Despite being a pioneer, AppleTV is now a massive underachiever. They’ve been pretty convincingly overtaken by Roku. If it weren’t for my photos and my music, I’d pretty much jettison both mine. The remote is an insufferable joke.
Faster processors and Arcade and Jennifer Anniston and such ain’t going to cut it.
Could you elaborate? How is the Apple TV an underachiever? What is superior about the Roku other than unit sales? My Apple TV HD does precisely what it was designed to do, that being streaming music and video, providing a plethora of apps from which to choose, games. Back in the day the Windows people used to mock Apple users over how much software was available for Windows compared to OS X, leaving out the fact that most of that Windows software was cheap crap. In my opinion you are dead wrong and the Roku is the streaming world’s Windows, market share and nothing superior about it.
There are no decent games for it, despite it being marketed as a gaming device - amongst its other features.
The third party apps available are pretty poor, they all seem like The only one I use regularly is Plex, and that's available on pretty much any streaming box.
The remote is utterly abysmal. It's terrible. You don't know what way around it is, and they have tried to overload the buttons with too many things. When one button can do three things, it's time for another button. It's also slippery and fragile.
The UI is crap. It looks nice but that's the extent of it. The menu button sometimes takes you back to the home screen, sometimes back up a level in the app, sometimes shows the top menu. The top menu being invisible most of the time is ridiculous because without prior knowledge you have no idea if there's a menu at all.
Siri is useless. I literally never use it because rather than searching my libraries for things I want to watch, it leans heavily towards suggesting I buy new things in iTunes.
Did I mention how crap the remote is?
It's quite expensive for what you get.
All of which, of course, is your own personal opinion. Many Apple TV users would vehemently disagree, myself included. Is Roku even promoted as a gaming device?
So far, game playing on the Atv has been a massive failure. Much of that is Apple’s fault. That’s because they have refused to understand what gamers want, most of the time. Even when they do, they deliberately fail to cater to them, which they need to do. Developers have commented bitterly, about the requirement of making the Atv controller the basic, default controller for playing games. That hampers their ability to have gameplay work well on real gamer controllers. Everyone understands why, but it’s still a failure.
apple is concerned that those like Elijahg simply won’t spend the $50 to buy a real game controller. The attention to people like that, who also won’t spend the money to get top rated games is what’s destroyed, so far, the prospects of any real quality gaming on the Atv. The fact is that people like that have to be ignored in this context. Apple either jumps in with both feet, or sits on the edge of the pool, splashing around with its toes forever. There’s another analogy that’s a bit cruder, that’s even better.
Apple has been getting free advice for years that the secret to selling more devices is to drive selling prices down into loss-leader territory. Analysts began demanding consumers have access to $300 iPhones straight from Apple and not used many years ago, and have repeated the same refrain for iPads, HomePod, and of course, Apple TV.
Yet, Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier in phones, tablets, PCs and elsewhere. That indicates that the idea of it selling a super-cheap Apple TV model is very unlikely to ever happen.
Ok.... MY "free advice": Bull! I have not seen any evidence that "Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier " Further, why does it have to be either / or? Either very cheap or very expensive. That's kind of black and white argument is the sign of a weak argument.
You haven't seen any evidence that Apple is doing far better than everyone else in the phone or tablet or PC markets?
Samsung sells +300M phones a year compared to Apple's +200M, but Apple earns far more and its profits are far higher and more resilient. When iPhone sales dipped due to the economic downturn in China, Apple maintained things pretty well. Meanwhile Samsung's volumes stayed about the same but its product mix dropped precipitously, and the result was a devastating blow to revenues and profitability. So Samsung is being forced to back out of the high end, hurting things further.
The same thing is playing out in every category Apple does business in.
There is no "black and white argument" going on, it's just black and white facts. And it's obviously true regardless of whether you "see any evidence" or not.
LOL....
How about the next time you reply to something I said, why don't you make it a reply to something that I ACTUALLY said -- rather than something YOU said!
Admittedly, it's a good way to win an argument. But it's nonsense.
Despite being a pioneer, AppleTV is now a massive underachiever. They’ve been pretty convincingly overtaken by Roku. If it weren’t for my photos and my music, I’d pretty much jettison both mine. The remote is an insufferable joke.
Faster processors and Arcade and Jennifer Anniston and such ain’t going to cut it.
Could you elaborate? How is the Apple TV an underachiever? What is superior about the Roku other than unit sales? My Apple TV HD does precisely what it was designed to do, that being streaming music and video, providing a plethora of apps from which to choose, games. Back in the day the Windows people used to mock Apple users over how much software was available for Windows compared to OS X, leaving out the fact that most of that Windows software was cheap crap. In my opinion you are dead wrong and the Roku is the streaming world’s Windows, market share and nothing superior about it.
There are no decent games for it, despite it being marketed as a gaming device - amongst its other features.
The third party apps available are pretty poor, they all seem like The only one I use regularly is Plex, and that's available on pretty much any streaming box.
The remote is utterly abysmal. It's terrible. You don't know what way around it is, and they have tried to overload the buttons with too many things. When one button can do three things, it's time for another button. It's also slippery and fragile.
The UI is crap. It looks nice but that's the extent of it. The menu button sometimes takes you back to the home screen, sometimes back up a level in the app, sometimes shows the top menu. The top menu being invisible most of the time is ridiculous because without prior knowledge you have no idea if there's a menu at all.
Siri is useless. I literally never use it because rather than searching my libraries for things I want to watch, it leans heavily towards suggesting I buy new things in iTunes.
Did I mention how crap the remote is?
It's quite expensive for what you get.
