One of the things I like about the apple tv, is I don't feel like iTunes content is thrown in your face (maybe in search, but not on your home screen). When I use my fire stick, the entire screen is mostly advertising prime content... and my parents have an android smart tv that just looks hideous- I can't find any settings to remove all the ads at the top and multiple rows of suggested apps I have to scroll through before getting to the apps actually installed. Roku is a little better, but the UI makes me feel like i'm using something from the 90's. I guess it all comes down to personal preference and what exactly you're using these devices for.
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First Evidence of Fifth-Generation Apple TV and tvOS 11 Possibly Spotted in Developer Logs
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Also, you can pre-order Iron Man in 4k UHD in Germany now. I'm wondering if Disney is waiting for something else, like ATV5, before announcing 4K HDR support? Mrs. Jobs is on the board, right?
Limited-time exclusives on Disney 4K HDR would be a nice feature.
Completely agree. I'm not sure why the Apple TV receives so much hate, but my fiancée and I love our two ATV 4's we have in the living room and bedroom. Especially since we're cord cutters, they are our main source of consuming video content.
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I would hope no one would make the assumption that having a 4K TV means the content is all 4K. That would be silly.
I am not sure about hate, but you can check out the earlier posts to see what issues people are having with their ATV4s or to see what people feel is missing from them.
There are things I like about my ATV4, but it seems like an unfinished product to me. Also the lack of decent games was a pretty big disappointment.
So do I, however I now also have a "Kodi box" from China which also works really well and it cost about 1/5th of the cost of the AppleTV.
The Apple TV is not 5 times better, it may be twice as good as far as software consistency and polish go, howler I can do a LOT more on the Kodi box that Apple blocks me for doing on the AppleTV.
The next box I buy won't be from Apple.
My experience with set-top boxes like Apple TV are: Roku, Apple TV and Samsung SmartTV. I've seen, read about and demoed some of the others, but I have used the above regularly in my home.
Apple TV is my favorite remote, voice control, and interface.
When I bought the 4th gen, I was excited about the prospect of gaming on it. While there has been some cool games added, there really isn't anything there that makes any kind of statement about the device as a gaming machine. There's no "killer app" for Apple TV. You get most of the popular channels/services and some great mobile/indie games. So it does the job and it does it fairly well comparatively.
I don't own a 4K TV yet and don't expect to for a while, but I do want 4K and HDR to be supported by Apple TVs going forward so that when I do upgrade, my new Apple TV will support it.
The speed of the 4th gen is still pretty great with its A8 variant. Of course any update to the SoC is going to introduce good opportunities and improve the responsiveness of the interface.
The remote does a surprising amount for how few inputs it has. It may not be as good as a gaming controller as Apple wanted it to be, but for navigating apps it gets the job done well. Many people don't realize there are multiple buttons in general touch area of the remote which adds some neat features when apps use them.
I would like to see tvOS add the ability to use multiple apps at the same time. Or, at the very least, use PIP, like people can do with video on iPad (where video can play while user does other things). I would like to be able to watch something on YouTube while I browse for either a new YouTube video or browse Netflix for a TV show or movie to watch. It sucks not being able to look for the next thing to watch until you're done with the current video.
AirPlay is wonderful, but it has glitches. Any improvements to AirPlay are welcome.
While many of the popular services are on Apple TV, some of the apps don't support the same TV Providers as their iPhone/iPad counterparts. For example: on iPhone/iPad the MTV app includes Comcast/Xfinity. However, the TV version does not. This is frustrating and a reason I often use AirPlay - by launching the iPhone/iPad version and casting to the Apple TV.
The new TV app is terrible and useless for my use case. Thankfully you can set it up so that the home button goes straight to the home screen instead of the TV app. The universal login doesn't support many providers and even if they did there would still be restrictions like with the MTv app for whatever reasons.
Glad there's new hardware coming, it more looking forward to the software updates; hopefully most, if not all, of the software updates are compatible on the 4th and 5th gen Apple TVs.
Apple TV is my favorite remote, voice control, and interface.
When I bought the 4th gen, I was excited about the prospect of gaming on it. While there has been some cool games added, there really isn't anything there that makes any kind of statement about the device as a gaming machine. There's no "killer app" for Apple TV. You get most of the popular channels/services and some great mobile/indie games. So it does the job and it does it fairly well comparatively.
I don't own a 4K TV yet and don't expect to for a while, but I do want 4K and HDR to be supported by Apple TVs going forward so that when I do upgrade, my new Apple TV will support it.
The speed of the 4th gen is still pretty great with its A8 variant. Of course any update to the SoC is going to introduce good opportunities and improve the responsiveness of the interface.
