We ditched here too recently. One TV roku because wife didn’t care, 2 using XBox and 1 nothing.Yep, I hear you. But we just ditched cable for YouTubeTV and we have different streaming boxes on the different TVs and it driving my wife crazy. It may be worth $179 to keep her happi"er" for a month.
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New Apple TV soon (Jon Prosser)
- Thread starter mjohansen
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I'm also waiting for the new ATV to drop before picking one up. Still rocking the old Gen 2 on our bedroom TV (living room TV don't need as much). I'm in no rush so definitely going to wait for the new one, but would be nice if it was at WWDC if it's really all done and waiting for the greenlight from Apple execs.
No new tvOS beta along with macOS and iOS betas today. watchOS beta is missing too but that usually comes a day or two later. I wonder if we will see the beta after a new device is launched later in the week. Or if they were planning to announce today / this week and haven't because of everything going on in the U.S.
Agree 100%! I've been arguing many of the same points. It almost feels that they have to do this at some point or they'll get boxed out of the home market.
Apple is too proud these days to admit its mistakes and will instead continue with flawed designs with a tweak here and there before releasing the fixed model, a la butterfly keyboard and ATV remote. Hopefully they think two generations is enough to attempt to pass off the fix as an upgrade.
The only time I've seen them really fall on their sword and fix something that was bad was in the original WatchOS. They did a complete redo and made it a lot better. (Still not as good as Samsung's rotating dial UI, but I won't go there) The remote is just not thought out well for many use cases. I've used a lot of Apple gear over the years and I find it unwieldy to use... my wife isn't even willing to try using it and she has an iPad Pro and iPhone that she uses heavily on a daily basis. I can hand her a Roku remote and she's golden. To me, the perfect compromise would be to simply add a couple of buttons to it and keep the trackpad. But agree that isn't Apple's style. Its a "you are holding it wrong" thing.
I work in the gaming industry, and currently the Apple TV is not considered a prime candidate for development for big box AAA dev houses. Even the Nintendo switch has limited development and it would be dead in the water if Nintendo didn't develop their own unique established IPs. Some developers found it difficult to recoup costs for their games on the Nintedo Wii and we haven't seen some return to the Switch. The return is just not there.
While the X line of processors is impressive, the hardware isn't quite up to rival consoles, mainly in storage needs. A new Call of Duty takes north of 60 gigs for install, RDR2 is about 75. Cost is another consideration. Even if Apple were to bump to 128 gigs for the new ATV and price is the same, still falls short. Couple in 30-50 for a controller, we're talking Xbox One S territory. And the new gen consoles will deliver much better performance than an 12X on the GPU side.
System specs becomes moot in a years from now as hosted cloud gaming matures.
Why mention this? Well, I hear often about how Apple should push the ATV to be competitive with consoles. Apple can do fine for casual games or iOS ports to tvOS, but just isn't viable currently for anything other than that. With that said, I do enjoy playing Apple Arcade games.
While the X line of processors is impressive, the hardware isn't quite up to rival consoles, mainly in storage needs. A new Call of Duty takes north of 60 gigs for install, RDR2 is about 75. Cost is another consideration. Even if Apple were to bump to 128 gigs for the new ATV and price is the same, still falls short. Couple in 30-50 for a controller, we're talking Xbox One S territory. And the new gen consoles will deliver much better performance than an 12X on the GPU side.
System specs becomes moot in a years from now as hosted cloud gaming matures.
Why mention this? Well, I hear often about how Apple should push the ATV to be competitive with consoles. Apple can do fine for casual games or iOS ports to tvOS, but just isn't viable currently for anything other than that. With that said, I do enjoy playing Apple Arcade games.
1. Serious gamers want the best version of AAA games.
For Apple TV to be taken seriously, Apple needs to compromise the margin and sell souped up Apple TV (e.g., A14X and 512GB storage) at competitive price. Even then, we are looking at a crowded space that rarely tolerates more than 2 dominant players at a time.
