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Will AppleTV be multi-user?

Menel

Menel

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Original poster
Aug 4, 2011
6,351
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Currently, iPhones and iPads are single user devices. Makes sense.

But a box at the TV for Video, and iTunes Music... those are personal playlists.
Game save slots and progress, and iCloud syncing.

It's by definition a shared box in the household. Has it been shown how this is handled?
 
Apple does not care about your family. If you want more users, buy more apple tvs
 
yalag said:
Apple does not care about your family. If you want more users, buy more apple tvs
Click to expand...

I hardly think they dont care .... I think its more a lack of vision that the TV is a center piece product in a home and not a personal product like a smartphone ...

But I too would like to be proven wrong .. and that Apple did have a vision of multi icloud logins
 
aduteau said:
I hardly think they dont care .... I think its more a lack of vision that the TV is a center piece product in a home and not a personal product like a smartphone ...

But I too would like to be proven wrong .. and that Apple did have a vision of multi icloud logins
Click to expand...
rofl apple spent 5 years making this product, you'd think someone would have asked that question along the way....get real, they want you to buy a device for each member of the family
 
yalag said:
rofl apple spent 5 years making this product, you'd think someone would have asked that question along the way....get real, they want you to buy a device for each member of the family
Click to expand...

How about you get real, not every family has 4+ TV at home.
TV is a center piece product for homes and not a personal device.
iPhones and iPads are personal devices that Apple makes a big profit margin, those are the products they want you buy for each family members, not TVs and Apple TVs.
 
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aduteau said:
How about you get real, not every family has 4+ TV at home.
TV is a center piece product for homes and not a personal device.
iPhones and iPads are personal devices that Apple makes a big profit margin, those are the products they want you buy for each family members, not TVs and Apple TVs.
Click to expand...

Ok then explain why thousands of employees working on a product for 5 years did not think to include this feature, if it is not to sell you more units
 
yalag said:
Ok then explain why thousands of employees working on a product for 5 years did not think to include this feature, if it is not to sell you more units
Click to expand...

Lack of vision for this version of tvOS.
Just like when the iPhone launched .... no need for copy and paste .... no need for apps .... no need for extension between apps. those were all features people wanted ... but apple said no and wait.

I guess we will see more features with future versions of tvOS
 
yalag said:
You can't have family sharing with app data. If you login into netfilx you are either user A or user B, not a family

They want you to buy 2 apple tv connected to the TV
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Yeah i meant with movie and app purchases etc. (and yes i know that's no solution to the problems with multiple users)
 
yalag said:
You can't have family sharing with app data. If you login into netfilx you are either user A or user B, not a family

They want you to buy 2 apple tv connected to the TV
Click to expand...
I don't think Apple wants you to buy multiple ATVs. Why? If a person with two children sees the ATV's $150 price tag, but feels they need to buy one for each family member, they will do the math and decide the ATV is not worth $450 dollars. In this scenario, Apple gets no money. Such a complicated setup actually detracts from the ATVs value.
If you look at competitors' offerings in this space you will see that the Fire TVs and Rokus of the world also don't have this feature… I don't know why this would be. A lack of multi user support is never mentioned as a mark against these products in a review either. My only guess is that this may be a problem "normals" don't care about.
I think the reason it is absent is simply because of effort. The ATV is heavily based on iOS, which only supports single users itself. My guess is that they decided the feature would take months of effort and because the competitors don't have it multi user is uneccessary for competing in the market. I disagree with that analysis but I think that is how it went down. Hopefully Apple will introduce multi user support to the iPad (sounds crazy but iOS 9 lets you run two apps at once which was a crazy idea three years ago) and eventually port it to the ATV.
I think it was on a podcast, but I heard somebody say that the Apple Watch was Apple's new hobby. I disagree. The Apple Watch has better design, software support, integration, and marketing. The absence of multi user shows that Apple is content to keep the ATV at parity with its competitors. There are other poorly thought out elements (focus-based UI makes poor use of multitouch, no first party game controller) that lead me to believe Apple's heart still just isn't in the ATV. Or maybe it's part of a larger strategy that will unfold later. Either way what they are launching next month is disappointing considering the three year wait.
 
aduteau said:
I hardly think they dont care .... I think its more a lack of vision that the TV is a center piece product in a home and not a personal product like a smartphone ...

But I too would like to be proven wrong .. and that Apple did have a vision of multi icloud logins
Click to expand...

What if the individual apps have multi users like Netflix does right now?

Out of curiosity... How many other streaming boxes have multi users? Not talking about gaming systems, just steaming boxes.
 
2010mini said:
What if the individual apps have multi users like Netflix does right now?
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That's a lot to imagine developers will do for an unproven platform. Look at the apps on ATV3, most don't go to the lengths Netflix does. Not to mention all data on ATV4 including sign ins must be associated with an iCloud account, making developers' home-grown multi user support a pale imitation of a system-wide multi user implementation.
 
2010mini said:
Out of curiosity... How many other streaming boxes have multi users? Not talking about gaming systems, just steaming boxes.
Click to expand...
msavich said:
If you look at competitors' offerings in this space you will see that the Fire TVs and Rokus of the world also don't have this feature… I don't know why this would be. A lack of multi user support is never mentioned as a mark against these products in a review either.
Click to expand...
 
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You have been able to have multiple itunes accounts associated with an apple tv for a while haven't you? It's a little clunky as you have to go into settings to switch accounts but it's not hard. Just clunky.
 
seamusk said:
You have been able to have multiple itunes accounts associated with an apple tv for a while haven't you? It's a little clunky as you have to go into settings to switch accounts but it's not hard. Just clunky.
Click to expand...

iTunes accounts only provide functionality to the iTunes apps. Third party apps and apps that use iCloud still have a problem.
 
yalag said:
Apple does not care about your family. If you want more users, buy more apple tvs
Click to expand...

This is how they feel (and I agree) about iPads and iPhones...but the living room is meant for 1 AppleTV. As it was before, it was limited to one person's iTunes and iCloud account. Now with an App Store and being much more like an iOS 9 device...it is even more centrally tied to one person.

That doesn't really fit the family style in the living room and I know for a fact will cause some contention we try to figure out how best to use this as a group. Hopefully Apple already has this figured out and just hasn't told us yet.

They gave us global search (sort of), now please bring Family Sharing with mutli-user support to AppleTV 4!
 
seamusk said:
You have been able to have multiple itunes accounts associated with an apple tv for a while haven't you? It's a little clunky as you have to go into settings to switch accounts but it's not hard. Just clunky.
Click to expand...
msavich said:
iTunes accounts only provide functionality to the iTunes apps. Third party apps and apps that use iCloud still have a problem.
Click to expand...

What's more, multi-iTunes accounts wouldn't even be necessary with Family Sharing built-in. Its the iCloud accounts that are way more personal for things like Photos, backups, etc.
 
TurboPGT! said:
What's more, multi-iTunes accounts wouldn't even be necessary with Family Sharing built-in. Its the iCloud accounts that are way more personal for things like Photos, backups, etc.
Click to expand...
Exactly. And you know, it looks like all data stored on ATV4 needs to be backed by an iCloud account. That means that if there is iCloud switching akin to what we already have on ATV3 with iTunes switching it would go a long way towards solving this problem.
 
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