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

[iSayuSay]

What features do you really expect from a set top box? To me, as long as it can play what I want to watch, it's fine. The fact that even a cheap Xiaomi box can support AppleTV app tells me something, that Apple is switching gears. Kinda like Netflix. Making sure you have your app available on as many hardware as possible. In the long term, the set-top box AppleTV might not be that important to Apple anymore.

Quite many, actually.

1. AirPlay photos and videos from iPhone/iPad
2. iCloud Photos, which quite useful for streaming recent family pictures
3. Apple Music (simply because Apple TV is plugged into my AV receiver, which is the best audio system in the house).
4. Dolby Atmos and Lossless for Apple Music, which practically a Day-1 upgrade with tvOS. Don't know when or whether it would work with its Android TV app.
5. HomeKit hub and controls
6. Siri commands
7. Occasional Fitness+ sessions

I can't see any of those functions would work with just a generic Android TV box?

 

[Michael Scrip]

I have a cheap Xiaomi Android TV Box that I bought like 3 years ago, and I don't have any ads on it. It is now on March 2021 security update, which is probably better than most Android phones out there. Now it even supports the AppleTV app. Doesn't seem that bad

Mi Box?

I've seen those at Walmart.

Is it good?

 

[Madchemic39]

Give us soundbar please.
Love my Apple TV HD and will soon buy a new one ATV 4K.

 

[ian87w]

Mi Box?

I've seen those at Walmart.

Is it good?

To me, it does the job. I can watch Youtube, Netflix, HBO Go, Disney+ on my TV. For my own videos, I use VLC. I can cast youtube from my phone to TV.

In the end, it depends on what you want to do with it. If you are someone who wants to Airplay from your apple devices, obviously you want to spend the money and get the AppleTV.

 

[JoshBoy]

I love my HomePod a lot more than my HomePod mini, it’s an awesome speaker. I have also owned every Apple TV (starting at the original monster one) and use them every day.
I love the idea of an Apple TV that is a sound bar with a wireless sub to the side. That would get my money for sure!

 

[pankajdoharey]

AppleTV is the only foot in the door if that fails , Apples TV Strategy related to streaming service, Arcade all go down the tube. If this doesnt work Apple wouldnt have a product in such a significantly important market. But cheap Android TV 's have taken over the smart TV Market, so apple needs to think how would it differentiate its product from the rest.

 

[nitramluap]

'...building a combined HomePod-Apple TV device with a built-in screen and FaceTime camera'

Oh, you mean an iMac?

 

[nitramluap]

Stop letting the tail wag the dog, Apple.

 

[hagjohn]

Add a full browser (with an addition with keyboard/mouse), messages and the ability to add a webcam, for facetime and it becomes something more.

 

[ian87w]

Add a full browser (with an addition with keyboard/mouse), messages and the ability to add a webcam, for facetime and it becomes something more.

So... a mac mini?

 

[hagjohn]

So... a mac mini?

Close but wouldn't have MacOS on it. More like a basic WebTV device.

 

[ian87w]

Close but wouldn't have MacOS on it. More like a WebTV device.

If only Apple kept Frontrow on the mac...

 

[MauiPa]

These are the same folks that released the beta of mass destruction that bricked a lot of HomePods?

 

[iterva]

I don't think people realize just how much the general populace simply "Wants to watch stuff".
The ATV is trying to do too much and is too expensive for vast swaths of the user base as currently positioned.

I agree 100% with this. Not a single person in my group of friends, acquaintances or co-workers use ATV. They all use Chromecast. I have asked a few why and they all say the same: It is cheap and works well enough that they don´t see any added value in paying 170€ more for ATV and all they in essence get for it is a physical remote control they can use.

 

[Boris Bronson]

Apple has been trying to crack the living room since 2006.
They tried it with the iPod hi-fi, and that failed for being overpriced.
They tried it with the first generation Apple TV, and that failed for being extremely overpriced, and also just being basically a hard drive for your TV that you couldn’t stream with, while streaming was becoming the new big thing.
With the Apple TV second and third generation, they were moving in the right direction. It was $99 so it wasn’t that expensive, it’s supported streaming, and it was extremely easy to use. But again, Apple was stubborn and didn’t open it to third-party apps, so it didn’t support everything, and it didn’t start supporting everything until super late in the game.
By 2015 when Apple decided to finally add third-party app support, they also decided to jack up the Apple TV‘s price and ruin the remote, so that didn’t help.
And now they’re stuck in a situation where the cheapest Apple TV that was released almost 6 years ago is still being sold for $149 whereas you can get a Google Chromecast for as low as like 20 bucks.
Sure, the Apple TV has a nice user interface and it’s easy to use and I love my Apple TV, but that’s not enough reason for anyone else to buy one.
Now I completely disagree with Mark that the solution might be to just discontinued the Apple TV. Even if the Apple TV will never, ever dominate, I still think that there’s a small percentage of people who absolutely love their Apple TV, and I would hate to see Apple just completely leave them in the dark.
But I don’t think that the strategy of introducing an extremely expensive home theater set up with a video camera and a $350 speaker all built-in is going to help their situation. That thing is going to be like $500, and have tons of cool features that most people won’t be able to justify forking over the money for. FaceTiming on the TV sounds like a cool thing, until it’s not.
It would be cool every once in a while for holidays and such, but am I going to want to FaceTime on my TV every single day? No. Am I going to want to handover $500 to be able to FaceTime on my TV? Absolutely not.
They should be working on a way to get the current Apple TV down in price. There is absolutely no justification for being $179 other than the ease-of-use, and that’s not good enough.
The 2015 Apple TV needs to go away, and they need to find someway to drop the current Apple TV in price. Even $129 would be better than $179, but if they could get it down to that old $99 price point, and get a good marketing strategy behind it involving the HomePod mini, AirPlay and enough crossovers, I think that would help a lot

I keep looking at it as an Ethernet jack is superior to WiFi but as you say… price.