All of which, of course, is your own personal opinion. Many Apple TV users would vehemently disagree, myself included. Is Roku even promoted as a gaming device?
apple is concerned that those like Elijahg simply won’t spend the $50 to buy a real game controller. The attention to people like that, who also won’t spend the money to get top rated games is what’s destroyed, so far, the prospects of any real quality gaming on the Atv. The fact is that people like that have to be ignored in this context. Apple either jumps in with both feet, or sits on the edge of the pool, splashing around with its toes forever. There’s another analogy that’s a bit cruder, that’s even better.
Don't get me wrong, I pay for decent games. My steam library has well over £2000 of games in it. If there were decent games on the AppleTV, I'd buy a controller. And to help my decision on whether to purchase new games, a demo version goes a long way. I go on to buy the full version of most game demos I download. But I'm not going to pay £50 for a controller when there're only 3 or 4 mediocre games on the TV App Store that'll accommodate one.
There is now a rumor that a new AppleTV with an A12 will be announced next week. I would hope it is an A12X though.
I still have a 2012 era Apple TV, the one that doesn’t run tvOS (or doesn’t have the modern tvOS app/Siri UI). If there is a new one announced next week, I’ll probably get it. Hopefully Apple swallows some pride and just ships a branded game controller with it instead of the stick. We primarily use the current puck as a media streamer, but it’ll be nice to have more capabilities.
For the controller, I think it would be great if it had either thumb board or an actual LCD display on it for displaying a keyboard, plus the usual accoutrements of joysticks, buttons and pads.
Despite being a pioneer, AppleTV is now a massive underachiever. They’ve been pretty convincingly overtaken by Roku. If it weren’t for my photos and my music, I’d pretty much jettison both mine. The remote is an insufferable joke.
Faster processors and Arcade and Jennifer Anniston and such ain’t going to cut it.
Could you elaborate? How is the Apple TV an underachiever? What is superior about the Roku other than unit sales? My Apple TV HD does precisely what it was designed to do, that being streaming music and video, providing a plethora of apps from which to choose, games. Back in the day the Windows people used to mock Apple users over how much software was available for Windows compared to OS X, leaving out the fact that most of that Windows software was cheap crap. In my opinion you are dead wrong and the Roku is the streaming world’s Windows, market share and nothing superior about it.
There are no decent games for it, despite it being marketed as a gaming device - amongst its other features.
The third party apps available are pretty poor, they all seem like The only one I use regularly is Plex, and that's available on pretty much any streaming box.
The remote is utterly abysmal. It's terrible. You don't know what way around it is, and they have tried to overload the buttons with too many things. When one button can do three things, it's time for another button. It's also slippery and fragile.
The UI is crap. It looks nice but that's the extent of it. The menu button sometimes takes you back to the home screen, sometimes back up a level in the app, sometimes shows the top menu. The top menu being invisible most of the time is ridiculous because without prior knowledge you have no idea if there's a menu at all.
Siri is useless. I literally never use it because rather than searching my libraries for things I want to watch, it leans heavily towards suggesting I buy new things in iTunes.
Did I mention how crap the remote is?
It's quite expensive for what you get.
All of which, of course, is your own personal opinion. Many Apple TV users would vehemently disagree, myself included. Is Roku even promoted as a gaming device?
apple is concerned that those like Elijahg simply won’t spend the $50 to buy a real game controller. The attention to people like that, who also won’t spend the money to get top rated games is what’s destroyed, so far, the prospects of any real quality gaming on the Atv. The fact is that people like that have to be ignored in this context. Apple either jumps in with both feet, or sits on the edge of the pool, splashing around with its toes forever. There’s another analogy that’s a bit cruder, that’s even better.
Don't get me wrong, I pay for decent games. My steam library has well over £2000 of games in it. If there were decent games on the AppleTV, I'd buy a controller. And to help my decision on whether to purchase new games, a demo version goes a long way. I go on to buy the full version of most game demos I download. But I'm not going to pay £50 for a controller when there're only 3 or 4 mediocre games on the TV App Store that'll accommodate one.
That’s more reasonable than what you laid out in your first post. But about the controller. The attitude of not wanting to spend more on a controller is the biggest problem. A lot of higher end developers have stated that they won’t develop for the aTv because of the requirement to write to Apple’s controller. That’s a main reason why you don’t see more games you would want. It’s not really the other way around.
again, it’s Apple’s dithering around here. They should offer both the XBox and PlayStation controllers as options, instead of the apple controller. That would drop the total cost differential to maybe $25, which most people could go for. They should rewrite the aTv software to be able to utilize either controller as the controller for all functions. Maybe they should even drop their own controller.
and realistically, a huge number of people already own one, or more, of those controllers, because they already own either an XBox or PlayStation, or both.
Despite being a pioneer, AppleTV is now a massive underachiever. They’ve been pretty convincingly overtaken by Roku. If it weren’t for my photos and my music, I’d pretty much jettison both mine. The remote is an insufferable joke.
Faster processors and Arcade and Jennifer Anniston and such ain’t going to cut it.
Could you elaborate? How is the Apple TV an underachiever? What is superior about the Roku other than unit sales? My Apple TV HD does precisely what it was designed to do, that being streaming music and video, providing a plethora of apps from which to choose, games. Back in the day the Windows people used to mock Apple users over how much software was available for Windows compared to OS X, leaving out the fact that most of that Windows software was cheap crap. In my opinion you are dead wrong and the Roku is the streaming world’s Windows, market share and nothing superior about it.
There are no decent games for it, despite it being marketed as a gaming device - amongst its other features.
The third party apps available are pretty poor, they all seem like The only one I use regularly is Plex, and that's available on pretty much any streaming box.
The remote is utterly abysmal. It's terrible. You don't know what way around it is, and they have tried to overload the buttons with too many things. When one button can do three things, it's time for another button. It's also slippery and fragile.
The UI is crap. It looks nice but that's the extent of it. The menu button sometimes takes you back to the home screen, sometimes back up a level in the app, sometimes shows the top menu. The top menu being invisible most of the time is ridiculous because without prior knowledge you have no idea if there's a menu at all.
