Apple TV 4 UK Pre-Order Thread

[smr]

Decided to refuse delivery of the 32GB ATV that I ordered last Monday. I will wait until there are some killer apps available, by which point I will have a better idea if I need 32 or 64GB.

Update: the return is also now showing on apple.com

 

[Donka]

I'm contemplating returning mine - I'll wait for the official Plex client to be approved and test that out before deciding. In some respects, it is a nice device, in others it is a missed opportunity. The apps all respond well but the method of typing out search terms is really quite poor, especially when we have Siri support for some features which works surprisingly well. The text entry really ruins the experience for me and it does feel like an unfinished product to me.

 

[MLJH]

Loving the new Apple TV, it is a huge upgrade from using a 2nd Generation one. I only have two issues with it, not being able to seach for apps by Category and the awful keyboard that you have to use to type a search in. Hurry up and update the Remote app and allow us to use that to type instead.

 

[maehara]

As of 8:30am this morning, 'Delayed' on the UKMail site with no estimated ETA. So fired up a chat session with the Apple Store...

Q: If I give in to impatience and buy an ATV in-store, can I return the one UKMail are delivering to my local Apple Store unopened for refund?
A: Not to an Apple Store, but we can recall it from UKMail so it won't be delivered and you'll be refunded when we get it back.

Which sounded like a decent plan to make sure I'd get one today. Except Sod's Law struck, and UKMail updated to 'Out for Delivery' moments after I ended the chat with Apple. So now not sure if UKMail will actually deliver today / if Apple's recall instruction reached them on time to stop them / or whatever, and not dropping past the Apple Store to pick one up there until I know the in-transit package has been stopped or delivered. Another day potentially without New Toy.

Damn my impatience, coming back to bite me. ¬_¬

 

[judethat]

Loving mine, huge upgrade to my generation 2, much nicer interface. Really like the new remote and took about five minutes to set up. Only thing at the moment for me it lacks is an on/off switch.

 

[FatherOfTwo]

Loving mine, huge upgrade to my generation 2, much nicer interface. Really like the new remote and took about five minutes to set up. Only thing at the moment for me it lacks is an on/off switch.

On / off by double clicking the home button

 

[Donka]

Actually, hold down the home button and a small menu pops up with sleep or cancel. Double clicking the home button brings up multitasking.

 

[MLJH]

Just noticed that when searching they have changed the keyboard to a grid version instead of the row of letters!

 

[MLJH]

And Now TV is available!

 

[Mr.C]

OK so DPD tried to deliver mine on Friday but no one was home and I was out of town so did not know it was out for delivery and had no way of calling anyone to stay at home to accept delivery. I went online on to the DPD web site and changed the delivery to Monday. I was still out of town and no way to get a hold of anyone at home to ask someone to stay in. Again there was no one home when they tried to deliver it on Monday. I got back home on Monday late afternoon and requested Wednesday delivery as I knew someone would be home. Low and behold there was a ring of the door bell at around 7:30 PM on Monday. It was the DPD delivery guy with my Apple TV. I was quite surprised that, one they would re-deliver on the same day, and two they would deliver at 7:30 in the evening. Needless to say I was glad as it meant I didn't have to wait until today to have it delivered.

Setting it up was easy and a piece of cake. It only took me a few minutes to get it up and running. This is my first Apple TV as I've never owned one before and I'm pleasantly surprised with how well it works and the functionality included. So much so that I'm considering getting a refurbished Apple TV 3 for my parents to use. It's great to stream content from my other Apple devices or from my iTunes account.

The only thing that I found disappointing was that certain movies which I had downloaded digitally using codes that came with the Blue Rays would not automatically how up in my iTunes library. I had to enable home sharing and have my lap top on to access them. Also my "Recently Played" play list for my iTunes music would also not show up without enabling home sharing. This is a bit of a pain but not enough to put me off the Apple TV. I definitely plan on keeping it. On a related note the remote is great and the games I played with it control pretty well but I think a dedicated game pad is necessary if you want to play games especially those that are fast paced or have a lot of different input controls.

I do think there is a lot of room for improvement but as is typical with any new device it's kind of gimped to begin with and will require several TV OS updates in order to work much better. I see that the first beta TV OS update has just been released and hopefully it will improve things and will be out soon.