Apple TV Fell to Fourth Most Popular Streaming Media Device in U.S. in 2014

hmm tough market so many TV's come with apps builtin now unlike when these services entered the game ...going to be interesting what they do to draw people away from competitors... they really had a head start but seem like they drop the ball thats not like Apple they seem to usually run with a lead
 
iOS mirroring was really the only feature that i was using on my appleTV and now that ive moved away from iOS thanks to the continuing decline of usability and ease of use, I dont even use my Apple TV anymore. the other day it took me several minutes to figure out how to turn on airplay in iTunes 12. not good guys, not good.
 
DustinLH00 said:
You are right. I am sure the stockholders would love it if Apple took a year or two off from developing new iPhones to focus on making an awesome Apple TV that still won't have any content and is their least popular device. Then they can sell more of those $99 devices but two years without $800 devices will all work out in the end.
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I don't have nor do I want Apple TV ... it's about laptops, iPad UI, inability to use multiple Apple IDs on a single computer without some wacky work around ... my list is longer ... let Apple carry on.
 
DustinLH00 said:
You are right. I am sure the stockholders would love it if Apple took a year or two off from developing new iPhones to focus on making an awesome Apple TV that still won't have any content and is their least popular device. Then they can sell more of those $99 devices but two years without $800 devices will all work out in the end.
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you're missing the point. the user experience is declining across the board, not just with the AppleTV. part of what made apple the success it is now was how easy to use their products *used* to be. eventually the chinks in the Apple armor will give way to flaws, and by that time, and given Apple's slow reaction time to market changes, its not going to go well for them. All it will take is one killer product from somebody else and it will not take long for Apple to lose its "cool" factor. its already the phone of choice for old people and soccer moms.
 
bushido said:
mine refuses to stream anything local unless i want to wait an hour for it to buffer while netflix etc all stream perfectly. its the strangest thing
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Exactly why I gave up on Apple TV about 4 years ago. I got so frustrated at the endless issues (that usually happened as I sat down with some popcorn to watch a film) that I bought a Western Digital HDD player thing that was cheap, nothing special, but worked.

Since then I've moved onto Chromecast which works faultlessly. I don't plan on ever going back to Apple TV. It's too little too late.
 
That is actually impressive considering Apple hasn't given it a significant update in ages and it continues to sit in hobby status.

Weird how a company with all those resources and talent has taken so long to really step up in this product category. Apple Music has been given more attention the in the last 6 months than Apple TV has in 8.5 years.
 
3N16MA said:
That is actually impressive considering Apple hasn't given it a significant update in ages and it continues to sit in hobby status.

Weird how a company with all those resources and talent has taken so long to really step up in this product category. Apple Music has been given more attention the in the last 6 months than Apple TV has in 8.5 years.
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has apple really "stepped up" in *any* category besides the mac pro in the last five years? all it has been is thinner, thinner, thinner. even the UI got "thinner"... Apple has anorexia of the product line.

i guarantee you, mark my words, when the new Apple TV comes out one of the key advertising points will be that its smaller or thinner. trust me on that.
 
Apple TV fell to second most popular streaming device in this household after I bought an XBox One.
 
danny_w said:
Actually to me the thing ATV has going for it is Airplay. If not for this one feature I probably would have moved on already.
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Precisely. If it wasn't for streaming content in my iTunes library to my TV, I would have gotten rid of my ATV months ago.
 
Sproctor61 said:
My apple tv has not been fired up in a long time. Roku with Plex, and Chromecast is pretty much what we use. Hoping the new Apple TV will change this!
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You can get Plex to work on ATV using a workaround from the Plex wiki. Hopefully if there is an app store for the ATV, Plex will be an available app and the workaround will just be a memory.
 
Everyone i know owns a chomecast stick. The first step to cutting cable TV packages. I would say its mostly generational at the moment. People under 40 are cutting the cord in droves.
 
No real surprise, no support for DNLA, the content is lacking and the interface is pretty dated.
 