Siri is useless. I literally never use it because rather than searching my libraries for things I want to watch, it leans heavily towards suggesting I buy new things in iTunes.
Did I mention how crap the remote is?
It's quite expensive for what you get.
All of which, of course, is your own personal opinion. Many Apple TV users would vehemently disagree, myself included. Is Roku even promoted as a gaming device?
apple is concerned that those like Elijahg simply won’t spend the $50 to buy a real game controller. The attention to people like that, who also won’t spend the money to get top rated games is what’s destroyed, so far, the prospects of any real quality gaming on the Atv. The fact is that people like that have to be ignored in this context. Apple either jumps in with both feet, or sits on the edge of the pool, splashing around with its toes forever. There’s another analogy that’s a bit cruder, that’s even better.
Don't get me wrong, I pay for decent games. My steam library has well over £2000 of games in it. If there were decent games on the AppleTV, I'd buy a controller. And to help my decision on whether to purchase new games, a demo version goes a long way. I go on to buy the full version of most game demos I download. But I'm not going to pay £50 for a controller when there're only 3 or 4 mediocre games on the TV App Store that'll accommodate one.
That’s more reasonable than what you laid out in your first post. But about the controller. The attitude of not wanting to spend more on a controller is the biggest problem. A lot of higher end developers have stated that they won’t develop for the aTv because of the requirement to write to Apple’s controller. That’s a main reason why you don’t see more games you would want. It’s not really the other way around.
again, it’s Apple’s dithering around here. They should offer both the XBox and PlayStation controllers as options, instead of the apple controller. That would drop the total cost differential to maybe $25, which most people could go for. They should rewrite the aTv software to be able to utilize either controller as the controller for all functions. Maybe they should even drop their own controller.
and realistically, a huge number of people already own one, or more, of those controllers, because they already own either an XBox or PlayStation, or both.
There are games on the store though that're controller only? I agree though, their current controller is terrible, and offering a box with a different controller in would probably be a good idea. But then Apple's not ever been interested in gaming, so I don't think they care really. I think they're almost a bit embarrassed that most (77%!) of the App Store revenue comes from games.
While Amazon and others are topping unit shipments of TV dongles, Apple TV is achieving a strong showing as a premium device that appeals to users who want more than cheap hardware. As noted by Joshua Fruhlinger of ThinkNum based on sales data from Best Buy of sales of 4K streaming devices, "Amazon has taken the clear lead, with Apple TV a close second."
Apple has been getting free advice for years that the secret to selling more devices is to drive selling prices down into loss-leader territory. Analysts began demanding consumers have access to $300 iPhones straight from Apple and not used many years ago, and have repeated the same refrain for iPads, HomePod, and of course, Apple TV.
Yet, Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier in phones, tablets, PCs and elsewhere. That indicates that the idea of it selling a super-cheap Apple TV model is very unlikely to ever happen.
Ok.... MY "free advice": Bull! I have not seen any evidence that "Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier " Further, why does it have to be either / or? Either very cheap or very expensive. That's kind of black and white argument is the sign of a weak argument.
You haven't seen any evidence that Apple is doing far better than everyone else in the phone or tablet or PC markets?
Samsung sells +300M phones a year compared to Apple's +200M, but Apple earns far more and its profits are far higher and more resilient. When iPhone sales dipped due to the economic downturn in China, Apple maintained things pretty well. Meanwhile Samsung's volumes stayed about the same but its product mix dropped precipitously, and the result was a devastating blow to revenues and profitability. So Samsung is being forced to back out of the high end, hurting things further.
The same thing is playing out in every category Apple does business in.
There is no "black and white argument" going on, it's just black and white facts. And it's obviously true regardless of whether you "see any evidence" or not.
While admittedly, Apple transitioning to cheap products ($300 iPhones) would have multiple negative effects, that does not mean that they have to or even should rely only on premium products. Apple has both the ability to produce moderately priced products (the Xr is an excellent example) as well as the customer base to support it. Plus, selling last year's products at reduced prices leverages their fixed investments into the development and manufacture of those devices -- which is a win-win for everybody.
Again, the situation is that Apple was selling iPhones around $650 and pundits where demanding a $300 iPhone. This occured from 2010-2016.
Apple responded by making a more expensive Plus in 2014, higher capacity tiers at a premium, and iPhone X at $999. Apple raised its ASP to nearly $800. And that came despite also offering increasingly cheap iPhone options like the SE and older models offered at a discount.
You're holding up the $750 XR as an example of "mid priced" but it's higher that any new iPhone Apple was selling during the period of analysts demanding $300 phones. What do you mean by that? The XR is a massively premium priced high end phone, Apple just also offers even more expensive models.
Also, Apple has been "selling last year's products at reduced prices" for over a decade now, so what does that even mean?
What the article is saying is that Apple's forward strategy involves introducing new models at premium prices with features to match.
Samsung tried to do this and failed. Nows it's focused on new $300 Galaxy A models. Every other Android maker is similarly dumping out mostly $250 models, even if they hope or would like to sell some of their iPhone-priced devices, or even much more expensive Fold or diamond bedazzled versions.
That said, the current AppleTV seems locked into a no-man's land: it is moderately to high priced but offers little more functionality than far cheaper competitor's products. Apple and its customers could benefit by producing a "pro" model AppleTV -- while leaving lower priced model for those who do just fine watching the evening news of Sunday game on their AppleTV.
That's just not true. As the article points out, the cheap./free things people might want to do with a low priced dongle are now available: you can AirPlay and stream iTunes from many devices now. Apple doesn't need to introduce one and try to sell it at a loss just to have a low end product category. Same with HomePod. Apple doesn't have to make a $30 Siri Dot just because that's what Amazon and Google are doing. They're making zero money and just hoping to create an installed base among affluent users.
