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Apple Engineers Reportedly Pessimistic About Apple's Living Room Hardware Strategy
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and this comes after Apple told us "No one wants to have a web browser on a TV screen"
Looks like they are doing similar because they want you enjoy your music in one place too as watching movies.It's more now seen "staying ahead', than giving users what they want.
Looks like they are doing similar because they want you enjoy your music in one place too as watching movies.It's more now seen "staying ahead', than giving users what they want.
when you are taking about outfitting an entire house with Roku or ATV, it’s the difference of $200-$300 and over $1k. That’s not cheap.
Do you need high end devices in every room? I have two for my theatre room and bedroom. Rest of the house only needs basics.
I’m sure there are still some webTV fans out there (or are old enough to remember what it was), but with screens virtually everywhere (all with better methods of interaction), the number of folks that want a web browser on a TV screen has GOT to be pretty low, right? Maybe not zero, but not worth putting serious effort into?
I agree. I appreciate their more measured, premium approach. What’s frustrating to me, as an Apple user, is that there are certain businesses where market share doesn’t matter to the end user, but some where it does (e.g. music streaming) and it’s frustrating when they abdicate their leadership in a field like that which then makes the time and money I’ve invested lose its value. e.g. With so many more people on Spotify, sharing music or playlists with friends is often a non-starter from my Apple Music account.
I think people also pay for quality in the living room, too. But, just like the Mac, there’s always going to be a ton of people going for the cheapest device that’s “just good enough” and a few tens of millions that will always want more. The thing about the AppleTV is that it’s doing a good business for Apple, it’s growing, it’s profitable, but it will always shift fewer units than devices that are given away.
Most remotes have 1000 buttons, they are hard to press, they are slow, and they are huge. I don't understand how someone could like a clunky 90s remote more than the apple remote
I Use the Apple TV for Zwift. Yes, I watch tv on it too but supporting the Apps should be its reason for being. It has access to the App store and with an M1 could do much more. It could also integrate with all the other Apple devices in the home. There is a lot the device could do but the hardware update was pointless, the remote is better but it has no gyroscope in it. It works with apps like Zwift (graphics set to low) or Peloton but you can only connect 2 BLE devices to it?? Come on apple just deliver a better product and the usecases will come.
True there is a limit on BT devices you can connect, but people have gotten creative on dealing with that limit. In Zwift, you can use their Companion app, and sync BT devices to that (usually an iPad) and then Companion links to the system running Zwift. There are also 'hubs' that allow multiple devices to sync to it, and those devices then connect to a device taking up a single 'connection', but providing the support.
Just to clear up the issue, with Zwift and other apps, when you have your bike trainer, and a heart rate strap connected, you have no room for anything else. Things like power meters, and speakers/headphones are not able to connect. It's an inconvenience, but there are ways to mitigate it, but, yes, Apple could 'fix' that, making it a more robust device.
I chose not to use an Apple TV for Zwift, but the reason is if the internet poops out, or Zwift has a failure, recovering a ride in progress is hard to impossible. Apple could fix that too, if they wanted to. The graphics are amazing though, using the ATV for Zwift. For such a small little box, it is really quite amazing. I know people that only use the ATV, and even travel with one and ride on trips.
I don't use my Apple TV anymore and just use the AppleTV app that came with my TV. As long as I can do the occasional airplay and play content from Apple TV+, I don't care about having the box. The benefits of the box are so subjective. That's cool if people think about and care about and use photos integration and Apple Arcade, but I myself never even think about that stuff. I just wanna plop down and watch something. But I get it if others find different value.
The UI is way better than any of the alternatives I've tried. More stable too.
In my world the should have lowered the price when they discontinued the airport express to take its place. At around $200 it is expensive compared to the competition. A regular Apple TV at $99 and a more advanced gaming ATV at $200 would sell like hot cakes.
But they effectively can't. Have you seen the inside of an Apple TV? It's quite an amazing little box. They put a lot of engineering into that and they would really have to have a very compelling content tie-in that would coerce people to buy into it. As a 'hobby', they sure look like they took the later units pretty seriously.
TV box upgrades wayyy faster than speakers. You don't want to throw out your expensive speakers just because you want a faster TV box processor.
The thing is at $99, it's simply not profitable. Apple needs to keep profit at 38%, so the per unit cost + sunk cost must stay below $62. That's not enough to make it that much better than the sticks. Sticks are cheap partially because they are subsidized by Google and Amazon. Apple doesn't subsidize their TV boxes, at least not after they opened up the 3rd party App Store on tvOS because they can no longer take a cut on everything in the TV app.
Strange I have a B9 and got rid of my fire tv and apple tv as it runs everything so well as well as running HDR films off its USB port with great finesse. Had its last software update last week....
Weird, our LG TV has no issues, gets updates soon as available, no adds or pop ups. What year/model do you have? Are you using an AVR?
C9, with an AVR. You don’t get pop ups telling you to update various apps or the firmware all the time? The apps are the same quality as the apps on, say, an Apple TV?
We only use the our LG C8 as a monitor for our media servers, Mac mini & AppleTV 4K. The Apps on the AppleTV are far superior to any native LG TV apps (we just don’t use them).
Well that was sort of my point. The apps aren’t good, you constantly get update notifications (and various other notifications) on the screen when all you want is a monitor, and they don’t support the software for as long as Apple supports Apple TV updates. That’s all i was saying.
I finally got my tv to stop bugging me with notifications by turning off all smart features and disabling its network access. Now it makes a fine monitor for Apple TV, my dish box, etc.
And for how many years that update will keep coming? I mean when is the last time your C8 receive update alert?
That C8 is still a wonderful tv but will be crippled much faster than ATV box due to LG’s lazy software support. Meanwhile the 1st gen 4K ATV gets tvOS 15.
We get LG TV updates about twice a year, but, we only use it as a monitor for our Mac mini entertainment server & the 2021 AppleTV 4K. I don’t see how we will be crippled in the years to come, our LG is only used as a monitor.