"They" refers to a Plex app. Yes, there is a Plex app for the iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone, but not on ?TV. There are some hacks for getting that app installed on ?TV but it is nontrivial. Of course one can use the AirPlay to toss the media over but it would be a much better experience if the app actually ran on ?TV. If Apple does open a TV app store the existing Plex app may port quickly to a running app with a slightly adjusted UI. However, I still find Air Video HD presents a better image from the same content as Plex when tossed onto ?TV. On the smaller device the difference is probably not visible.
I have, and I agree it's frustrating - but not nearly as frustrating as not being able to use the device at all! The devices are travel-sized and I'm sure I'm not the only one to travel with them. Obviously the browser I am asking about would be there for the single purpose of authenticating with these sign-on pages.
On the simplest systems, even for free internet, there's usually a checkbox you have to check to agree to their terms and conditions, and then a submit button. The most complex page requires me to select one of 3 different connect packages, the number of days I need it for, my last name, room number and then click submit. I think I could handle that using the Apple TV remote. They already have a built in keyboard for doing searches and configuring other settings.
So, in short, I guess what you're saying is that you have no idea either...
What you are saying is for the consumer who needs to connect his Apple TV to a hotel television there needs to be a browser. So Apple needs to have an ATV browser team working full time for those cases but since the browser won't just be used for that it also needs to work as well as an iOS browser.
That's a lot of work for limited gain. You could bring an iPad.
On iOS (which the ATV isn't) the settings page bypasses safari when you access a router with a landing page and shows the landing page in its own web view. That seems like the solution
A8X - ability to play console level games and advanced Apps
I don't know if it's going to be awesome or not, will have to wait and see for that. But I do agree that the most obvious explanation for the price increase it's that the next Apple TV is going to be a game console not just a set top box. Watch out Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, a fourth player is coming.
What you are saying is for the consumer who needs to connect his Apple TV to a hotel television there needs to be a browser. So Apple needs to have an ATV browser team working full time for those cases but since the browser won't just be used for that it also needs to work as well as an iOS browser.
That's a lot of work for limited gain. You could bring an iPad.
On iOS (which the ATV isn't) the settings page bypasses safari when you access a router with a landing page and shows the landing page in its own web view. That seems like the solution
I didn't say what Apple needs to do. I can't imagine it would take a "full-time team" to add limited browser capabilities - but that's irrelevant. My post simply asked the question "Does anyone know the real reason a browser is not included on these devices?" I use Apple as an example because it is the device I am most familiar with but it is the same story on the Google Chromecast and the low-end Roku box.
Suggesting an iPad instead is not helpful. You are assuming that I travel alone. How much sense does it make to have 3 people huddled around a 9.7" iPad when there is a 32" flatscreen going unused?
So - your guess as to why the browser is not included is because of prohibitive development costs? I doubt that's the reason, but I suppose it could be.
I didn't say what Apple needs to do. I can't imagine it would take a "full-time team" to add limited browser capabilities - but that's irrelevant. My post simply asked the question "Does anyone know the real reason a browser is not included on these devices?" I use Apple as an example because it is the device I am most familiar with but it is the same story on the Google Chromecast and the low-end Roku box.
Suggesting an iPad instead is not helpful. You are assuming that I travel alone. How much sense does it make to have 3 people huddled around a 9.7" iPad when there is a 32" flatscreen going unused?
So - your guess as to why the browser is not included is because of prohibitive development costs? I doubt that's the reason, but I suppose it could be.
What's good about a browser if it's "limited". The real reason is user experience.
What's good about a browser if it's "limited". The real reason is user experience.
Did you even bother reading the posts? What's good about it is that it would allow people to sign up to the Internet services in hotels thereby improving its suitability as a travel companion. The only reason for the browsers existence on the device would be to display these sign on screens.
Did you even bother reading the posts? What's good about it is that it would allow people to sign up to the Internet services in hotels thereby improving its suitability as a travel companion. The only reason for the browsers existence on the device would be to display these sign on screens.
How many people would take an Apple TV (or the sticks) on vacation? I bet it's a very small percentage.
