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New Apple TV First Impressions: Not a 'Revolution,' But Siri and tvOS Shine
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This looks really great, but I wish they had created something for the family. A TV is a family device. It is perfect for integration with iCloud family. I suppose I'll have to use my Apple ID for my entire family to use, so my music, my photos etc. What about my wife..? She'll have to see my playlists and photo galleries. It seems like a missed opportunity to me. The TV could have been a great place to merge together your family life.
You've got Volume control on that remote now too. I want that absolutely. 50 bucks isn't worth thinking about.
I have a harmony remote, but it's a bit slow, and I am thinking that instant Siri will come in handy in our household. If you have more than one person in the house, this remote will be good. Maybe the 50+ people will even be able to use it. Some of these oldsters can't even see an iPhone screen clearly - the Siri button and volume control make this thing a must I think. The touch pad is also great.
I wonder if the IR blaster included with the new Apple TV box will be good enough to replace my octopus IR cords from the harmony RF remote? I would like to get rid of that thing.
Siri could be a big channel surfing navigator time saver. I have a full Cable TV package, but i find I hardly watch any TV because it's just a bunch of crap reality shows repeated over and over. I miss a lot of new TV series because I am not familiar with the show names, I just don't care that much. The few good shows I want, I record with my cable box at the moment. It will be nice when Siri suggests new shows for me like Mr. Robot or Last man on earth. Finding that stuff right now takes about 3 minute in a frustrating letter picking and pecking frustration.
I use the Remote app, but even launching the app is a bit of a pain to do, and it only works for me, not the others in the house - they just aren't into doing that.
And yeah I use Siri for filling in stuff in the remote app right now instead of typing it in, but this is a whole new level of functionality. Get the remote is what I'd say.
I know, that was an odd omission that should see more attention. If Apple wants to stay on the forefront, they should support even emerging technologies. Especially emerging technologies. Even more so when the iPhone 6s records 4K. You can record, but not play it back? Sure, there are other non-Apple TV means to get it to your TV, but I had expected the new iPhone 6s and Apple TV hardwares to support H.265 to enable 4K AirPlay over WiFi. It only makes sense, especially with the strong platform integration I'm used to see from Apple.
Apple ships worldwide. Not all countries have the limitations the US have. For instance, I have fiber with 1Gbs (even if it's a bit lower in practical use) and unlimited data. And that's for 37€/m. I'm perfectly 4k ready with my ISP. Actually, my ISP box is 4k enabled already. It's a pity that my free ISP box has that capacity and that Apple $150 TV does not...
You do realise that it is possible to build hardware that is capeable to deliver media that is not yet available via a specific service...but then this product would not be obsolete within a couple of years.
Yeah, I can see your point, that would be bad...for Apple.
I wonder if the Apple TV can use a VPN like on the iPhone or iPad... That would be a great selling point to access HBO or Netflix from abroad...
I also wonder if it can access movies on network shares. 128 GB is very small...
I also wonder if it can access movies on network shares. 128 GB is very small...
I think you have a good point there. I'd love to cancel my $120 per month cable bill - it is such a ripoff and we hardly watch anything. I know a lot of cheapskates (my good friends) who do download all their TV shows, and I could do it too, but it's a big time waster. I tried a Raspberry Pi thing that can basically stream just about any torrented TV etc, but it's a step down in resolution and again takes too much maintenance of the XBMC stuff. Waste of my time....
I think if I paid for what I watched it would be cheaper than $120 per month. I'd be willing to pay $30 per month, but if you want HD channels and blah blah, you gotta pay pay pay.
I guess another key factor will be "local TV news" - Apple needs to get me my local hick-town city news team on Apple TV. I hope they succeed. If I can get local news, it's bye bye cable company.
That's the real bottleneck that Apple is going to win. Short the Cable TV company stocks maybe? Or maybe they will just be serving up the bandwidth?
You can trick it out right now to get a UK IP address for better Netflix so yes I think you can do it. That has more to do with your LAN setup (correct me if I am wrong).
My existing Apple TV does Dolby 5.1 which is all my amp has on it, so I bet you will get it. There is optical and HDMI there, so why not.