Apple already has that.
Apple doesn’t “already have that”. When everyone in my house and my parents house and the house of everyone I know has all Apple products except HomePod, and has dozens of Alexa devices or Sonos/Alexa devices between us...Apple done f’d up. They absolutely should have ensured their place there, and failed.
Their arrogance is why they didn’t. And also because Siri is a pathetically inferior product to Alexa, so they couldn’t compete even if they wanted to.
There used to be a "funny things Siri says" blog, when it said funny or weird things. There needs to be a "stupid things Siri says" alternative. I sometimes try to ask HomePod Siri a question in front of friends, and it's embarrassing how wrong it is most of the time. I just don't bother on the AppleTV, its so limited and error-prone it's just not worth it.
I use Siri all the time, on HomePod, Apple Watch, iPhone, Apple TV (and occasionally on my Mac and iPad). I use it for HomeKit requests, music, weather, travel time, sending/reading text messages, and the list goes on. I have a great deal of success and have very few complaints about Siri's performance. The thing that baffles me is how different people get different results when asking the EXACT SAME question. (I asked the questions exactly as your screen shot showed, but after hearing me it was automatically truncated. So even though it looks like I asked slightly differently I didn't in reality.)
Despite being a pioneer, AppleTV is now a massive underachiever. They’ve been pretty convincingly overtaken by Roku. If it weren’t for my photos and my music, I’d pretty much jettison both mine. The remote is an insufferable joke.
Faster processors and Arcade and Jennifer Anniston and such ain’t going to cut it.
I think it should be reiterated that Apple TV puck (argh, too much name overloading with TV now being the puck TV dongle hardware, the iOS app, and soon to be slightly different but more identifiable TV+ video service) should have a remote control with QWERTY capabilities be it thumb board or touchscreen. I prefer the touchscreen because different languages can be displayed much easier.
Internet pucks for your TV require typing in passwords, searching for stuff, etc, and single click UI input designs for that suck, including the default controllers for the gaming boxes too. The mediarati will make fun of it, but it will be a usability improvement. It will reduce one of the biggest friction points for the controllers of all these boxes that have streaming services. Typing in a search for a show or video is a pain.
Just stick a 4” iPhone touchscreen in the middle of a generic controller design (short stubby grips, joysticks, a few buttons, and call it a day.
Apple has been getting free advice for years that the secret to selling more devices is to drive selling prices down into loss-leader territory. Analysts began demanding consumers have access to $300 iPhones straight from Apple and not used many years ago, and have repeated the same refrain for iPads, HomePod, and of course, Apple TV.
Yet, Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier in phones, tablets, PCs and elsewhere. That indicates that the idea of it selling a super-cheap Apple TV model is very unlikely to ever happen.
Ok.... MY "free advice": Bull! I have not seen any evidence that "Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier " Further, why does it have to be either / or? Either very cheap or very expensive. That's kind of black and white argument is the sign of a weak argument.
You haven't seen any evidence that Apple is doing far better than everyone else in the phone or tablet or PC markets?
Samsung sells +300M phones a year compared to Apple's +200M, but Apple earns far more and its profits are far higher and more resilient. When iPhone sales dipped due to the economic downturn in China, Apple maintained things pretty well. Meanwhile Samsung's volumes stayed about the same but its product mix dropped precipitously, and the result was a devastating blow to revenues and profitability. So Samsung is being forced to back out of the high end, hurting things further.
The same thing is playing out in every category Apple does business in.
There is no "black and white argument" going on, it's just black and white facts. And it's obviously true regardless of whether you "see any evidence" or not.
While admittedly, Apple transitioning to cheap products ($300 iPhones) would have multiple negative effects, that does not mean that they have to or even should rely only on premium products. Apple has both the ability to produce moderately priced products (the Xr is an excellent example) as well as the customer base to support it. Plus, selling last year's products at reduced prices leverages their fixed investments into the development and manufacture of those devices -- which is a win-win for everybody.
Again, the situation is that Apple was selling iPhones around $650 and pundits where demanding a $300 iPhone. This occured from 2010-2016.
Apple responded by making a more expensive Plus in 2014, higher capacity tiers at a premium, and iPhone X at $999. Apple raised its ASP to nearly $800. And that came despite also offering increasingly cheap iPhone options like the SE and older models offered at a discount.
You're holding up the $750 XR as an example of "mid priced" but it's higher that any new iPhone Apple was selling during the period of analysts demanding $300 phones. What do you mean by that? The XR is a massively premium priced high end phone, Apple just also offers even more expensive models.
Also, Apple has been "selling last year's products at reduced prices" for over a decade now, so what does that even mean?
What the article is saying is that Apple's forward strategy involves introducing new models at premium prices with features to match.
Samsung tried to do this and failed. Nows it's focused on new $300 Galaxy A models. Every other Android maker is similarly dumping out mostly $250 models, even if they hope or would like to sell some of their iPhone-priced devices, or even much more expensive Fold or diamond bedazzled versions.
That said, the current AppleTV seems locked into a no-man's land: it is moderately to high priced but offers little more functionality than far cheaper competitor's products. Apple and its customers could benefit by producing a "pro" model AppleTV -- while leaving lower priced model for those who do just fine watching the evening news of Sunday game on their AppleTV.
That's just not true. As the article points out, the cheap./free things people might want to do with a low priced dongle are now available: you can AirPlay and stream iTunes from many devices now. Apple doesn't need to introduce one and try to sell it at a loss just to have a low end product category. Same with HomePod. Apple doesn't have to make a $30 Siri Dot just because that's what Amazon and Google are doing. They're making zero money and just hoping to create an installed base among affluent users.
Apple already has that.
