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Apple TV Is Now Almost 20 Years Old

Happy_John said:
But that’s you. I imagine you like having a NAS and spent time playing around with it. I know that’s exactly what I do with my NAS.

I’m talking about simply being able to use the AppleTV as a TM destination (which is something Apple haven’t offered since discontinuing Airport) and a place to store you photo library once it gets big (and they do get big, my photo library is 220 gigs, and that’s just 25 years of personal photos, bit professional work).

For a household with an AppleTV and a couple of MacBooks, say anew and a MBA - a NAS is over complicating something that could be done within existing hardware in the Apple ecosystem, and is also an extra expense. When you factor in the drives, even a budget Nas is a chunk of change for something that people don’t really think about, because when it’s working properly you shouldn’t notice it.

Using iCloud storage as the alternative can because a very expensive subscription over time, adding up the months, once the amount of data grubs larger.
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Of course if they did make ATV a timemachine it would need at least two drives. Most wouldn't want to trust their backups to anything less than a two drive RAID. I suppose the poor man's equivalent would be alternating backups to multiple USB drives. i sometimes do that in addition to backing up to my two drive NAS.
 
JohnC1959 said:
Of course if they did make ATV a timemachine it would need at least two drives. Most wouldn't want to trust their backups to anything less than a two drive RAID.
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No, I don’t think so - if you’re even thinking about RAID you already are watching “nascompares” videos on YouTube and eyeing up a Ubiquiti 2 bay NAS at the very least.

I’m talking about the many people who have a MacBook , don’t have a NAS and don’t do any backups at all other than iCloud backups, because there’s no other ciear option from Apple.

There’s a lot of people in that group, and they are not going to spend 400+ USD on a 2 bay NAS and HDDs. They want a simpler solution - like the extra Airpods setting option that appears in MacOS and iOS. Plug a drive into the aAppleTV, you Mac gives you a nice Apple setup wizard (as they do), and you’re done.
 
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Happy_John said:
No, I don’t think so - if you’re even thinking about RAID you already are watching “nascompares” videos on YouTube and eyeing up a Ubiquity small 2 bay NAS.

I’m talking about the many people who have a MacBook , don’t have a NAS and don’t do any backups at all other than iCloud backups, because there’s no other ciear option from Apple.

There’s a lot of people in that group, and they are not going to spend 400+ USD on a 2 bay NAS and HDDs. They want a simpler solution - like the extra Airpods setting option that appears in MacOS and iOS. Plug a drive into the aAppleTV, you Mac gives you a nice Apple setup wizard (as they do), and you’re done.
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I would hope such people backup to at least a pair of USB drives. That's pretty easy and pretty affordable. I don't think Apple would want to lull people into thinking offering a time machine with a single drive is safe.
 
JohnC1959 said:
I would hope such people backup to at least a pair of USB drives. That's pretty easy and pretty affordable. I don't think Apple would want to lull people into thinking offering a time machine with a single drive is safe.
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I don’t think a lot of people do, at least not regularly :-( manually backing up, or using Time Machine on a drive which you have to manually plug into your MacBook, breaks the rule of „i want it to work without having to do anything directly or to worry about it.”

Backing up to one drive is still a hell of a lot better than not regularly backing up at all.
 
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I had one of those OG Apple TVs, and I thought it was great for the time it was released. I got a lot of use out of it. Once it was surpassed by cheaper and smaller and more capable options, I tried to repurpose it as a an actual Mac for tinkering fun and I got it going at first, and then one wrong move and I bricked it and could never revive it, so I finally gave up and e-wasted it.
 
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I had the original one too. Got it right before I got an original iPhone. I figured out how to rip DVDs with handbrake and had a dual Mac Pro so it only took like 30mins for one DVD, my computer broke so Apple sent my a dual processor one with HyperThreads, so it cut it down to 15min. I had an 8 DVD plan from Netflix, and would rip them in a few hours then return them the next day. Took a few years for them to end up only sending me them twice a week. Have over a thousand movies from Netflix. I figured out how to stream from my pro to my Apple TV, which I still do and have done for 18 years. Haven’t ripped a DVD in years though. Other sources with better quality are much more accessible these days.
 
Marzzz said:
My question is why does anyone need this device? My “smart TV” seems to be able to access all of the AppleTV content.
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I got into it because, back then, it was a good way to turn a dumb (or not particularly smart) TV with a great screen into a smart TV.

I've stuck with them for two reasons. Firstly, the common interface across all of my TVs is very much to my liking. Secondly, when I first turned on my PiHole it identified a few clients on my network that were uploading insane amounts of data. Of course, it was my smart TVs. These days my TVs are, and will remain, offline.
 
Marzzz said:
My question is why does anyone need this device? My “smart TV” seems to be able to access all of the AppleTV content.
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I got into it because, back then, it was a good way to turn a dumb (or not particularly smart) TV with a great screen into a smart TV. I've stuck with it for two reasons: the common interface across all TVs and the fact that smart TVs are
 
nickf said:
Got an iPhone? You can use that as a remote.
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Phones make the worst remote possible. I'd rather it have knobs on the front that I get up and use than my phone.

Doesn't help when the kids/wife want to use it, and I'm not around. I'm the only iPhone user.
 
I'm still using 3rd gen Apple TV released in 2012. It was the last model with optical audio output. It is connected to my even older Hi-Fi system where the Apple TV is a wireless AirPlay receiver.
 
WarmWinterHat said:
Phones make the worst remote possible. I'd rather it have knobs on the front that I get up and use than my phone.

Doesn't help when the kids/wife want to use it, and I'm not around. I'm the only iPhone user.
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Back when I lived in Switzerland a few years ago, Orange sold a remote for Apple TV that had buttons for the arrows when the standard Apple remote was just the flat touchpad. I could use either remote with the ATV without issue. Have not seen that remote in a while to check what and why. But definitely more than one remote worked and I do not know why. IR connection? Maybe.
 
MacRumors said:
The Apple TV was controlled with a simple Apple Remote and ran a Front Row-style interface designed for navigating iTunes libraries on a TV. It featured a 40GB hard drive for local content storage and supported 720p HD resolution, offering both HDMI and component video output, and was priced at $299.
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Ah, the good old days when the ATV was hackable!

My 750 GB Apple TV

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WarmWinterHat said:
Phones make the worst remote possible. I'd rather it have knobs on the front that I get up and use than my phone.

Doesn't help when the kids/wife want to use it, and I'm not around. I'm the only iPhone user.
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Yes, that sounds very difficult for you.
 
jbn858273 said:
Back when I lived in Switzerland a few years ago, Orange sold a remote for Apple TV that had buttons for the arrows when the standard Apple remote was just the flat touchpad. I could use either remote with the ATV without issue. Have not seen that remote in a while to check what and why. But definitely more than one remote worked and I do not know why. IR connection? Maybe.
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Found it today. Works just fine even without line of sight. So multiple remotes do appear to be possible.
 
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