I didn't say what Apple needs to do. I can't imagine it would take a "full-time team" to add limited browser capabilities - but that's irrelevant. My post simply asked the question "Does anyone know the real reason a browser is not included on these devices?" I use Apple as an example because it is the device I am most familiar with but it is the same story on the Google Chromecast and the low-end Roku box.
Suggesting an iPad instead is not helpful. You are assuming that I travel alone. How much sense does it make to have 3 people huddled around a 9.7" iPad when there is a 32" flatscreen going unused?
So - your guess as to why the browser is not included is because of prohibitive development costs? I doubt that's the reason, but I suppose it could be.
Of course it is. Prohibitive in terms of the value added to customers and the few customers who need it. You can't just throw a touch based browser in there, and we've established that it sucks for general browsing.
What you want isn't a browser anyway but a webview in a settings screen.
And the iPad is what apple have designed for these scenarios, the ATV is portable but it's not a mobile device.
Of course it is. Prohibitive in terms of the value added to customers and the few customers who need it. You can't just throw a touch based browser in there, and we've established that it sucks for general browsing.
What you want isn't a browser anyway but a webview in a settings screen.
And the iPad is what apple have designed for these scenarios, the ATV is portable but it's not a mobile device.
I get it. You don't know the answer. Your opinions are heavy on opinion and light on facts. They aren't helpful and I don't believe they're accurate - but thanks for trying.
I think that most people reading my question understood the question without me having to go into detail about whether it's a full browser or a web-app or some application designed to interpret html, display the content to the user and allow them to respond.
I don't think it's prohibitive cost-wise - unless as I suggested, it turns the device into a different class of device and there are unfavorable tax or licensing implications.
You say that to everybody who disagrees with you. It's a form of illogical reasoning, presuming the conclusion. You also engage in Ad hominem ( "You don't have any children do you").
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Your opinions are heavy on opinion and light on facts. They aren't helpful and I don't believe they're accurate - but thanks for trying. I'm happy to wait for one of the smart people to respond or to just go on with life assuming that my supposition is close enough to being correct.
My opinions aren't helpful because you disagree with them. But everybody here disagrees with you. You have also engaged in another Ad Hominem, and I bet you won't actually find anybody "smart" until you find they agree with you.
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And I think that most people reading my question understood the question without me having to go into detail about whether it's a full browser or a web-app or some application designed to interpret html, display the content to the user and allow them to respond.
No. Your inability to understand the simplest of terminologies is not the fault of other people. It's your fault. A browser is a full fledged application, a web view is not. If you understood the difference you could have communicated the difference but you didn't. The browser app would need development time, and would have to have more features than you want. It would therefore need a team. And for what, the 0.00001% of people who think the Apple TV should be a mobile device.
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I don't think it's prohibitive cost-wise - unless as I suggested, it turns the device into a different class of device and there are unfavorable tax or licensing implications.
But you have proven you know absolutely nothing about anything. And how could a browser change the tax or licensing of any device? Do you think that Windows or Mac desktops got into different categories when they became Web capable in the 90's, with the advent of Mosaic? No, they didn't.
The ATV is not designed for what you want. Its no more designed to be transported to hotel rooms than DVD players, DVRs or your personal television, and the Hotel probably want you to pay for their services too.
For what it's worth, I travel with the AppleTV, and I have traveled with Chromecast.
In hotels, you frequently do have an HDMI port and can change the input to the new device. Getting it online requires a call to the hotel's internet service desk, who will whitelist the MAC address and enable service to it.
Before I did that, I would use hotels with an ethernet port in the room and plug in an airport express, which my phone and AppleTV would join.
It's not hard, and it works very well. Most recently (last week) I was in a hotel who had an LG tv, programmed with hotel firmware. They put the Netlix and Hulu options right up in the top level menu, and had the firmware set to erase your login details to those services on check-out. It wasn't a great experience, but even worse than what they'd done to the TV interface was what they'd done to the volume controls.