Apple doesn’t “already have that”. When everyone in my house and my parents house and the house of everyone I know has all Apple products except HomePod, and has dozens of Alexa devices or Sonos/Alexa devices between us...Apple done f’d up. They absolutely should have ensured their place there, and failed.
Their arrogance is why they didn’t. And also because Siri is a pathetically inferior product to Alexa, so they couldn’t compete even if they wanted to.
There used to be a "funny things Siri says" blog, when it said funny or weird things. There needs to be a "stupid things Siri says" alternative. I sometimes try to ask HomePod Siri a question in front of friends, and it's embarrassing how wrong it is most of the time. I just don't bother on the AppleTV, its so limited and error-prone it's just not worth it.
I use Siri all the time, on HomePod, Apple Watch, iPhone, Apple TV (and occasionally on my Mac and iPad). I use it for HomeKit requests, music, weather, travel time, sending/reading text messages, and the list goes on. I have a great deal of success and have very few complaints about Siri's performance. The thing that baffles me is how different people get different results when asking the EXACT SAME question. (I asked the questions exactly as your screen shot showed, but after hearing me it was automatically truncated. So even though it looks like I asked slightly differently I didn't in reality.)
All the voice assistants, including Google, Amazon’s etc, look like they are sentence matching algorithm’s with a touch of personal hinting/details to skew the matching. It doesn’t look like the assistants are interpreting the meaning of words, but matching pre-existing phrases. So the mismatched answers could be artifacts of regional language variations, other phrases that close to it but have different answer routes, etc.
A lot of the viral ones seem to be cases of poor syntax causing mismatches with answers.
You guys are saying “How many days is it until the 2nd of September” or “How many days is it until 2 September”. As a human, we understand the phrase to mean “How many days until September 2”, which is rather more concise and easier to understand in English imo. When adding “is it” or varying how Sep 2 is said, I can see that causing phrase mismatches by the assistant’s algorithm.
When you see this, you don’t ask the question again in exactly the same way. You have to say it in better syntax as it were, but that can often be quite difficult to do on the spot.
Let's hope the games on Apple Arcade are more serious games like on Mac, Windows and consoles. At the moment they're mostly just crappy childish phone games blown up to TV size. There's a bit of a vicious circle as to why I don't play many AppleTV games: cost of the games themselves with no demo, and requirement for the better games to have a controller. The cost of these combined is a little too much for me.
A serious gamer...who doesn’t want to buy a controller. Riiiight.
Apple has been getting free advice for years that the secret to selling more devices is to drive selling prices down into loss-leader territory. Analysts began demanding consumers have access to $300 iPhones straight from Apple and not used many years ago, and have repeated the same refrain for iPads, HomePod, and of course, Apple TV.
Yet, Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier in phones, tablets, PCs and elsewhere. That indicates that the idea of it selling a super-cheap Apple TV model is very unlikely to ever happen.
Ok.... MY "free advice": Bull! I have not seen any evidence that "Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier"
Perhaps you’ve been living in the multiverse. Here in our dimension, Apple became the most valuable and successful company in the history of humanity, thanks to iPhone. Their iPads rule tablets, and Macs lead PC profit. iPods were king as well.
That’s the evidence. If you haven’t seen it, get those eyes checked.
Let's hope the games on Apple Arcade are more serious games like on Mac, Windows and consoles. At the moment they're mostly just crappy childish phone games blown up to TV size. There's a bit of a vicious circle as to why I don't play many AppleTV games: cost of the games themselves with no demo, and requirement for the better games to have a controller. The cost of these combined is a little too much for me.
Apple initially required all titles to work with the Siri Remote, but this hobbled playback and prevented games developers from setting a minimum controller for good gameplay. The fact that some more complex games require a dedicated controller is not a problem, it's a solution.
Are you arguing for stretched up iPhone games, or against higher quality games optimized for a console-type TV experience? Because it makes no sense to complain about both directions at once.
I'm not arguing against higher quality games at all, which is why I said "At the moment they're mostly just crappy childish phone games blown up to TV size." I want high quality games, but I also want some kind of demo, time limited or whatever, so I don't fork out £15 or £30 on something crap.
But you also complained that those games require a controller. You’re arguing out of both sides of your mouth - you want grown up games but don’t want to buy a controller. Uhh...
Apple has been getting free advice for years that the secret to selling more devices is to drive selling prices down into loss-leader territory. Analysts began demanding consumers have access to $300 iPhones straight from Apple and not used many years ago, and have repeated the same refrain for iPads, HomePod, and of course, Apple TV.
Yet, Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier in phones, tablets, PCs and elsewhere. That indicates that the idea of it selling a super-cheap Apple TV model is very unlikely to ever happen.
Ok.... MY "free advice": Bull! I have not seen any evidence that "Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier " Further, why does it have to be either / or? Either very cheap or very expensive. That's kind of black and white argument is the sign of a weak argument.
You haven't seen any evidence that Apple is doing far better than everyone else in the phone or tablet or PC markets?
Samsung sells +300M phones a year compared to Apple's +200M, but Apple earns far more and its profits are far higher and more resilient. When iPhone sales dipped due to the economic downturn in China, Apple maintained things pretty well. Meanwhile Samsung's volumes stayed about the same but its product mix dropped precipitously, and the result was a devastating blow to revenues and profitability. So Samsung is being forced to back out of the high end, hurting things further.
The same thing is playing out in every category Apple does business in.
There is no "black and white argument" going on, it's just black and white facts. And it's obviously true regardless of whether you "see any evidence" or not.
While admittedly, Apple transitioning to cheap products ($300 iPhones) would have multiple negative effects, that does not mean that they have to or even should rely only on premium products. Apple has both the ability to produce moderately priced products (the Xr is an excellent example) as well as the customer base to support it. Plus, selling last year's products at reduced prices leverages their fixed investments into the development and manufacture of those devices -- which is a win-win for everybody.