I respect most of the comments so far, but who's really holding back 4k adoption for boxes like these?
Comcast. Sky. Frontier/Time Warner Cable. CenturyLink. Velcom. Verizon. ATT U-Verse. The list of lousy ISPs with data caps and plenty of excuses goes on, and on, and on...
We can't use the fat pipes to their potential if someone won't open up the spigot...
Apple are a content-service provider just like the others you have mentioned above, they're no different. Someone needs to start providing 4K content otherwise we will continue with the starvation of 4K. If you look at your local TV Showroom, you'll find that the majority of new TVs are 4K TVs. The problem is that there is still very little mainstream 4K content available. The devices are there but the content is not. A lot of people have 4K TVs and monitors sitting in their home but have little choice for 4K content. The only real mainstream content providers are Netflix, Amazon Prime and YouTube. What about Apple and the rest?
Living in the UK, data caps from ISPs is now uncommon. Most ISPs now offer unlimited data as a standard and internet speeds are for the most part compatible with 4K bandwidths. I'm sure it's the same for most first world countries.
Now that the new iPhone supports 4K video recording, there's even more reason why the new Apple TV should have 4K compatibility.
I think you are being tough on the device. The Siri voice support and apps are huge... The content will be great too and very deluxe with the captions and such...
If they made it with multi HDMI's smart guys like us could benefit for sure, but the average joe would just get confused. They have to keep it simple enough. If I still had a satellite or other feeds I could swing it pretty easily - as I do now with my existing Apple TV. it has it's own HDMI and the audio outputs are all going to my main amp (an older Bose system).
It think it's acceptable not to have more HDMI's
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater
I don't know what it's for - I mean, could it be used for buffering the streamed video maybe or predictive downloading in advance of your requests maybe? maybe.
I do know that apps are going to be limited to 200MB size or they will have to be streamed or something.
Yeah, I want to know also. Like can I just program the IR blaster on the Apple TV to be encoded to a Siri Voice command? Like "switch me back to cable TV" and "switch over to Apple TV"
Indeed yes.
I am, and we all aware Apple is never going to be going after the "Hard Core Gaming"
but I'd place the Apple TV even lower than the low end Wii gaming people.
I'd like to see the power it has, but making it less powerful than even an iPhone is not a good start.
did you see the difference between the iPhone game, which is on a 5" screen, against the quality of the appleTV game on perhaps a 50" screen.
Very very poor.
Given it's on mains power, even for soft/low end gamers it should at LEAST be up the same quality as the current iPhone or iPad models.
Apple ships worldwide. Not all countries have the limitations the US have. For instance, I have fiber with 1Gbs (even if it's a bit lower in practical use) and unlimited data. And that's for 37€/m. I'm perfectly 4k ready with my ISP. Actually, my ISP box is 4k enabled already. It's a pity that my free ISP box has that capacity and that Apple $150 TV does not...
Not just Apple, the US cable companies do not support 4K. Most don't support 1080p. Comcast is still 1080i. I think Verizon FiOS is too.
About the limitations in the US though, most of the US does not have a data cap, a few years ago, Comcast suspended the data cap for almost 100% of their coverage. Although recently they have started enforcing it in many more areas and it is spreading.
Bandwidth in the US is also pretty good in most areas, although still behind in many parts of the world, I just did a Speedtest and got 179Mb/s down and 12 Mb/s up. That is more than perfectly fine for streaming a few ATV3 boxes without issues, although if I was streaming 4K, I am not sure how many streams I could have going.
1ms ping is amazing. I have in the 10ms-30ms with my current isp and I think that is fast.
What is with the "Faster than 99% of FR", is the rest of the country super slow?
Any evidence that the new Apple TV is AirPlay compatible? I've not seen anything in writing. Seems odd, but by killing Airplay to Apple TV they would jumpstart app development for the Apple TV App Store.
Otherwise you will get a lot of content owners deciding to wait it out (not like Apple TV has a huge marketshare yet) and rely on AirPlay for big screen access.
Also might be Apple succumbing to big content owners to get this subscription deal off the ground. AirPlay is fantastic for getting users own content (torrents, DVD rips, etc) onto the current Apple TV via apps like VLC.