I expect hotel firmware to limit how loud a TV can get. This one was programmed to limit the lower volume bound as well - you couldn't turn it down below 10, which was too loud for night viewing. 10, or mute. (headshake.)
What you are saying is for the consumer who needs to connect his Apple TV to a hotel television there needs to be a browser. So Apple needs to have an ATV browser team working full time for those cases but since the browser won't just be used for that it also needs to work as well as an iOS browser.
That's a lot of work for limited gain. You could bring an iPad.
On iOS (which the ATV isn't) the settings page bypasses safari when you access a router with a landing page and shows the landing page in its own web view. That seems like the solution
That's called a "captive portal."
The AppleTV is iOS, without springboard. Springboard is the app launching interface on your phone. AppleTV betas run the same A series CPUs, and are distributed in the iOS section of the Apple dev center.
IF AppleTV supported captive portals, that would work for some, maybe less than half the hotels I've been in. The others use DNS redirection to force you to their landing page in a browser rather than use a captive portal. Should they use the captive portal? Yes. Do they? No.
As it is today, calling and getting the AppleTV's MAC whitelisted is the best way to get one working in a Hotel. They totally don't object to it, especially when their own TVs have guest-oriented Netflix and Hulu.
My opinions aren't helpful because you disagree with them. But everybody here disagrees with you. You have also engaged in another Ad Hominem, and I bet you won't actually find anybody "smart" until you find they agree with you.
It's not that your opinions disagree with mine as much as that that you portray them as facts and that they are based on fantasy - data that you have fabricated and present as truth. You are also focusing your attention on the Apple Devices even though I clearly posed my question generically and included similar devices from Apple, Google and Roku! You see my question as an attack on Apple (which it clearly wasn't) and you are leaping to their defense using evidence that you've manufactured out of thin air.
I think you're wrong about nearly everything you've said - however for the sake of brevity, I'll just pull out the quotes that you are the *most* wrong about and refute them quickly.
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... everybody here disagrees with you
The post from vmarks proves that that statement is wrong - and a simple google search will show you many other people asking similar questions to mine.
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Your inability to understand the simplest of terminologies is not the fault of other people. It's your fault. A browser is a full fledged application, a web view is not. If you understood the difference you could have communicated the difference but you didn't. The browser app would need development time, and would have to have more features than you want. It would therefore need a team.
Once again, my original question essentially asked "Why don't TV box manufacturers provide a way to authenticate/sign up for internet services which require authentication/acceptance via a web-page". A web-browser is what most people to use to do this. On one of these devices, a web-browser would also do the trick...so would a web-app, a webview or an application designed to interpret the html and display it in a native app. Listing all of these possible mechanisms was not necessary in order to have the core question understood...but I understand that it's hard for you to find something actually "wrong" with my post so you resort to nit-picking. I'm confident that most people understood the question the way I asked it.
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And for what, the 0.00001% of people who think the Apple TV should be a mobile device.
What a great example of the kind of data you just fabricate! First of all - nobody thinks it should be a "Mobile" device - so I'm sure you meant to say "portable" device. If not. If you think I was really suggesting that they device should come with batteries and be usable on a train or bus, than you are delusional enough that you should be locked up for the safety of yourself and others!!! So - if you actually meant a "portable device"....well - as of January 2015, there were a total of about 25 million Apple TV's ever sold -and even if that total has doubled since then (which it definitely hasn't!), by your claim there would only be 5 people who own an Apple TV that think that it should be able to be used as a "portable" device. Of the 30 people I work with, that travel as much as I do - 15 of them also travel with an Apple TV and use it in hotels. Of the remaining 15 people, ten of them have similar (non-Apple) devices that they travel with (a mix of Chromecast, Roku and some Android boxes). So - I do understand that none of your friends from the playground want or need to borrow an Apple TV from their parents and take it to a hotel with them - but my adult friends that travel for business and for family vacations - definitely choose to travel with portable entertainment devices that they can attach to a TV at the hotel. These include all the devices I've already mentioned - as well as gaming consoles (which *do* include browsing capabilities for authentication purposes!