2. What Apple can do instead is emulate Nintendo's playbook. Nintendo consoles are rarely as powerful as Playstation and Xbox, and often ignored or certainly neglected by AAA 3rd party studios as a result. Yet Nintendo manages to carve out a significant marketshare thanks to their in-house portfolio of AAA titles (e.g., Mario and Zelda).
Apple needs to do the same. While Apple Arcade holds some potentials, they are largely iPhone and iPad quality titles (albeit premium). And Apple Arcade does not satisfy the category of gamers that play few games a year.
Margin is something Apple rarely compromises on. So that's a big hurdle on the hardware side.
IMO Apple doesn't have the appetite that Microsoft had when they pushed the Xbox. It was a substantial investment for Microsoft to even be considered a player. Exclusivity deals with developers, buying out studios, extreme marketing pushes, offering a solid SDK, convincing people that it wasn't just a PC, etc. Lots of other factors.
But who knows, Apple has a tremedous amount of resources. They have already built up the distribution platform and content delivery.
I personally don't see them doing much more than they have in the near future.
I understand the potential security issues of the ATV putting a camera/LIDAR array in your home, but a lens cap on a hinge solves that easily and cheaply.
The camera/LIDAR piece could be part of an upgraded version, or an accessory, to keep the entry cost down. That said, since they already went down that road for the phone/tablet vertical - dev costs and economies of scale should keep the unit cost down.
In any case, the current value proposition for the ATV is poor. It either needs to do more, or cost less. I'm advocating for the do more approach. If that's not viable...
The camera/LIDAR piece could be part of an upgraded version, or an accessory, to keep the entry cost down. That said, since they already went down that road for the phone/tablet vertical - dev costs and economies of scale should keep the unit cost down.
In any case, the current value proposition for the ATV is poor. It either needs to do more, or cost less. I'm advocating for the do more approach. If that's not viable...
Maybe. Probably. But consider two things, Apple has spent an unbelievable amount on video content so the current culture/leadership there is willing to spend when they see an upside. I’m not a gamer but I’d like to see Apple take it seriously because it is a service that is more closely tied to their base, hardware.
Second, Apple showed what they can do with ARM in the mobile space, but now they need to wow the world with what they can do with ARM in other consumer spaces. A competitive ARM based Apple console would be a hype monster. Love it or hate it, people will talk about It. An ARM MacBook risks being written off as the Chromebook no one needs. It will sell but will it generate the some excitement?
I've had every generation of AppleTV except the 4K and it's pretty much time for me to buy a new one now. My 4th gen isn't cutting it with some video files I'm throwing at it via Plex and so I'm on the cusp of replacing it. I don't want to buy the 5th gen if the 6th is just around the corner.
How long do these boxes last out of interest? If you’ve had 4 in 13 years then do they not last more than 3-4 years?
I’ve had mine since 2015 (4th gen). No issues for that time period (but will be updating next release for 4K).
Having watched some of the PS5 presser... Apple would need one hell of an TV box to compete in gaming.
Yes, but you can probably fit about 10 Apple TVs into the space of a PS5, and probably power even more with its power supply.
I'm just saying if they want to get serious about gaming and make a dent in the billion dollar industry, they got some work to do!
As I said in my comments earlier in this thread, Apple has a mountain higher than Everest to climb if they wanted to be taken seriously as a gaming device. Which won't likely happen.
Is this the week? It seems Apple is making a few announcements that they can’t fit in at WWDC like the Back to School promo, upgrades for the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro, plus additional options for the Apple Card. Hopefully we will see more announcements during the week including an updated Apple TV!
It's likely to happen any minute now. I've been waiting for a new Apple TV for a while, but I bit the bullet on a Roku Ultra 4k earlier today.. Go ahead Tim Apple, make me shake my fist!
I am still waiting. Though it is getting difficult to keep holding out. Hopeful the WWDC event next Monday will bring some news - or not.
Nintendo Switch has been doing it for years, kicking butt and taking names.
I suspect most of the A##X kick the TegraX1 they use.
ATV needs commitment. Storage for AAA titles. Unified Controller that devs know ever user has.