The upscaling in appletv’s is already there. The picture compared to say the nvidia shield is still better than it and that has AI upscaling. The build in scaling the appletv does is very very good as it is right now. Best box out there really.
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Apple Engineers Reportedly Pessimistic About Apple's Living Room Hardware Strategy
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There is no way apple will abandon HomeKit. It does much better than you think and would make a ton of people mad if they stopped support for it and continued to improve it.
Agreed. I am sure most people are just using it as a streaming box, and unless you really really want that UI, it is hard to pay nearly double the price of the competition for a UI. Not to mention it is really only the Home Screen UI because once you get into the app, most UIs are 99% the same.
I know how it works, I'm fully invested in it myself - however the illogical decisions to discontinue HomePod and now the outright neglect of Apple TV suggests to me that HomeKit doesn't mean much to them.
Yet relies on you purchasing an expensive controller from Sony or Microsoft in order to experience that inferior library fully.
Only thing the ATV is missing for me, tying app profiles / logins to ATV profiles so I only have to select who is watching once. At the moment Prime / Disney / Netflix (who refuses to properly integrate with what is there) all ask who is watching, despite the ATV having a profile already selected.
As others have said, after iPhones (and Apple Watch), it is the most used Apple product in the house.
As has happened with the full size HomePod we will end up with having to put up with substandard crap because Amazon subsidise something that is barely good enough for its purpose rather than being an excellent product.
As others have said, after iPhones (and Apple Watch), it is the most used Apple product in the house.
As has happened with the full size HomePod we will end up with having to put up with substandard crap because Amazon subsidise something that is barely good enough for its purpose rather than being an excellent product.
2 words: Emm. One.
Chuck the M1 processor into an Apple TV box. Create a decent pack-in controller. Fork out a few million for some big impressive 3rd party games eg a port of the FFVII Remake but also licence the retro back catalog of a big 3rd party (ie Sega) and lock it all into the still-£5-a-month Apple Arcade.
Sell for £200.
Chuck the M1 processor into an Apple TV box. Create a decent pack-in controller. Fork out a few million for some big impressive 3rd party games eg a port of the FFVII Remake but also licence the retro back catalog of a big 3rd party (ie Sega) and lock it all into the still-£5-a-month Apple Arcade.
Sell for £200.
FF7R lol. Like Sony would ever allow that lol.
For £49 more I can get an xbox series S. Thats still not enough to entice me as a gamer to get an ATV.
Furthermore your suggestion does nothing to solve the problem for the casual consumer - the Apple TV is too expensive. A £200 SKU regardless of any inclusion of the M1 only makes it more expensive.
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Agree with all of your points. Unfortunately I think the first suggestion about app profiles tying into ATV profiles requires cooperation from the developers, which seems to be all-round lacking as far as ATV is concerned.
What does the full size homepod have to do with it? They still have the small ones. It makes sense they discontinued the full size ones as they where too expensive for a everyone product, which the minis are. Apple is more than likely moving to a screen device like the competition. They just haven’t released anything like that yet but I’m sure its coming soon. I’ve never used a HomePod because i have a receiver with the appletv and my phone or watch.
My Apple TV box can run Netflix, Hulu, Amazon all day long but I can never get through an entire night without the reboot of the Apple TV app. Eventually it goes black and I am back at the home screen. Then when I try and resume it often just starts at the beginning again. Or when it shows the next episode up is one I already watched but there is no way at that point to get to the next episode without resorting to Search or finding my way down a rabbit hole of stuff I don't want. I got a free subscription to Apple TV+ when I bought a Mac Mini. What they have available on there is usually good (For All Mankind, Ted Lasso) but I ran through things pretty quickly. They need a lot more content before I would ever consider paying for it.
I’ve been worried about Apple’s living room strategy for about ten years, guess i must be correct 🥴
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
Remote App is far beyond what other devices have. Not having to look at your phone or watch to move around the appletv is nice. The shields remote app is decent but the layout makes it hard to use without looking at your phone like the remote app on the appletv. Same thing with other remote apps like Alexa stuff. Their apps are generic and dont allow the same feel if you use the remote app, which i do daily.
No infuse player on other devices. If you use Plex the infuse player is the best and looks the best. It has direct play and is just the best standalone app for your own content.
