $200 on another Apple TV. Even the most expensive Roku is still quite a bit cheaper. Apple should have a $30 stick, a $135 4K box and a $350 box for full gaming support.
 
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4jasontv said:
Do you have a Series 3, because the Apple TV HD and the 4ks have bluetooth.

Comcast has an exclusivity agreement with Roku.
Click to expand...

Understood and linked to that. Would you rather sell to 2% of the market or the bigger audience? Roku has 5% and growing. I didn't say I blame them.
 
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I use my ATV with my Homepods and that finally got to be a great setup in the past year. Also like how ATV remembers where you left off in apps. roku tv in the basement makes you load the whole app again everytime iirc.
 
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Someyoungguy said:
I confess, I wasn't willing to read through 10 pages of posts to see if this had already been said; but, although it took a lot longer than I expected, I think we are finally seeing the impact of Jobs' death. There's simply no vision in this arena, and the lead has been squandered. It's a shame. Apple TV 2 got me into the ecosystem (subsequently bought countless iPhones, 2 macs, 3 iPads, 2 iPods, etc), but I would go Roku today. As for performance, yes, the $20 Roku is sluggish as hell, but the one built into my TCL TV is just as snappy as my Apple TV was.
Click to expand...

Its gotten pretty clear that the marketing department is running the company now, and not the engineers or designers the way it should be.

Boeing went through a similar cultural shift, and their planes ended up falling out of the sky.
 
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The fact that still there is no proper multi-user support (hence Screen Time) on Apple TV confirms this.

That said, multi-user support on macOS isn't that great in the first place. If you ever setup an Xcode bot on a non-dedicated Mac, you know what I mean.
 
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MacKid said:
The most important comment in this thread. Streaming platforms are the gateways that desktop OSs used to be.

Refusing to move on HomePod pricing meant Alexa won the home. Refusing to move on Apple TV pricing will be a costlier mistake for TV+, Fitness, Arcade… when’s the last time anyone rented a movie on iTunes? Services revenue is only holding strong because of the App Store tax, along with the joke that is iCloud storage.
Click to expand...
Alexa won the home because it is far superior to Siri and Echos are cheap.
 
  1. Apple TV doesn't really solve any "big" problem for most people. It occupies a small albeit pivotal role in the Apple ecosystem, namely streaming Apple's content. In other words, unless you're a subscriber of Apple One or any combination of Apple's premium services, there is little reason you should have one in your living room.
  2. Apple has done a terrible job marketing Apple TV. You won't really know what it does or why you need one looking at its web page on Apple.com. As an Apple aficionado, even I have a hard time explaining to family and friends why they should buy an Apple TV (so I need to spend an extra $179 just to get AirPlay to work?) or what the difference between Apple TV+ and Apple TV is (it's always a bad idea to have almost identical names for two different things—in this case, one is a service, the other a hardware product).
Besides getting Apple TV's price down, Apple should think about solving people's problems:
  1. As more and more are working from home, being able to conduct FaceTime meetings in front of your TV would be nice.
  2. An Apple TV that doubles as a gaming console would entice a lot more people to want to buy it. This probably means Apple should come out with their own controller or even a few well-made games.
  3. An Apple TV that has Airport Express capabilities. Maybe even consider bring back Airport Time Capsule and build it into Apple TV.
  4. Make Siri a lot better so operating Apple TV is a more enjoyable and smoother experience.
  5. A more ambitious plan would be to make Apple TV a compact AV receiver that can be hooked up to five or more speakers, has three HDMI INs, and one USB. They already have the technology (HomePod & AirPlay) to make this work.
Apple really lacks imagination when it comes to Apple TV and this is doubly hampered by Siri's lagging behind competitors in terms of multi-user support, voice recognition, and just less "intelligent" overall.
 
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tgwaste said:
Its supposed to have the benefit of being a HomeKit hub but since Homekit is the worst product ever made...
Click to expand...

Homekit is a whole other mess. When it works it is nice, when it gets device unreachable it sucks. And Apple needs to do a LOT of work with it. The automations fail a TON; even basic things like turn on/off lights at sunset/sunrise. Google it, very known issue. I had to resort to using the bulb manufacturer app for a schedule that works every day perfectly somehow.

Its missing a ton of integration like IR blasters. My Aqara hub cannot expose the IR functions to homekit for god knows why. Which you can use a Siri shortcut the dev set up, great, but then the homepod can't use it. Only Siri on the phone (I guess because it is "opening an app" so cant be accessed from Homepod mini) :mad: It's infuriating.

So my new homepod mini never gets used other than a hub.