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And how could a browser change the tax or licensing of any device? Do you think that Windows or Mac desktops got into different categories when they became Web capable in the 90's, with the advent of Mosaic? No, they didn't.
Look up trade and import tariffs for your country. Now look it up for other countries.
Years ago I tried to bring a bunch of electronics back into Canada from a one month trip to Asia. I was over my duty-free limit, so I declared everything and was redirected into the customs office at the airport so that I could pay the tax bill on my purchases. Many of the items that I had were obvious - but several were not. The duty officer had to refer to a binder which had literally 100's of pages in it describing different classifications of electronics devices. One of the items in question was a DVD/Karaoke player. He started by determining it was a DVD player primarily - but then their were dozens (if not hundreds) of classifications of device types underneath it. For example, for import tariff determination, it was treated differently if a remote control was included - and if so, it was different again depending on whether the remote was RF or Infrared. It wasn't strictly a DVD player if it also had Audio IN capabilities - so that turned it into a different device type again! It was different if it contained a built in LCD screen versus if it did not. Different again if it had Component video output or just composite. There were also some questions about capabilities provided only by software but this was 12-15 years ago and I don't remember what any of them were. In any case - since all of these different capabilities affect how the device is classified with regards to taxation - it doesn't seem like a big stretch to consider that they might also be treated differently from an FCC licensing standpoint - or that their might be different fees involved.
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The ATV is not designed for what you want. Its no more designed to be transported to hotel rooms than DVD players, DVRs or your personal television, and the Hotel probably want you to pay for their services too.
Hmmm....I would think that by definition, a "personal televisions" would in fact be designed to be portable. But in any case - all of the other devices you mentioned are definitely suited to be travel companions - and if you pop into any hotel with 100 rooms or more and ask them how many families are currently checked in that have brought a PS, xBox, Chromecast or TV box with them - you'll find the number is MUCH higher than you expect - greater than 20% during the week - and more on the weekend! If that's too much work for you - just google "Roku Hotel" or any of the other device types and you'll see how many people are looking for help hooking them up to the internet. When you find the page that explains how to do it - look at the number of views that page has received and the number of "thank you's" that have been posted to its author!!! On the other hand - maybe you shouldn't. It may be uncomfortable for you to learn that the world actually is NOT how you perceive it to be!
For what it's worth, I travel with the AppleTV, and I have traveled with Chromecast.
In hotels, you frequently do have an HDMI port and can change the input to the new device. Getting it online requires a call to the hotel's internet service desk, who will whitelist the MAC address and enable service to it.
Before I did that, I would use hotels with an ethernet port in the room and plug in an airport express, which my phone and AppleTV would join.
It's not hard, and it works very well. Most recently (last week) I was in a hotel who had an LG tv, programmed with hotel firmware. They put the Netlix and Hulu options right up in the top level menu, and had the firmware set to erase your login details to those services on check-out. It wasn't a great experience, but even worse than what they'd done to the TV interface was what they'd done to the volume controls.
I expect hotel firmware to limit how loud a TV can get. This one was programmed to limit the lower volume bound as well - you couldn't turn it down below 10, which was too loud for night viewing. 10, or mute. (headshake.)
Hey Vmarks.... Thanks for chiming in with your comments/experiences.
Here's on tip you may or may not know... In some hotels they have their own "control box" attached to the TV and the HDMI inputs are often locked out and the input button on the side of the TV is also disabled. These hotels also do not provide the manufacturers remote control. They have their own remote which works with their control box. These systems attempt to force you to purchase your entertainment content from the hotel at a very inflated price! In my opinion, this is an unscrupulous business tactic. It's fine to offer the content, but unscrupulous to lock out your other options.
In any case, there is an easy way to disable that system. If you look at the back of the TV, there will be an RJ-45 or RJ-11 type cable plugged into the TV from the add-on box. Just unplug the RJ cable and voila! All of the locked out features are restored. The HDMI inputs work and so do the input controls on the side of the TV. This works on LG models and I believe it will also work on most other brands of flat panels.
Thanks again for providing your opinions on this thread!
Comments
They already are on iOS.
