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Display Models in Apple Store - reliable?

O

old-wiz

macrumors G3
Original poster
Mar 26, 2008
8,331
228
West Suburban Boston Ma
I was at the Apple store in Burlington Ma today, hoping to check out an Apple TV prior to buying one. There was one display model, showing a demo. Picked up Apple remote, tried to do something else, got screen of options (youtube/hulu/podcasts/etc), but couldn't pick any of them. While trying to move cursor around, notice that the pressing buttons on the remote doesn't seem to do much - sometimes the IR light on the ATV would flicker but nothing would happen. After a few minutes the screen went blank and said "no signal"..waited a bit..signal came back, but screen frozen. Apple rep tried rebooting, but no improvement. He felt the remote needed a new battery, but they apparently don't have spare batteries in the store. (why not?) I'm guessing the ATV is not a big seller, so they don't really try to keep it working well - it was in the back corner and hard to get to, so they don't pay the same attention to it that they would to an iMac or a rMBP. Is this flaky behavior typical of the ATV devices? Do they freeze and lose signal a lot? Or is there an issue with the display firmware/software they use in the stores?

Needless to say, I decided not to buy an Apple TV.
 
Sometimes its just demo software on those devices made just to show you the item but its not the actual software shipped on actual units.
 
I have never ever had a single problem with my 4 Apple TV's that I own. The only thing I can think of is that either the sales rep is right, and the remote needed new batteries, or that the remote was not paired with the Apple TV.

Apple TV's have very simple software, and as such they almost never have issues. There are minor bugs every once and a while, but not on the scale you just described. They are by far the most stable set top box on the market.
 
It is the same software that is on your AppleTV. Apple just runs a demo software on it which a lot of times causes problems when people start interacting.

I've never had any problems with the AppleTVs I have owned (1st, 2nd, 3rd gen).
 
My ATV has been rock solid as well. I always figure the stuff in the store is in demo mode and does not have every feature turned on, as the masses would be standing there watching tv all day.
 
Went back to the store 2 days later and the Apple TV was working fine, so I bought one. Took it home and tried to run it's software update, but every time I do it it says downloading...preparing...gets to the very end..then says update failed. Tried several times. I think I'll take it back and ask for a replacement.
 
I have seen that the software update has cauesd problems for a lot of peeps. I have not upgraded yet. Have you tried to unplug it, wait a few minutes, then plug it back in and try software update again?
 
Huh

I've owned both the AppleTV 2 and 3, and have never had an issue that a restart didn't fix.

No more than five times, tops. They've been super reliable.

Both still work great, with their original remotes.
 
old-wiz said:
Update..Unplugged everything...restarted using wi-fi..updated...successful...


?????????
Click to expand...

I believe there was an update bug recently that I read about. Sounds familiar where the LAN won't allow updates but it updates fine over WiFi.
 
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