That is why I ONLY buy smart devices that work in all 3 ecosystems just in case; except tiny items like a smart outlet or 2 for $10 each; not a huge loss there in cost. Anything big works with all 3 or I wont buy it.

donguevas said:
Alexa won the home because it is far superior to Siri and Echos are cheap.
Click to expand...

They won because it was better way faster. Price is a good afterthought but Siri was bad for so long it didn't matter what the price was so much.

And yes, it took them so long to release a reasonably priced Homepod, which is still $99, they lost the war long ago.
 
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lysingur said:
  1. Apple TV doesn't really solve any "big" problem for most people. It occupies a small albeit pivotal role in the Apple ecosystem, namely streaming Apple's content. In other words, unless you're a subscriber of Apple One or any combination of Apple's premium services, there is little reason you should have one in your living room.
  2. Apple has done a terrible job marketing Apple TV. You won't really know what it does or why you need one looking at its web page on Apple.com. As an Apple aficionado, even I have a hard time explaining to family and friends why they should buy an Apple TV (so I need to spend an extra $179 just to get AirPlay to work?) or what the difference between Apple TV+ and Apple TV is (it's always a bad idea to have almost identical names for two different things—in this case, one is a service, the other a hardware product).
Besides getting Apple TV's price down, Apple should think about solving people's problems:
  1. As more and more are working from home, being able to conduct FaceTime meetings in front of your TV would be nice.
  2. An Apple TV that doubles as a gaming console would entice a lot more people to want to buy it. This probably means Apple should come out with their own controller or even a few well-made games.
  3. An Apple TV that has Airport Express capabilities. Maybe even consider bring back Airport Time Capsule and build it into Apple TV.
  4. Make Siri a lot better so operating Apple TV is a more enjoyable and smoother experience.
  5. A more ambitious plan would be to make Apple TV a compact AV receiver that can be hooked up to five or more speakers, has three HDMI INs, and one USB. They already have the technology (HomePod & AirPlay) to make this work.
Apple really lacks imagination when it comes to Apple TV and this is doubly hampered by Siri's lagging behind competitors in terms of multi-user support, voice recognition, and just less "intelligent" overall.
Click to expand...
One challenge, is all tnose other things like soundbar, etc I have a full Dolby atmos setup on my tv setup, with a powerful avr so don’t need any of that hardware. Streaming needs to be dead reliable (sometimes it flakes); don’t remove the ethernet for the wifi is just as good kiddies. I’ve got Ethernet in the rack. Keep it simple. Arcade isn’t helpful, since I have an Xbox.
 
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Not sure about that this latest rumor report.

Appletv UI has been pretty much the same. It hasn't gone through lots of redesigns. The ATV app has. But not so much the ATV UI. It still looks a bunch of iPHone icons.

Apple's goal has never been to sell the most of something. They say that over and over and over. They always give up market share in exchange for the very profitable "luxury" end of the market. I thnk AppleTV is at that spot. I don't think in that regard it is selling poorly. They know they aren't going to sell as well as a $40 dongle.

Now they could use a lower price competitor to the $40 dongles. A $99 dongle. The question is how can they make that a great experience, maintain their margins but not cannibalize the $180 ATV.

Their gaming strategy lacks focus. They've never really been all in on gaming on the device.
 
The Apple TV is too expensive. Moreover, Android TV boxes provide a lot more flexibility in terms of being able to install alternative app stores, such as Aptoide, to get ad-free YouTube alternatives etc.

If you're going to spend $249 on a steaming device, get a nVidia Shield instead of an Apple TV. The Shield TV remote is amazing with its motion sensing auto illumination of the buttons. I couldn't go back to a remote without it.
 
I agree with the engineers.

And also, since I have TV+ as an app on my LG TV, there is no benefit in having a separate box with a separate remote, that I have to enable through a different HDMI port using my TV’s remote! It’s old fashioned.
Instead Apple’s content is just accessible as an app, the same way Disney, Prime and Netflix is.

In order to make AppleTV a device that matters today, they have to fix their gaming strategy.
Fix Apple Arcade.
Buy gaming studios and make first party AAA content. Deliver it with a decent gaming controller. Go all the way, or kill AppleTV as a hardware box. Fix the iPhone icon interface and look at PS5/Xbox for cues.

We don’t need a fancy A14 or M1X chip for watching movies. They just play fine as of today. It’ll just make the user interface a bit more snappy. Another reason why the AppleTV has hit a roof. Games do require a fancy SoC so that’ll bring a reason to truly evolve the device.

While they’re at it, they should then rebrand it to position the device more as a broad gaming/media center. AppleTV sounds like ambitions from early 2000’s.
 
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