Having quick controls on your Lock Screen with the ability to scrub the video, skip back or forth a few seconds, control your volume on your receiver is nothing like the competition. There is no competition on this as the other apps dont do this and it beyond convenient. Guessing you never use this…
AirPlay, sure other devices have similar features but airplay is seamless between two ios devices. I use this daily as i play music or sleep sounds going to bed. Also, i mirror my Mac to my appletv a lot.
Auto switch frame rate. The shield doesn’t have this and it is rather annoying to the juddery video you get from not switching frame rate.
The upscaller in the appletvs is the best picture you’ll get. The nvidia shield now has ai upscaling but it still can’t compete with the appletv’s upscaler. I have both devices and see the difference in them daily.
The music app on the appletv is better than anything you’ll find on other devices. The interface and artwork is amazing and it just doesn’t compare to anything on other devices. Unless you don’t mind looking at pandora’s blue screen for hours while playing music i prefer to have something nice to look at and works well as long with screensavers that are amazing. No other devices have a music app that comes close to what you get on an appletv.
What other box does this?
Because if Apple offer no high end smart speaker solution then that would drive me to Sonos/Amazon where I'll just evoke Alexa / Google Assistant and ultimately forget about HomeKit anyway.
I don't want to be buying a high end Sonos AND a HomePod mini aside it just to evoke Siri.
Furthermore Apple are supposed to be all about quality. Apple Music is a fantastic service, especially now with lossless and spatial audio support. Is the HomePod mini really the best way of experiencing that service? The mini is an odd product and a poor replacement to the full size HomePod. Apple were always behind the competition when it came to the smart home anyway, and these recent logical decisions have only set them back further, which makes me think that they just don't care anymore.
You're not wrong - the UI and UX is beautiful with ATV, however the ultimate truth is that the public won't care about any of this. The Apple TV is still £170 and a firestick is still £39.99. Both stream Netflix and Disney, so tell me which option joey consumer will pick? Apple need a cheap ATV stick style product to sit alongside the full size ATV. If they were willing to sacrifice the brilliant HomePod for the crappy echo-dot-esque mini, then why not do the same with ATV?
At one point I thought that built in connectivity was the way to go. However, they all seem to get little or no updates once released and hence a set top box is a much better solution. I use both the ROKU and the Shield TV but must admit the Shield is my goto solution and very happy with it. I gave up on Apple TV a long time ago and have not really kept up with it, so not sure if and how its improved over the years.
I never worry about what small standalone speakers do as I’ve had surround Sound for 15+ years. Apple understands that people don’t want to spend 400$ on a speaker to use it for what the mini does for 99$. They probably did enough research on what people use the speakers for and that is voice assistants. Apple can’t compete with higher actually speaker systems in the house and sales showed it. Doesn’t mean they are discontinuing HomeKit because of one overpriced speaker that didn’t sell well. There is a huge market for HomeKit.
Really depends. I got my mom an appletv 6 months ago and she doesn’t want another firestick ever again. Once people have gotten used to having something better they don’t want to go back. Just some people don’t know the difference or care about user experience because they don’t know better.
The HomePod was too ovepriced for what it is. It can’t compete with home audio on a real system and at that price you can almost get a decent soundBar with a sub. I still don’t consider soundbars anything great anyway, I’ve always been a full audio system person so the HomePod never appealed to me.
A screen assistant like google home in an apple way does appeal to me and ill get rid of my google home when that happens. I don’t need it to sound good
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How is the product worth paying two or three times as much? I don’t mind paying a little extra for quality but I just don’t see the value on the apple tv.
I’ve used Roku devices for years now and love their platform. The one thing that would get me to buy an Apple TV would be the ability to have FaceTime on my television. Make that happen and I’m in!
I don’t mean putting a camera on the Apple TV — I mean enabling the TV to integrate with any regular webcam.
I don’t mean putting a camera on the Apple TV — I mean enabling the TV to integrate with any regular webcam.
Here's an idea:
Apple TVpod:
Apple TVpod:
- HomePod functionality
- Low-profile, wide spatial audio sound bar form factor
- Apple TV built in
If you don’t see it then don’t worry you aren’t looking hard enough or just don’t notice differences like that. There is plenty. Let alone the resale value of these. Buy now and keep for 3 years till the new one comes out and resale value is more than 50% of its value. I just sold one of my appletv’s for 120$ i bough almost 4 years ago to upgrade to the new one.
80$ over the span of 4 years is pretty cheap…
I tend to keep my products for as long as they work, so resale value doesn’t appeal to me all that much.
Still, a fire stick tv is way cheaper and does the work of streaming (including apple tv content) just fine.