It may only be in 4th place, but I bet it's used more than Chrome & Fire TV. Most people I know bought a Chrome Cast only cuz of the price. It is connected to their TVs doing nothing, but hogging an HDMI port.
 
Of course it's falling, they haven't done anything in the last 3 years...
I hope this September's event is finally the right one.
 
RedOrchestra said:
NO surprise ... it's all about iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, iPhone, and iPhone.
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Diversity, diversity, diversity...
 
I've never had an issue with my Apple TV's. I have 2. My only complaint is that I have to log in to TV channels witih my cable info all the time. Especially the Disney channel. However, I'm thinking about making a move to Roku because I find ATV is too limiting.
 
We have 5 ATV's, one on every TV. IMHO these things are all about the content you have. We have around 800 movies and thousands of TV shows all ripped and stored on a NAS the ATV's are the perfect device to view them through. I don't think an app store is going to improve them much personally, look at the apps on the Amazon Fire Sticks, they are pretty crappy really.....
 
My biggest gripe is I'm am tired of being tied to iTunes in order to steam the movies on my hard drive. The new one really needs to cut out the need for iTunes. It would be nice to just stream off an external. That alone has me interested in Roku.
 
I have had Apple TVs since the first generation — when the amazing killer app (for me) was being able to stream your itunes and iPhoto libraries to your TV. It was also at the time when video stores were kind of breathing their last, and we thought it was super cool to be able to access the iTunes movie library on this (not so little) box.

We later moved on to the 2nd generation Apple TV, and have one of those hooked up to each of our screens now. I did miss some of the features from the old device, particularly the ease of showing photos and some of the cool photo screensaver effects. But having Netflix, and then later HBO and soon Showtime was really cool, and that's basically how we watch all TV now (honestly we have gone months at a time without firing up the FiOS box, and that was just to watch Homeland on Showtime — soon we won't even be doing that).

I bought an Amazon Fire stick when they were on sale... and it's hooked up to one of our TVs. There have been a couple shows on Amazon Prime that we watch that way, but it honestly doesn't get a whole lot of use.

I also put an Apple TV on the projector in my classroom. It took jumping through a ton of hoops to get our IT department to allow it to work on the network, but it is really super useful now. There are a couple movies I show in class, and that's right there on the iTunes purchases (I am not able to show the movie by hooking up my laptop, because a DRM message shows up on the projector screen).

But even more amazing is using an iPhone or an iPad as a streaming camera that to show student work-in-progress as I walk around the room, through Airplay. When I have slides to show, I sit among the students rather than being tethered to the front podium. Airplay on these devices is really very cool and useful in a teaching setting.
 
Well it's a good job we'll see a new Apple TV next month then isn't it?

Oh, and fourth isn't bad for a product that hasn't been updated in yonks.
 
DustinLH00 said:
You are right. I am sure the stockholders would love it if Apple took a year or two off from developing new iPhones to focus on making an awesome Apple TV that still won't have any content and is their least popular device. Then they can sell more of those $99 devices but two years without $800 devices will all work out in the end.
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Something tells me that a company with 150+ billion US dollars cash reserve and with 80,000+ employees can easily afford to do both things simultaneously. After all, their competition can do it -- in some cases even with less money and less staff.

But you're right. Being an incorporated company has significant downsides - you actually have to please stockholders and make sure that the quarterly financial report looks good. Michael Dell realized that this gets in the way - and took the company off the stock market. Dell no longer has to worry about short term financial goals, they can now focus on long term strategies. That was a very smart move.
 
ActionableMango said:
By "local" do you mean local channels, or files on your local network?



I fully expect to be able to shave with the edge of the iPhone 28S.
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stuff thats stored on my mac and streams through itunes. it used to work fine but for the last year or so all it does is buffer buffer buffer then it would play for a little bit before it continued to buffer. oddly stuff from hulu or netflix that actually has to download first works perfectly on my apple tv. so now i just plug in a hdmi cable to my macbook whenever i wanna watch stuff from my mac on my tv
 
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