"They" refers to a Plex app. Yes, there is a Plex app for the iPad, iPod touch, and iPhone, but not on ?TV. There are some hacks for getting that app installed on ?TV but it is nontrivial. Of course one can use the AirPlay to toss the media over but it would be a much better experience if the app actually ran on ?TV. If Apple does open a TV app store the existing Plex app may port quickly to a running app with a slightly adjusted UI. However, I still find Air Video HD presents a better image from the same content as Plex when tossed onto ?TV. On the smaller device the difference is probably not visible.
Not everyone wants a smart tv. I bet there are more non smart tvs than smart tvs despite what creepy Eric predicted.
I owned smart TV and I hate the software. Apps in smart TV are pretty much useless or garbage.
This. I've played around with Samsung smart TVs and they are barely usable. Scrolling is slow, the whole thing is glitchy.
What you are saying is for the consumer who needs to connect his Apple TV to a hotel television there needs to be a browser. So Apple needs to have an ATV browser team working full time for those cases but since the browser won't just be used for that it also needs to work as well as an iOS browser.
That's a lot of work for limited gain. You could bring an iPad.
On iOS (which the ATV isn't) the settings page bypasses safari when you access a router with a landing page and shows the landing page in its own web view. That seems like the solution
A8X - ability to play console level games and advanced Apps
I don't know if it's going to be awesome or not, will have to wait and see for that. But I do agree that the most obvious explanation for the price increase it's that the next Apple TV is going to be a game console not just a set top box. Watch out Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, a fourth player is coming.
Suggesting an iPad instead is not helpful. You are assuming that I travel alone. How much sense does it make to have 3 people huddled around a 9.7" iPad when there is a 32" flatscreen going unused?
So - your guess as to why the browser is not included is because of prohibitive development costs? I doubt that's the reason, but I suppose it could be.
What's good about a browser if it's "limited". The real reason is user experience.
My Xbox one has been doing this for a while.
How many people would take an Apple TV (or the sticks) on vacation? I bet it's a very small percentage.
Of course it is. Prohibitive in terms of the value added to customers and the few customers who need it. You can't just throw a touch based browser in there, and we've established that it sucks for general browsing.
What you want isn't a browser anyway but a webview in a settings screen.
And the iPad is what apple have designed for these scenarios, the ATV is portable but it's not a mobile device.
I get it. You don't know the answer. Your opinions are heavy on opinion and light on facts. They aren't helpful and I don't believe they're accurate - but thanks for trying.
I think that most people reading my question understood the question without me having to go into detail about whether it's a full browser or a web-app or some application designed to interpret html, display the content to the user and allow them to respond.
I don't think it's prohibitive cost-wise - unless as I suggested, it turns the device into a different class of device and there are unfavorable tax or licensing implications.
You say that to everybody who disagrees with you. It's a form of illogical reasoning, presuming the conclusion. You also engage in Ad hominem ( "You don't have any children do you").
My opinions aren't helpful because you disagree with them. But everybody here disagrees with you. You have also engaged in another Ad Hominem, and I bet you won't actually find anybody "smart" until you find they agree with you.
No. Your inability to understand the simplest of terminologies is not the fault of other people. It's your fault. A browser is a full fledged application, a web view is not. If you understood the difference you could have communicated the difference but you didn't. The browser app would need development time, and would have to have more features than you want. It would therefore need a team. And for what, the 0.00001% of people who think the Apple TV should be a mobile device.
But you have proven you know absolutely nothing about anything. And how could a browser change the tax or licensing of any device? Do you think that Windows or Mac desktops got into different categories when they became Web capable in the 90's, with the advent of Mosaic? No, they didn't.
The ATV is not designed for what you want. Its no more designed to be transported to hotel rooms than DVD players, DVRs or your personal television, and the Hotel probably want you to pay for their services too.
How many people would take an Apple TV (or the sticks) on vacation? I bet it's a very small percentage.
I have taken an AppleTV with me when I take the family on vacation.
I have done this every year since 2008.
For what it's worth, I travel with the AppleTV, and I have traveled with Chromecast.