Again, the situation is that Apple was selling iPhones around $650 and pundits where demanding a $300 iPhone. This occured from 2010-2016.
Apple responded by making a more expensive Plus in 2014, higher capacity tiers at a premium, and iPhone X at $999. Apple raised its ASP to nearly $800. And that came despite also offering increasingly cheap iPhone options like the SE and older models offered at a discount.
You're holding up the $750 XR as an example of "mid priced" but it's higher that any new iPhone Apple was selling during the period of analysts demanding $300 phones. What do you mean by that? The XR is a massively premium priced high end phone, Apple just also offers even more expensive models.
Also, Apple has been "selling last year's products at reduced prices" for over a decade now, so what does that even mean?
What the article is saying is that Apple's forward strategy involves introducing new models at premium prices with features to match.
Samsung tried to do this and failed. Nows it's focused on new $300 Galaxy A models. Every other Android maker is similarly dumping out mostly $250 models, even if they hope or would like to sell some of their iPhone-priced devices, or even much more expensive Fold or diamond bedazzled versions.
That said, the current AppleTV seems locked into a no-man's land: it is moderately to high priced but offers little more functionality than far cheaper competitor's products. Apple and its customers could benefit by producing a "pro" model AppleTV -- while leaving lower priced model for those who do just fine watching the evening news of Sunday game on their AppleTV.
That's just not true. As the article points out, the cheap./free things people might want to do with a low priced dongle are now available: you can AirPlay and stream iTunes from many devices now. Apple doesn't need to introduce one and try to sell it at a loss just to have a low end product category. Same with HomePod. Apple doesn't have to make a $30 Siri Dot just because that's what Amazon and Google are doing. They're making zero money and just hoping to create an installed base among affluent users.
Apple already has that.
Apple doesn’t “already have that”. When everyone in my house and my parents house and the house of everyone I know has all Apple products except HomePod, and has dozens of Alexa devices or Sonos/Alexa devices between us...Apple done f’d up. They absolutely should have ensured their place there, and failed.
Their arrogance is why they didn’t. And also because Siri is a pathetically inferior product to Alexa, so they couldn’t compete even if they wanted to.
WHOOSH, point flew over your head. Yes, Apple already had the affluent user base. Hint: he wasn’t suggesting it comes from HomePod. It comes from iOS and Mac, and it’s already there. Amazon needs cheap Dots to try to build up a base. Apple doesn’t need to release a cheap dot and can do the much, much better sounding HP because they already have a base of affluent customers, so there’s no incentive to do cheap. It’s a high-quality music player. (It’s filling my room right now, unlike crappy small BT speakers)
Oh “But Apple is arrogant!” Love the familiar tropes.
Apple has been getting free advice for years that the secret to selling more devices is to drive selling prices down into loss-leader territory. Analysts began demanding consumers have access to $300 iPhones straight from Apple and not used many years ago, and have repeated the same refrain for iPads, HomePod, and of course, Apple TV.
Yet, Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier in phones, tablets, PCs and elsewhere. That indicates that the idea of it selling a super-cheap Apple TV model is very unlikely to ever happen.
Ok.... MY "free advice": Bull! I have not seen any evidence that "Apple has since proven that it is far more valuable to sell fewer units in the premium tier " Further, why does it have to be either / or? Either very cheap or very expensive. That's kind of black and white argument is the sign of a weak argument.
You haven't seen any evidence that Apple is doing far better than everyone else in the phone or tablet or PC markets?
Samsung sells +300M phones a year compared to Apple's +200M, but Apple earns far more and its profits are far higher and more resilient. When iPhone sales dipped due to the economic downturn in China, Apple maintained things pretty well. Meanwhile Samsung's volumes stayed about the same but its product mix dropped precipitously, and the result was a devastating blow to revenues and profitability. So Samsung is being forced to back out of the high end, hurting things further.
The same thing is playing out in every category Apple does business in.
There is no "black and white argument" going on, it's just black and white facts. And it's obviously true regardless of whether you "see any evidence" or not.
LOL....
How about the next time you reply to something I said, why don't you make it a reply to something that I ACTUALLY said -- rather than something YOU said!
Admittedly, it's a good way to win an argument. But it's nonsense.
But you did say it. DED said we have plenty of evidence that it’s more valuable to sell fewer but more expensive products. Evidence: Apple’s historic success. You claimed you don’t see evidence of it. That’s exactly what you said.
You feeling okay, buddy? Staying cool in this heat?
Despite being a pioneer, AppleTV is now a massive underachiever. They’ve been pretty convincingly overtaken by Roku. If it weren’t for my photos and my music, I’d pretty much jettison both mine. The remote is an insufferable joke.
Faster processors and Arcade and Jennifer Anniston and such ain’t going to cut it.
Could you elaborate? How is the Apple TV an underachiever? What is superior about the Roku other than unit sales? My Apple TV HD does precisely what it was designed to do, that being streaming music and video, providing a plethora of apps from which to choose, games. Back in the day the Windows people used to mock Apple users over how much software was available for Windows compared to OS X, leaving out the fact that most of that Windows software was cheap crap. In my opinion you are dead wrong and the Roku is the streaming world’s Windows, market share and nothing superior about it.
If we’re talking about gaming here, and we are, then that old bit of nonsense about marketshare not being important dies yet again. [...]
the only way the billions they are spending on Tv programming will be successful, is if massive numbers of people watch it regularly. And most people watch Tv not on their phones, but on their TVs.
You’re comparing apples to oranges, I’m afraid. When it comes to device sales, market share is less important than profit generation. Apple devices, rarely majority market leaders, do lead at profit generation. Historically and spectacularly. When people say that Apple is more interested in ASP and profit for its hardware (macs, iphones, ipads, watches, etc) that is completely true.
You’re now talking about a gaming service and television service of original programming. That’s a different product, a different market, and different consumer model.
