I've seen that before, but it gets such horrible reviews.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
ATV4 - a real disappointment.
- Thread starter LiquidRadio
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I've seen that before, but it gets such horrible reviews.
Yes there are ways of doing this. But for example with the latest ATV, the TV can be switched off, you are using your phone and decide to AirPlay, it switches the TV on and starts displaying immediately with no other intervention. With the Fire TV, you have to start the TV up, run the app etc before you can initiate AirPlay on the phone.
The one thing that doesn't happen on my set-up though, is let's say I am watching Sky TV, start AirPlay, channel flips over on its own and I see the phone. but then when I finish with AirPlay, I stop it from the phone, but it doesn't jump back to my Sky TV...it sits on the ATV home screen.
As an Amazon Associate, MacRumors earns a commission from qualifying purchases made through links in this post.
I can AirPlay pics and videos to it. Never had a problem. Have to admit it's gotten a lot better in the last few months.
Incorrect. You start the Fire TV AirPlay app once and once only It then runs in the background even if you reboot the device. From that point you just open say Apple photos and AirPlay to FIRE TV just like you would to ATV
Last edited by a moderator:
To ask "what were you expecting" on an Apple product is to ignore the very thing that makes Apple products so desirable. A premium product.
Profits (Cook) and Design (Ive) are nice for those kind of fans, but what makes Apple products stand out for others is the "Experience". And (of Apple products in general) the whole "It Just Works" experience does seem to have dropped down a few levels.
For this product specifically, the excitement of a new shiny Apple product was quickly deflated by that entire tedious setup process. -- Login here. Download this. Login again. Where's that app? Wait, it won't pair? Login again. -- And once you finally get things to look like your old AppleTV then you realize the limitations of Siri, Touchpads, Apps and On-Screen Keyboards..
I'm glad this upgrade exists and all, but considering how tight the Apple ecosystem is (and how long delayed theTV4 is) then its just hard to make excuses for not receiving a finished product.
I think your expectations in this area was way too high. Apple, just like Google, Amazon and all others who want to offer movie/video content have come up against an industry that resist change like no other.
The Logins are how THEY want it. They absolutely do not want their lucrative business model, renting cable boxes, to go away.
As for the initial setup... I found that easy. Place my phone on the device, enter my Apple ID password... Done.
Because I know how resistant the tv/movie industry is. I did not expect any change in how we authenticate. I don't manage local storage. I stream everything, Including iTunes purchases. When I tested connecting to my Mac, it worked flawlessly. As for the iOS remote app... I can count on one hand how many times I've used it. I wonder just how many regular (non-tech people like us) Apple TV user even know it exists???
The only thing I am looking forward to is what Devs will bring to this box. Because let's be real.... It's the Devs that have made Apple's mobile Devices the must have they are today.
Picking one up today and I had no idea the remote app doesn't work. What a bummer. I love to type with it.
No offense, but I think you're putting too much emphasis in your "knowledge of the industry" in a room of people who've been following every step (and obstacle) preventing us from getting the ultimate streaming box. The complaints aren't about how the services work, its about the experience of the product Apple created.
1) Bluetooth Keyboard / Remote.app Support - Apple can't control login procedures, but they can provide input methods that they already established 5 years ago with previous
TV's.2) The AppleTV is 1yr+ delayed - This is the most common conclusion for why a 2016 device is missing things like 4k or even Apple's Force Touch. If this were a "modern" product then it would be ready for the future and unfortunately it already feels ready for an upgrade.
3) Siri - Anyone who has made fun of the Amazon Echo for its limited results should cringe in embarrassment at Siri for TV. We're pretty much limited to the commands from the demo and nothing more.
4) Apps - You say how Devs are so important, and its true. BUT... how can we put so much expectation on Devs and none on Apple themselves? Remote.app. HomeKit. Podcasts. Siri integration with iTunes. Missing 3rd party support is one thing, but missing 1st party support is silly.
Again, you're preaching to the choir here so theres no need to take a defensive stance on the new AppleTV because we all want the same thing. A product that matches Apples old "It Just Works" tagline. And if Apple didn't provide that experience at launch (after several years of delays) then it should be understandable for why people would feel disappointed.
Last edited:
Sure, there's no disputing any of this. I, too, am certain that improvements will come, in time.
No offense, but I think you're putting too much emphasis in your "knowledge of the industry" in a room of people who've been following every step (and obstacle) preventing us from getting the ultimate streaming box. The complaints aren't about how the services work, its about the experience of the product Apple created.
1) Bluetooth Keyboard / Remote.app Support - Apple can't control login procedures, but they can provide input methods that they already established 5 years ago with previous
2) The AppleTV is 1yr+ delayed - This is the most common conclusion for why a 2016 device is missing things like 4k or even Apple's Force Touch. If this were a "modern" product then it would be ready for the future and unfortunately it already feels ready for an upgrade.