In hotels, you frequently do have an HDMI port and can change the input to the new device. Getting it online requires a call to the hotel's internet service desk, who will whitelist the MAC address and enable service to it.
Before I did that, I would use hotels with an ethernet port in the room and plug in an airport express, which my phone and AppleTV would join.
It's not hard, and it works very well. Most recently (last week) I was in a hotel who had an LG tv, programmed with hotel firmware. They put the Netlix and Hulu options right up in the top level menu, and had the firmware set to erase your login details to those services on check-out. It wasn't a great experience, but even worse than what they'd done to the TV interface was what they'd done to the volume controls.
I expect hotel firmware to limit how loud a TV can get. This one was programmed to limit the lower volume bound as well - you couldn't turn it down below 10, which was too loud for night viewing. 10, or mute. (headshake.)
What you are saying is for the consumer who needs to connect his Apple TV to a hotel television there needs to be a browser. So Apple needs to have an ATV browser team working full time for those cases but since the browser won't just be used for that it also needs to work as well as an iOS browser.
That's a lot of work for limited gain. You could bring an iPad.
On iOS (which the ATV isn't) the settings page bypasses safari when you access a router with a landing page and shows the landing page in its own web view. That seems like the solution
That's called a "captive portal."
The AppleTV is iOS, without springboard. Springboard is the app launching interface on your phone. AppleTV betas run the same A series CPUs, and are distributed in the iOS section of the Apple dev center.
IF AppleTV supported captive portals, that would work for some, maybe less than half the hotels I've been in. The others use DNS redirection to force you to their landing page in a browser rather than use a captive portal. Should they use the captive portal? Yes. Do they? No.
As it is today, calling and getting the AppleTV's MAC whitelisted is the best way to get one working in a Hotel. They totally don't object to it, especially when their own TVs have guest-oriented Netflix and Hulu.
Thanks for joining the conversation @vmarks
My opinions aren't helpful because you disagree with them. But everybody here disagrees with you. You have also engaged in another Ad Hominem, and I bet you won't actually find anybody "smart" until you find they agree with you.
It's not that your opinions disagree with mine as much as that that you portray them as facts and that they are based on fantasy - data that you have fabricated and present as truth. You are also focusing your attention on the Apple Devices even though I clearly posed my question generically and included similar devices from Apple, Google and Roku! You see my question as an attack on Apple (which it clearly wasn't) and you are leaping to their defense using evidence that you've manufactured out of thin air.
I think you're wrong about nearly everything you've said - however for the sake of brevity, I'll just pull out the quotes that you are the *most* wrong about and refute them quickly.
The post from vmarks proves that that statement is wrong - and a simple google search will show you many other people asking similar questions to mine.
Once again, my original question essentially asked "Why don't TV box manufacturers provide a way to authenticate/sign up for internet services which require authentication/acceptance via a web-page". A web-browser is what most people to use to do this. On one of these devices, a web-browser would also do the trick...so would a web-app, a webview or an application designed to interpret the html and display it in a native app. Listing all of these possible mechanisms was not necessary in order to have the core question understood...but I understand that it's hard for you to find something actually "wrong" with my post so you resort to nit-picking. I'm confident that most people understood the question the way I asked it.
What a great example of the kind of data you just fabricate! First of all - nobody thinks it should be a "Mobile" device - so I'm sure you meant to say "portable" device. If not. If you think I was really suggesting that they device should come with batteries and be usable on a train or bus, than you are delusional enough that you should be locked up for the safety of yourself and others!!! So - if you actually meant a "portable device"....well - as of January 2015, there were a total of about 25 million Apple TV's ever sold -and even if that total has doubled since then (which it definitely hasn't!), by your claim there would only be 5 people who own an Apple TV that think that it should be able to be used as a "portable" device. Of the 30 people I work with, that travel as much as I do - 15 of them also travel with an Apple TV and use it in hotels. Of the remaining 15 people, ten of them have similar (non-Apple) devices that they travel with (a mix of Chromecast, Roku and some Android boxes). So - I do understand that none of your friends from the playground want or need to borrow an Apple TV from their parents and take it to a hotel with them - but my adult friends that travel for business and for family vacations - definitely choose to travel with portable entertainment devices that they can attach to a TV at the hotel. These include all the devices I've already mentioned - as well as gaming consoles (which *do* include browsing capabilities for authentication purposes!