The remote does a surprising amount for how few inputs it has. It may not be as good as a gaming controller as Apple wanted it to be, but for navigating apps it gets the job done well. Many people don't realize there are multiple buttons in general touch area of the remote which adds some neat features when apps use them.
I would like to see tvOS add the ability to use multiple apps at the same time. Or, at the very least, use PIP, like people can do with video on iPad (where video can play while user does other things). I would like to be able to watch something on YouTube while I browse for either a new YouTube video or browse Netflix for a TV show or movie to watch. It sucks not being able to look for the next thing to watch until you're done with the current video.
AirPlay is wonderful, but it has glitches. Any improvements to AirPlay are welcome.
While many of the popular services are on Apple TV, some of the apps don't support the same TV Providers as their iPhone/iPad counterparts. For example: on iPhone/iPad the MTV app includes Comcast/Xfinity. However, the TV version does not. This is frustrating and a reason I often use AirPlay - by launching the iPhone/iPad version and casting to the Apple TV.
The new TV app is terrible and useless for my use case. Thankfully you can set it up so that the home button goes straight to the home screen instead of the TV app. The universal login doesn't support many providers and even if they did there would still be restrictions like with the MTv app for whatever reasons.
Glad there's new hardware coming, it more looking forward to the software updates; hopefully most, if not all, of the software updates are compatible on the 4th and 5th gen Apple TVs.
Just for that, he'll still make it HD only.
Disney don't own the rights to Iron Man in Germany, Concorde Video do. I wouldn't read anything into Iron Man's UHD release in Germany as Disney being anywhere near announcing UHD support.
These arguments. They're not valid. If you don't want to use a smartphone to cast, you can easily cast from a laptop/desktop/tablet to a TV. You don't need to use a phone. Not looking at your email? You could, I don't know, not look at your email. Chromecast doesn't require constant interaction with the phone. Grandma? You can cast what she wants to see and walk away. Charging? Cast from something else. Chromecast has always been a complimentary item. It was never intended to be a replacement for cable. It's a simple streaming device. Trying to make it something else leads to disappointment.
I will never be able to understand this type of argument. Just because something has a ton of features doesn't mean you have to use them. Simply go where you want to go and do what you want to do. Nothing says you have to attach external drives or play games or anything. It's there for those who want it. Those who don't can just play a movie.
Computers are complex and have a crap ton of features. People have used them to design rockets, cars, and buildings. Create VR and AR devices. Program smartphones. They have also used the same complex computers to watch Youtube, to Facebook, and post on MR. The complexity didn't inhibit any of that casual stuff. Why would it be an issue on a Shield.
I love my current ATV. Hope the next version has way more features than just 4k. I still have 1080p set, so that is not a big deal for me right now.
One thing I would love is a way to free ATV from the Mac. Have my local media library in a drive that I can plug to ATV or some sort of OTA connection to a server. It is a pain in the but to turn on my Mac whenever I want to watch something out of my library.
One thing I would love is a way to free ATV from the Mac. Have my local media library in a drive that I can plug to ATV or some sort of OTA connection to a server. It is a pain in the but to turn on my Mac whenever I want to watch something out of my library.
Holy crap! You might be right.
That's just... I can't even... Sweet Jeebus. I gotta be fair though. Everyone isn't tech savvy. But that's... nope. Nope. I'm just going to continue to say you're wrong (you're right) and refuse to believe (I believe it) anyone could think that way. You sir, are wrong. (No you're not). Wrong.
Yeah, I really don't know what else they'd be updating without a total re-design, which it's way too early for. Pretty much guaranteed to be 4K. Would really be nice if it supports the various HDR protocols as well though (not sure if the streaming box needs to support that or only the tv). And what about H.265/HEVC?
With a new ATV supporting 4K and HDR, I will probably finally be prompted to lay down the cash for that 65" OLED set to replace my 10 year old Kuro plasma (which still looks really good but is only 720p).
This would be nice.
Another thing that kind of sucks about local storage via iTunes, is that to view movies, even ones you made from your own DVDs requires an internet connection. It doesn't need to be on the internet all the time, but the ATV will occasionally try to contact the iTunes Server, and if it can't it will ask you to sign into iTunes, which you can't if you have no internet.
I found this out during a storm that knocked out all of our power and internet. The power came back out a short time later, but the internet was out for a day. A work around is AirPlaying from the Mac to the ATV, but I felt silly not being about to play my own home movies.
Apple charges whopping $79 to replace broken/missing Siri Remote. That's about 50% of Apple TV.