3) Siri - Anyone who has made fun of the Amazon Echo for its limited results should cringe in embarrassment at Siri for TV. We're pretty much limited to the commands from the demo and nothing more.
4) Apps - You say how Devs are so important, and its true. BUT... how can we put so much expectation on Devs and none on Apple themselves? Remote.app. HomeKit. Podcasts. Siri integration with iTunes. Missing 3rd party support is one thing, but missing 1st party support is silly.
Again, you're preaching to the choir here so theres no need to take a defensive stance on the new AppleTV because we all want the same thing. A product that matches Apples old "It Just Works" tagline. And if Apple didn't provide that experience at launch (after several years of delays) then it should be understandable for why people would feel disappointed.
All of those things can and probably will be remedied in software updates. We know Siri improvements are coming within the next few months.
Developers will and are bringing more apps to the platform. Most of us have only had access to the TVos platform for a few months. Only some of the bigger studios got a bit of early access.
Maybe they should have launched this a year ago, or two years ago for that matter. But if this hardware really was delayed for a year, they would have improved on it. They wouldn't just sit on their hands.
More likely is, in typical Apple style they've been planning on using the A8 processor at a point when it becomes even cheaper to do so. Such as a year after it's launch when it's already been superseded. Not to mention that some features (4K, Touch ID, Force Touch) will have been deliberately excluded to be selling points for the next model. Now that is very Apple.
I, too, am not fussed about 4K support. People have always pecked at Apple's supposed lack of ambition re its iTunes content (when HD finally came it was 720p only, 1080p followed later, audio codec support was minimal...), but I think they judged the market very astutely. I bought my first HDTV in 2005, and I was an early adopter of Blu-ray; but most people, in my experience, didn't give a [!!!!] about HD for another five or six years.
Maybe I'm giving them too much credit here, but I think Apple understood that a portable, lossy-as-Hell SD file protocol was perfectly adequate for most users - so why put their own noses out of joint by upgrading the iTunes store with HD versions of almost everything until the mass market was asking for it?
I feel similarly about 4K. Does it look great? Absolutely. Do most people care, and/or can they even tell the difference over 1080p? I doubt it.
reading a few comments above about excluding Force Touch, Touch ID, etc...
those features are still expensive and limited in quantity. they are only available to expensive flagship device iphone. ATV is only $150. adding these new features now to ATV would increase ATV cost which people will complain. expensive ATV would limit its market penetration which results in slow app development.
A good example was PS3 back in the day when Sony built it with all high tech (blueray, Cell, ect). at $600 it lagged behind Xbox 360, which was inferior technically, for years.
those features are still expensive and limited in quantity. they are only available to expensive flagship device iphone. ATV is only $150. adding these new features now to ATV would increase ATV cost which people will complain. expensive ATV would limit its market penetration which results in slow app development.
A good example was PS3 back in the day when Sony built it with all high tech (blueray, Cell, ect). at $600 it lagged behind Xbox 360, which was inferior technically, for years.
Yeah, that really was putting the cart before the horse. I think Sony were so convinced that the runaway success of the PS2 would bleed through into their next machine that they didn't consider, y'know, **pricing** to be a concern.
Ironically, I think Microsoft made a similar mistake one generation later - just because we all bought a 360 (in fact, I bought three!), it doesn't follow that we'll all buy what is clearly the slightly inferior next-gen console, for more money. Please go away and try that again...
No offense, but I think you're putting too much emphasis in your "knowledge of the industry" in a room of people who've been following every step (and obstacle) preventing us from getting the ultimate streaming box. The complaints aren't about how the services work, its about the experience of the product Apple created.
1) Bluetooth Keyboard / Remote.app Support - Apple can't control login procedures, but they can provide input methods that they already established 5 years ago with previous
2) The AppleTV is 1yr+ delayed - This is the most common conclusion for why a 2016 device is missing things like 4k or even Apple's Force Touch. If this were a "modern" product then it would be ready for the future and unfortunately it already feels ready for an upgrade.
3) Siri - Anyone who has made fun of the Amazon Echo for its limited results should cringe in embarrassment at Siri for TV. We're pretty much limited to the commands from the demo and nothing more.
4) Apps - You say how Devs are so important, and its true. BUT... how can we put so much expectation on Devs and none on Apple themselves? Remote.app. HomeKit. Podcasts. Siri integration with iTunes. Missing 3rd party support is one thing, but missing 1st party support is silly.
Again, you're preaching to the choir here so theres no need to take a defensive stance on the new AppleTV because we all want the same thing. A product that matches Apples old "It Just Works" tagline. And if Apple didn't provide that experience at launch (after several years of delays) then it should be understandable for why people would feel disappointed.