When it comes to the typical computing devices argued about on this site for over a decade, worshipping at the church of market share is less important than revenue and profit generation. That hasn’t changed.
Despite being a pioneer, AppleTV is now a massive underachiever. They’ve been pretty convincingly overtaken by Roku. If it weren’t for my photos and my music, I’d pretty much jettison both mine. The remote is an insufferable joke.
Faster processors and Arcade and Jennifer Anniston and such ain’t going to cut it.
Could you elaborate? How is the Apple TV an underachiever? What is superior about the Roku other than unit sales? My Apple TV HD does precisely what it was designed to do, that being streaming music and video, providing a plethora of apps from which to choose, games. Back in the day the Windows people used to mock Apple users over how much software was available for Windows compared to OS X, leaving out the fact that most of that Windows software was cheap crap. In my opinion you are dead wrong and the Roku is the streaming world’s Windows, market share and nothing superior about it.
There are no decent games for it, despite it being marketed as a gaming device - amongst its other features.
The third party apps available are pretty poor, they all seem like The only one I use regularly is Plex, and that's available on pretty much any streaming box.
The remote is utterly abysmal. It's terrible. You don't know what way around it is, and they have tried to overload the buttons with too many things. When one button can do three things, it's time for another button. It's also slippery and fragile.
The UI is crap. It looks nice but that's the extent of it. The menu button sometimes takes you back to the home screen, sometimes back up a level in the app, sometimes shows the top menu. The top menu being invisible most of the time is ridiculous because without prior knowledge you have no idea if there's a menu at all.
Siri is useless. I literally never use it because rather than searching my libraries for things I want to watch, it leans heavily towards suggesting I buy new things in iTunes.
Did I mention how crap the remote is?
It's quite expensive for what you get.
All of which, of course, is your own personal opinion. Many Apple TV users would vehemently disagree, myself included. Is Roku even promoted as a gaming device?
apple is concerned that those like Elijahg simply won’t spend the $50 to buy a real game controller. The attention to people like that, who also won’t spend the money to get top rated games is what’s destroyed, so far, the prospects of any real quality gaming on the Atv. The fact is that people like that have to be ignored in this context. Apple either jumps in with both feet, or sits on the edge of the pool, splashing around with its toes forever. There’s another analogy that’s a bit cruder, that’s even better.
Don't get me wrong, I pay for decent games. My steam library has well over £2000 of games in it. If there were decent games on the AppleTV, I'd buy a controller. And to help my decision on whether to purchase new games, a demo version goes a long way. I go on to buy the full version of most game demos I download. But I'm not going to pay £50 for a controller when there're only 3 or 4 mediocre games on the TV App Store that'll accommodate one.
That’s more reasonable than what you laid out in your first post. But about the controller. The attitude of not wanting to spend more on a controller is the biggest problem. A lot of higher end developers have stated that they won’t develop for the aTv because of the requirement to write to Apple’s controller. That’s a main reason why you don’t see more games you would want. It’s not really the other way around.
again, it’s Apple’s dithering around here. They should offer both the XBox and PlayStation controllers as options, instead of the apple controller. That would drop the total cost differential to maybe $25, which most people could go for. They should rewrite the aTv software to be able to utilize either controller as the controller for all functions. Maybe they should even drop their own controller.
and realistically, a huge number of people already own one, or more, of those controllers, because they already own either an XBox or PlayStation, or both.
There are games on the store though that're controller only? I agree though, their current controller is terrible, and offering a box with a different controller in would probably be a good idea. But then Apple's not ever been interested in gaming, so I don't think they care really. I think they're almost a bit embarrassed that most (77%!) of the App Store revenue comes from games.
A;p,e has always been ambivalent towards gaming. They have had a lot of initiatives, but none planned out. In the early days of the Mac, when it was being called a toy, by the less than bright PC DOS community, Apple shied away from games, because they were afraid it would just give more credence to the charge. Later on, they tried, even writing special software for developers, as well as 3D APIs and such.
we’ll see. But by allowing full controller support for Sony and Microsoft, and making it easy to connect them, Apple is moving in the proper direction. I think they still need to move more, but who knows?
Despite being a pioneer, AppleTV is now a massive underachiever. They’ve been pretty convincingly overtaken by Roku. If it weren’t for my photos and my music, I’d pretty much jettison both mine. The remote is an insufferable joke.
Faster processors and Arcade and Jennifer Anniston and such ain’t going to cut it.
Could you elaborate? How is the Apple TV an underachiever? What is superior about the Roku other than unit sales? My Apple TV HD does precisely what it was designed to do, that being streaming music and video, providing a plethora of apps from which to choose, games. Back in the day the Windows people used to mock Apple users over how much software was available for Windows compared to OS X, leaving out the fact that most of that Windows software was cheap crap. In my opinion you are dead wrong and the Roku is the streaming world’s Windows, market share and nothing superior about it.
If we’re talking about gaming here, and we are, then that old bit of nonsense about marketshare not being important dies yet again. [...]
the only way the billions they are spending on Tv programming will be successful, is if massive numbers of people watch it regularly. And most people watch Tv not on their phones, but on their TVs.
You’re comparing apples to oranges, I’m afraid. When it comes to device sales, market share is less important than profit generation. Apple devices, rarely majority market leaders, do lead at profit generation. Historically and spectacularly. When people say that Apple is more interested in ASP and profit for its hardware (macs, iphones, ipads, watches, etc) that is completely true.
You’re now talking about a gaming service and television service of original programming. That’s a different product, a different market, and different consumer model.
When it comes to the typical computing devices argued about on this site for over a decade, worshipping at the church of market share is less important than revenue and profit generation. That hasn’t changed.