While current Apple TV iPhone app is not without issue, if exclusion of Siri Remote means much cheaper Apple TV, I am all for it.
As for Siri Remote itself, my main issues are:
- As you mentioned, cannot easily tell which side is top and which is bottom.
- No "Find My Remote" capability.
- Fragile glass trackpad.
- Odd button layout and icons.
- Poorly designed for games.
So because Apple gimps their products, I need a computer running non-stop just to use the Apple TV? That's ridiculous. Might as well get a Chromecast for 40 bucks and call it a day if Plex is your answer.
Better yet, I could just get a Mi Box for $70 with a functioning USB port and have Plex run on it as a server with a connected external and get 4k output as well.
AppleTV is a terrible choice for a streaming device.
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That is incredibly apologist if I've ever seen it. So you're content that they put in a USB-C port but purposely restricted it from being used to connect other devices to it?
Why? Explain yourself.
The GPU (more precisely the display controller) simply does not have the capability to create a 4K signal --- that was not part of the design specs. The iPhone 7+ has 1080p resolution.
Of more relevance to the future, it seems more likely that the next AppleTV will use the A10X. The current iPad Pro 12" is 2732 x 2048 (larger than 1440p resolution of 2560 x 1440, but less than 4K = 3840 x 2160). It's not clear if the A9X (in the current iPad Pro 12") has a display controller that could handle 4K, but it seems certain that the A10X will. Obviously the rest of "decent 4K support", like performant games, will also demand a beefed up GPU.
All of which suggests to me that the next AppleTV will be based on the A10X, not the A11.
The only question, then, is when it ships. Much around the same time as the new iPads (so likely within a month)? Or delayed until a release at WWDC (why? to have something new to announce as a new HW target with substantially boosted 3rd party developer capabilities?) or delayed until September (can't work without functionality that ships in the 2017 iOS/TVOS/watchOS package?)
Certainly (to go off on a tangential rant) the quality of the TV app on iOS is ASTONISHINGLY bad --- the sort of thing I'd expect from some 3rd party no-name developer.
If the current Apple TV shares its never-ending stream of bugs (NONE fixed yet in either iOS 10.1 or 10.2...), from unbelievably poor performance to random crashes to constant memory leaks to ignoring taps to painful and stupid UI, then I could well believe that, even if the HW is ready to go at the time of the iPad release, they may have to delay it till September and the new iOS/TVOS release to pick up a version of TV.app written by people who know WTF they are doing.
I put Kodi on a Raspberry Pi and it was neat. I didn't find it any better than what my Apple TVs do though and it requires tinkering over time. It seems most people that want a Kodi over any of the commercial boxes (Amazon Fire, Android TV [yes I know Kodi is available as an app on Android], Roku, etc...) are really after it for the ease of streamed piracy via apps like Exodus. I'm not interested in that so I prefer the simplicity of Apple TV. And to me, a factor of five just really doesn't matter when the upper end is only $150. Other people's situations are likely different but I'll take the canned solution I can trust.
That may have been true a few years ago, but I completely disagree with this statement today. My in-laws are technophobes and bought a Chromcast box and have had no trouble getting it up and running. These are people that cannot setup their own email accounts in an email client and use the hunt and peck method for typing. Their Chromebox was $80 and an AppleTV starts at $250 here in NZ. I mean it's great if you're wealthy and live in Silicon Valley, New York etc, but AndriodTV and Chromcast as much more accessible for most people.
A lot of new TV's come with AndroidTV and therefore they have no need to buy an Apple TV. My new Sony came with it and no one in my family has any problems using it. It has Amazon and Netflix built in and apps are simple and easy to install. The voice search works great and YouTbue videos look amazing, better than on my computer. The only reason I'd consider an Apple TV is to stream content from my computer or device, but I'm not going to bother, I'm moving over to the OS that is open and on way more devices.
I try a lot of things but I continue to use Apple devices as my main stays in most categories for a variety of reasons. I've had Android TV, I've built a Kodi box, DLNA on routers/NAS, when I was young(er) I played with both MythTV and Windows Media Center, and software solutions like Plex, among others. I haven't had a fire stick but I've disliked the Amazon devices I have owned, they're too locked into Amazon's ecosystem (yes, I see the irony being an Apple fan but with them it's in a "you're a product we want to market" sort of way) which is understandable for what they are and I suppose would be mitigated by jailbreaking (I generally avoid jailbreaking though as I wouldn't rely on it then day to day and wouldn't allow it onto my main network for security reasons).
In any case, I've looked around but I'm still very happy with Apple TV. It is not perfect but it meets my needs very well.