Otherwise you will get a lot of content owners deciding to wait it out (not like Apple TV has a huge marketshare yet) and rely on AirPlay for big screen access.
Also might be Apple succumbing to big content owners to get this subscription deal off the ground. AirPlay is fantastic for getting users own content (torrents, DVD rips, etc) onto the current Apple TV via apps like VLC.
Agreed. The internals could be in constant overdrive with unlimited power and some vents.
4K is a marketing scam at this moment in time, since the majority of content that is available in 4K wasn't even filmed in 4K in the first place. Most movies/TV shows are filmed in 2K even now.
All 4K is right now is essentially 1080p+, true 4K content won't be around for a couple of years. Yes there's the odd movie (The Hobbit) or TV show (Breaking Bad, House of Cards) that was actually filmed in 4K, but that content is dwarfed (excuse the pun haha) by pretty much everything else, which was filmed in 2K.
4K will get better in time, but TBH it's pretty pointless right now. 1080p OLED will give you better PQ until 4K matures into something worthy of the upgrade.
I love the new Apple TV but a bit gutted about the lack of Optical Audio port in this model. My TV doesn't do Dolby Digital passthrough it only down converts to stereo, and my AV Receiver is an older model that only has Optical in rather than HDMI. So in that way it would be a downgrade for me from my 2nd Gen Apple TV however the App Store, Remote, Siri, and Interface make a good compelling reason to upgrade.
I have a DJI Phantom 3 Pro drone that records 4K video. It's pretty awesome video, but it is low bandwidth 4K video. That's where what you say about "scam" is sortof true I guess.
I think lots of stuff can be shot in 4K right now. I think Go Pro whatever black cube thing shoots 4K video, much like the Phantom drone does and I think it's great that the iPhone can do it now too.
It's not pointless, you gotta start somewhere. We've done this over and over again for the last 30 years. Eventually 4K will seem like crap, trust me. You will have Bladerunner resolutions coming in the next 10 years perhaps.
You won't need a telescope anymore. Just point your iPhone at the night sky and use the two finger pinch on the screen to resolve the rings of Saturn. Imagine that eh? Sounds plausible.
No, I'm just super fast
1 Gb/s fiber is still mainly for some people in Paris, the norm for fiber is 100 Mb/s, which is still sufficient for 4k. Fiber or cable is becoming quite common in big cities. But the rest of the country is mostly using ADSL, with bandwidth being high in cities but getting pretty low in the middle of the countryside.Still, no data caps anywhere, we got rid of them 20 years ago thanks to Free ISP.
We also do have a few experimental programs in 4k on DTT - such as the Roland Garros tennis championship. So it appears to be working on DTT, though I guess you need to have a good quality signal.
And the sales on 4k TV are almost on par with the sales of HD TV now.
So, technically a significant part of the population could have access to 4k in streaming. Another part would have access through downloading in advance and storing on the device. But the real problem is that the contents are still pretty rare. And AppleTV not being 4k enabled is certainly not helping. The fact that my ISP can provide a 4k enabled box for cheap (I would have to pay an extra 2€ for an extra 4k box running on Android) shows that the hardware to support 4k is not very expensive...
True - and that's another thing. Most home made "true" 4K content will be low-ish bitrates too, giving an inferior image. Don't get me wrong, it will be great for some. Those who have uber-powerful gaming PCs or those who want to watch ultraHD sports. It's just not for most of us yet, including me - and I count myself as a huge tech enthusiast.
When you said 'you gotta start somewhere' - I get that, but this is a whole different ballgame from VHS to DVD, or DVD to Blu-Ray, due to the fact that I mentioned earlier - most past media (TV shows/movies) wasn't filmed in 4k, making it a much tougher sell.
Once the ball is rolling however and we have a few years worth of true 4K content under the belt - then I'll upgrade. For now, it's just not worth it. I'll continue on the 1080p bandwagon for the next couple of years, as practically everything since the dawn of time has been filmed at this resolution, or on film which again doesn't show much of a difference from 1080p to 4K.
That's why I think 1080p OLED is the best option for a good couple of years. It'll look better than an equivalent priced 4K set for 99% of media.