Ok, you have made some valid points here. But before I answer you have to accept one thing: you, like me, are a power user. You, like everyone else on this site are not casual users of tech products. Fact of electronics today: casual users way outnumber power users. Casual users command more attention from tech companies as they spend way more.
Look at this from a casual user's POV....
-How many of them even know a remote app exist, let alone use it?
-How many have even used a keyboard with a streaming box?
Now I'm not saying Apple shouldn't have updated the remote app. But this box is being marketed to the casual user. Not power users like us. It doesn't allow storage management. It does support multiple codecs. It doesn't support multiple audio outs... Etc etc. If the bulk of your market doesn't care about this stuff, would you spend time developing for it?
4K..... Again with the 4K silliness. Power users are so enamoured by tech specs. Ooh 4K means its the latest and greatest.
4K will need another 10 years before it is even a real thing to the casual masses. (The market Apple is targeting)
But yes I know.... You are a power user. You MUST have 4K now even though support is sparse and will still be for the next couple of years. (Oh and there is no such thing as future proof when it come to technology)
Siri... Spot on. But this is a new platform. Let's see how it matures.
Siri integration with iTunes?!?? You mean your local storage??? Not going to happen. Steve Jobs made it a point with the ATV2 that they moving away from local management. That ship has sailed.
Complaining about lack of 4K right now is stupid. But none of that matters when the ATV4 is a crashing, buggy, piece of ****. Save your money. I wish I had.
Sorry it's been such a bust for you, dude. Are you sending it back, or hanging on for the updates?
Well... if you're really unhappy with it, then is 15% so much to lose? I mean, if the new Apple TV is totally useless to you, I'd argue that getting 85% back isn't too bad a deal. On the other hand, if you think it will become useful to you later, I'd suggest hanging onto it.
I do understand your woes, let me say first, but charging a restocking fee is nothing outrageous in the world of business - after all, when a product is returned it needs checking and repackaging so that it can be resold, which does cost money - though I'm slightly surprised to see Apple, of all companies, enforcing this policy. Seems to go against the generally mega-super-customer-supportive attitude that I've always come across, in my dealings with them (I'd say the same for Amazon).
Has this too changed since Steve's passing, I wonder? The academic discount on Macs isn't as generous as it used to be, I can tell you...
... in the immortal words of Abba, "money-money-money"...?
How much would FT and Touch ID add to the price of TV and to the price of the stand alone remote? People are already saying it's too expensive. Since the Secure Element, which stores Touch ID credentials, is on the SOC how would you enable it in the remote? Build a special chip just for Touch ID? One would assume most people who bought the TV have a smartphone or tablet. Apple needs to update the remote app and create one for Android. IMO this should have been there at launch.
Those devices will probably sitting in apple's dispatch Centre is now called Apple TV 5 waiting for suckers like you and me to re-buy again!
To be fair... casual users dont buy AppleTV's.
Regardless of the "simplicity" tags, AppleTV has always been consumed by the middle/advanced users.
And BTW. What's with the fingerpointing at casual users not deserving a better experience?
- BT Keyboards
- Remote.APP
- Siri Dictation (leave passwords as manual)
- iCloud sync settings from old AppleTV
- iCloud Keychain with iOS/OSX
- Setup Sync like with Apple Watch
Regardless of the patronizing "casual user" deflection, the fact of the matter is that solutions exist and with a bit of effort then several solutions exist. Apple simply chose not to pursue them.
So the 4k that is available in numerous places Today is dismissed as "Tomorrows Tech"?
- iPhone 6S ("casual" phone) was demoed to record 4k video
- iMovie ("casual" app) is updated for 4k output
- Most new TV's on the market support 4k
- Netflix 4k available
I'm not being a 4K advocate. I'm just not going to pretend that technology available right now is "10years away". 4k exists. It just doesnt exist on the AppleTV.
Last edited:
I've experiences a lot of bugs and the repeated woes of having to use the on-screen keyboard to type in a zillion credentials but the most worrying thing to me is that I actually don't like the Siri Remote. While I feel in total control with the inertial scrolling in iOS and OS X, I 'm constantly nervous about shooting past my intended target with the Siri Remote. I've been trying out tapping the sides/top/bottom instead of scrolling but haven't gotten used to that either.
The Siri Remote is the big investment that Apple is making for the new ATV and I can't say that I'm sold on the touch interface or at least the way they implemented it.
The Siri Remote is the big investment that Apple is making for the new ATV and I can't say that I'm sold on the touch interface or at least the way they implemented it.
It's unfortunate so many seem to dislike theirs. Mines out for delivery today, and I'm starting to have second thoughts. I'm still hoping it'll be a big enough jump over my atv2 to not regret spending the money.