You should be afraid, because you’re wrong. You don’t understand the gaming market, that’s clear. Marketshare is everything there. Developers write first for the biggest platform, then they MAY write for the next biggest. The XBox hasn’t gotten much love this generation because they’re so far behind Sony they stopped giving sales numbers for their consoles back in 2015! Most game development is on the PlayStation market, just as it was the opposite the generation before when ms was killing Sony, amd when the Wii was the biggest.Microsoft bought its own game companies years ago to feed them with major games. If it weren’t for that, the XBox would be a dead platform just as the Wii is.
apple should have bought a major studios years ago, and let them develop whatever they wanted to, just giving the funds. But they haven’t, because they’re not serious. So y develops its own games, as does Nintendo. If you’re going to try to be a gaming platform, you need to develop your own games. Apple finally understands that for TV.
Comments
So far, game playing on the Atv has been a massive failure. Much of that is Apple’s fault. That’s because they have refused to understand what gamers want, most of the time. Even when they do, they deliberately fail to cater to them, which they need to do. Developers have commented bitterly, about the requirement of making the Atv controller the basic, default controller for playing games. That hampers their ability to have gameplay work well on real gamer controllers. Everyone understands why, but it’s still a failure.
apple is concerned that those like Elijahg simply won’t spend the $50 to buy a real game controller. The attention to people like that, who also won’t spend the money to get top rated games is what’s destroyed, so far, the prospects of any real quality gaming on the Atv. The fact is that people like that have to be ignored in this context. Apple either jumps in with both feet, or sits on the edge of the pool, splashing around with its toes forever. There’s another analogy that’s a bit cruder, that’s even better.
Admittedly, it's a good way to win an argument. But it's nonsense.
I still have a 2012 era Apple TV, the one that doesn’t run tvOS (or doesn’t have the modern tvOS app/Siri UI). If there is a new one announced next week, I’ll probably get it. Hopefully Apple swallows some pride and just ships a branded game controller with it instead of the stick. We primarily use the current puck as a media streamer, but it’ll be nice to have more capabilities.
For the controller, I think it would be great if it had either thumb board or an actual LCD display on it for displaying a keyboard, plus the usual accoutrements of joysticks, buttons and pads.
again, it’s Apple’s dithering around here. They should offer both the XBox and PlayStation controllers as options, instead of the apple controller. That would drop the total cost differential to maybe $25, which most people could go for. They should rewrite the aTv software to be able to utilize either controller as the controller for all functions. Maybe they should even drop their own controller.
and realistically, a huge number of people already own one, or more, of those controllers, because they already own either an XBox or PlayStation, or both.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/new-apple-tv-with-a12-chip-and-one-more-thing-teased-ahead-of-next-weeks-apple-event.2196310/
AppleInsider said:
Internet pucks for your TV require typing in passwords, searching for stuff, etc, and single click UI input designs for that suck, including the default controllers for the gaming boxes too. The mediarati will make fun of it, but it will be a usability improvement. It will reduce one of the biggest friction points for the controllers of all these boxes that have streaming services. Typing in a search for a show or video is a pain.
Just stick a 4” iPhone touchscreen in the middle of a generic controller design (short stubby grips, joysticks, a few buttons, and call it a day.
A lot of the viral ones seem to be cases of poor syntax causing mismatches with answers.
You guys are saying “How many days is it until the 2nd of September” or “How many days is it until 2 September”. As a human, we understand the phrase to mean “How many days until September 2”, which is rather more concise and easier to understand in English imo. When adding “is it” or varying how Sep 2 is said, I can see that causing phrase mismatches by the assistant’s algorithm.
When you see this, you don’t ask the question again in exactly the same way. You have to say it in better syntax as it were, but that can often be quite difficult to do on the spot.
Perhaps you’ve been living in the multiverse. Here in our dimension, Apple became the most valuable and successful company in the history of humanity, thanks to iPhone. Their iPads rule tablets, and Macs lead PC profit. iPods were king as well.
That’s the evidence. If you haven’t seen it, get those eyes checked.
But you also complained that those games require a controller. You’re arguing out of both sides of your mouth - you want grown up games but don’t want to buy a controller. Uhh...
WHOOSH, point flew over your head. Yes, Apple already had the affluent user base. Hint: he wasn’t suggesting it comes from HomePod. It comes from iOS and Mac, and it’s already there. Amazon needs cheap Dots to try to build up a base. Apple doesn’t need to release a cheap dot and can do the much, much better sounding HP because they already have a base of affluent customers, so there’s no incentive to do cheap. It’s a high-quality music player. (It’s filling my room right now, unlike crappy small BT speakers)
Oh “But Apple is arrogant!” Love the familiar tropes.
You feeling okay, buddy? Staying cool in this heat?
You’re now talking about a gaming service and television service of original programming. That’s a different product, a different market, and different consumer model.
When it comes to the typical computing devices argued about on this site for over a decade, worshipping at the church of market share is less important than revenue and profit generation. That hasn’t changed.
we’ll see. But by allowing full controller support for Sony and Microsoft, and making it easy to connect them, Apple is moving in the proper direction. I think they still need to move more, but who knows?
You should be afraid, because you’re wrong. You don’t understand the gaming market, that’s clear. Marketshare is everything there. Developers write first for the biggest platform, then they MAY write for the next biggest. The XBox hasn’t gotten much love this generation because they’re so far behind Sony they stopped giving sales numbers for their consoles back in 2015! Most game development is on the PlayStation market, just as it was the opposite the generation before when ms was killing Sony, amd when the Wii was the biggest.Microsoft bought its own game companies years ago to feed them with major games. If it weren’t for that, the XBox would be a dead platform just as the Wii is.
apple should have bought a major studios years ago, and let them develop whatever they wanted to, just giving the funds. But they haven’t, because they’re not serious. So y develops its own games, as does Nintendo. If you’re going to try to be a gaming platform, you need to develop your own games. Apple finally understands that for TV.