I got burned by the first gen - over £200!!! - and can’t see why this has been bumped double in price since the very sensible £99 version came out (which admittedly I refused to buy based on my earlier experience).

 

[MikeyMondy]

What about HomeKit hub functionality? If Apple TV failed would that be HomePod mini only?

I personally love my Apple TV, heavily use HomeKit and casually use Arcade. I don’t see all these being run from a third party TV. But if a cheaper stick version gets more out in the wild, and keeps the product alive, go for it!

 

[skitidetdu]

Give us a sound bar and speaker system!

Yeah I'd rather have that than an AppleTV with FaceTime camera! Soundbar with awesome Atmos sound.

 

[MhaelK]

Quite many, actually.

1. AirPlay photos and videos from iPhone/iPad
2. iCloud Photos, which quite useful for streaming recent family pictures
3. Apple Music (simply because Apple TV is plugged into my AV receiver, which is the best audio system in the house).
4. Dolby Atmos and Lossless for Apple Music, which practically a Day-1 upgrade with tvOS. Don't know when or whether it would work with its Android TV app.
5. HomeKit hub and controls
6. Siri commands
7. Occasional Fitness+ sessions

I can't see any of those functions would work with just a generic Android TV box?

AirPlay and atmos works fine with the Apple TV app, which IMO looks to be the important issues in your list. If you use a receiver for your music, then most already connect with your phone or/and work with Apple music/AirPlay Without the need to buy an external product.

 

[McDaveH]

I think they’ve given up. Apple Arcade no longer requires titles to support ATV which is a real miss. They haven’t lobbied AAA game developers hard enough - do they even have the hardware to support those titles?
The UI is still the best but not by far. The authentication sucks - why can’t I use Face/TouchID on a connected iPhone to buy/rent stuff? The content integration with the TV App is clunky, 3rd-party apps should be mandated to extend their content to Siri for discovery & the TV App for playback.
Where we as the Olympics App? Apple should have created this as a showcase for complex media delivery with multiple live/on demand segments.
The hardware is expensive but it offers way more functionality than the streamers. They should have created a hybrid HomePod/AppleTV sound bar to justify the cost - just a crazy missed opportunity.

 

[H2SO4]

Except quality.

Quality of what?

 

[Oblivious.Robot]

Apple TV would be the next most utilised apple device in my home, after the iPhones themselves. I wouldn't dream to use the dreaded software of my "smart tv" over the ease of use with ATV.

I do however wish that someday it'd be able to have a few AAA title games to play with a controller, not just rehashed iOS games.

 

[edhudley]

Apple's living room hardware strategy remains poorly defined and lacks a coherent vision, with engineers allegedly pessimistic about the product line, according to a new report.

This year the Apple TV got an iterative update with a redesigned Siri Remote, while the HomePod was discontinued. Apple is now said to be developing a combined HomePod-Apple TV device with a built-in screen and FaceTime camera.

In his latest "Power On" newsletter, however, Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman says that Apple engineers have personally expressed concerns to him about the direction of Apple's living room hardware strategy.

Despite the obvious benefits of an Apple TV for users invested in Apple's ecosystem, Gurman opines that the set-top box is largely failing in a market dominated by cheaper alternatives from the likes of Amazon and Roku, and that Apple needs to introduce a more competitively priced stick-like Apple TV or offer more features if it wants to stay relevant in the living room.

However, "as of now, it's hard to believe that will happen soon," claims Gurman, "especially with Apple engineers telling me that the company doesn't have a strong living room hardware strategy and that there isn't much internal optimism."

Gurman points out that the Apple TV software has gone through more interface redesigns that perhaps any other Apple product, and yet still it has failed to crack the market. Meanwhile, Apple's combined Apple TV-HomePod device remains on schedule for release around 2023.

If that doesn't go well, Gurman suggests "it might be time for Apple to consider putting the Apple TV on the same shelf as other living room products like the iPod HiFi and high-end HomePod."

Article Link: Apple Engineers Reportedly Pessimistic About Apple's Living Room Hardware Strategy

An over priced device compared to offerings from Amazon, Google and Roku. An arcade library woefully inferior to Sony and Microsoft. A smart home approach that may be gaining, but still drastically outpaced by Amazon and Google. Yeah, I’m feeling a bit pessimistic also.

 

[JeMeCasse]

Apple TV on its own just isn't different enough from the competition for the price. As others have said they need to develop a surround sound system - they can use 'spatial audio' as a marketing hook - and integrate Apple TV 4K and a camera into the soundbar. Make the camera play nice with other services too. Then you have something different.

 

[brownpaw]

What on earth is with so many people wanting a camera on their AppleTV? It would be too low (or obscured in a cabinet) and too far away in most cases. There’s a reason it’s called “FaceTime” and not “upskirt shots of your aunt in the living room Time.”

 

[darthbane2k]

What about HomeKit hub functionality? If Apple TV failed would that be HomePod mini only?

I personally love my Apple TV, heavily use HomeKit and casually use Arcade. I don’t see all these being run from a third party TV. But if a cheaper stick version gets more out in the wild, and keeps the product alive, go for it!

I can actually see Apple abandoning HomeKit. Sure matter brings universal support but it also relives apple of pressure to support HomeKit specifically via Apple TV and HomePod. What we will have is a generic home app that supports all the Alexa / google crap.