Look up trade and import tariffs for your country. Now look it up for other countries.
Years ago I tried to bring a bunch of electronics back into Canada from a one month trip to Asia. I was over my duty-free limit, so I declared everything and was redirected into the customs office at the airport so that I could pay the tax bill on my purchases. Many of the items that I had were obvious - but several were not. The duty officer had to refer to a binder which had literally 100's of pages in it describing different classifications of electronics devices. One of the items in question was a DVD/Karaoke player. He started by determining it was a DVD player primarily - but then their were dozens (if not hundreds) of classifications of device types underneath it. For example, for import tariff determination, it was treated differently if a remote control was included - and if so, it was different again depending on whether the remote was RF or Infrared. It wasn't strictly a DVD player if it also had Audio IN capabilities - so that turned it into a different device type again! It was different if it contained a built in LCD screen versus if it did not. Different again if it had Component video output or just composite. There were also some questions about capabilities provided only by software but this was 12-15 years ago and I don't remember what any of them were. In any case - since all of these different capabilities affect how the device is classified with regards to taxation - it doesn't seem like a big stretch to consider that they might also be treated differently from an FCC licensing standpoint - or that their might be different fees involved.
Hmmm....I would think that by definition, a "personal televisions" would in fact be designed to be portable. But in any case - all of the other devices you mentioned are definitely suited to be travel companions - and if you pop into any hotel with 100 rooms or more and ask them how many families are currently checked in that have brought a PS, xBox, Chromecast or TV box with them - you'll find the number is MUCH higher than you expect - greater than 20% during the week - and more on the weekend! If that's too much work for you - just google "Roku Hotel" or any of the other device types and you'll see how many people are looking for help hooking them up to the internet. When you find the page that explains how to do it - look at the number of views that page has received and the number of "thank you's" that have been posted to its author!!! On the other hand - maybe you shouldn't. It may be uncomfortable for you to learn that the world actually is NOT how you perceive it to be!
For what it's worth, I travel with the AppleTV, and I have traveled with Chromecast.
In hotels, you frequently do have an HDMI port and can change the input to the new device. Getting it online requires a call to the hotel's internet service desk, who will whitelist the MAC address and enable service to it.
Before I did that, I would use hotels with an ethernet port in the room and plug in an airport express, which my phone and AppleTV would join.
It's not hard, and it works very well. Most recently (last week) I was in a hotel who had an LG tv, programmed with hotel firmware. They put the Netlix and Hulu options right up in the top level menu, and had the firmware set to erase your login details to those services on check-out. It wasn't a great experience, but even worse than what they'd done to the TV interface was what they'd done to the volume controls.
I expect hotel firmware to limit how loud a TV can get. This one was programmed to limit the lower volume bound as well - you couldn't turn it down below 10, which was too loud for night viewing. 10, or mute. (headshake.)
Hey Vmarks.... Thanks for chiming in with your comments/experiences.
Here's on tip you may or may not know... In some hotels they have their own "control box" attached to the TV and the HDMI inputs are often locked out and the input button on the side of the TV is also disabled. These hotels also do not provide the manufacturers remote control. They have their own remote which works with their control box. These systems attempt to force you to purchase your entertainment content from the hotel at a very inflated price! In my opinion, this is an unscrupulous business tactic. It's fine to offer the content, but unscrupulous to lock out your other options.
In any case, there is an easy way to disable that system. If you look at the back of the TV, there will be an RJ-45 or RJ-11 type cable plugged into the TV from the add-on box. Just unplug the RJ cable and voila! All of the locked out features are restored. The HDMI inputs work and so do the input controls on the side of the TV. This works on LG models and I believe it will also work on most other brands of flat panels.
Thanks again for providing your opinions on this thread!