This opens to larger on board storage for the next gen AppleTV when 4K is also added. Gaming experience will keep getting better with the next gen faster A processors.
I'm amazed with how badly Apple has bungled the release of apps on the Apple TV. They could be eating Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony's lunch if they put in a bit of effort. (Or if they just bought Nintendo.
I agree. No need to buy Nintendo though. Apple has all the tech bits available including a good CPU to build the AppleTV into a good gaming console. I don't know what Apple managers are thinking, or if they are thinking at all. Its a totally missed opportunity. The AppleTV app store is pathetic. 200mb limit was a brainless decision. Have a gaming bundle with the controller supplied as well. Have a USB socket so you can plug any webcam in there so you can facetime. The AppleTV is a quarter of the box it could be. Its doesn't make any sense that Apple has nothing about it. There is no vision and the managers should be replaced.
Couldn't have said it better. Apple absolutely dropped the ball here. The ATV4 had so much promise when it came out. I bought into it all - two 64GB units with the Nimbus controllers when they first came out. To date, it's all been an underwhelming experience. Whether it's due to severe inexperience or ineptness and you have only Apple's product managers to blame for that. Harsh words have to be said.
I've still got an atv 2 and 3 and trying to locally play an admittedly large (27gb) video file was a very frustrating experience. The frequent stalls as the player caught up with streamed movie was pretty bad. Does anyone know if this was improved in the atv 4?
How many GB are typical console games on Xbox, Playstation, etc.?
I'm wondering if this is setting the stage for Apple to target more high end games on ATV.
Playstation 1, original xbox, Gamecube about 700MB Xbox 360, Playstation 2 and most of the PS3 library: 8GB Xbox one, Playstation 4: up to 80gb, but nothing's really hit that yet. Destiny with all the expansions is about 36GB.
I've still got an atv 2 and 3 and trying to locally play an admittedly large (27gb) video file was a very frustrating experience. The frequent stalls as the player caught up with streamed movie was pretty bad. Does anyone know if this was improved in the atv 4?
Holy crap. What are you playing that's Apple TV compatible and that large? I've got no experience wrangling video files that giant, but there are improvements with the A8 in the fourth gen versus the older gear.
I'm amazed with how badly Apple has bungled the release of apps on the Apple TV. They could be eating Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony's lunch if they put in a bit of effort. (Or if they just bought Nintendo.
I agree. No need to buy Nintendo though. Apple has all the tech bits available including a good CPU to build the AppleTV into a good gaming console. I don't know what Apple managers are thinking, or if they are thinking at all. Its a totally missed opportunity. The AppleTV app store is pathetic. 200mb limit was a brainless decision. Have a gaming bundle with the controller supplied as well. Have a USB socket so you can plug any webcam in there so you can facetime. The AppleTV is a quarter of the box it could be. Its doesn't make any sense that Apple has nothing about it. There is no vision and the managers should be replaced.
Couldn't have said it better. Apple absolutely dropped the ball here. The ATV4 had so much promise when it came out. I bought into it all - two 64GB units with the Nimbus controllers when they first came out. To date, it's all been an underwhelming experience. Whether it's due to severe inexperience or ineptness and you have only Apple's product managers to blame for that. Harsh words have to be said.
Sorry to hear that. I was not overwhelmed by the product, and had decided to wait it out. It looked to me like work in progress (just as the MacBook was, Apple Music was), which runs counter to the narrative of "Apple never releases something until it's fully ready."
That's weird. And non-trivial. How often do you see something like that?
1) That's very atypical so I wonder if something else is up that we might be able to predict—perhaps with an upcoming Spring event.
2) Too bad we can't get a 20x increase in iCloud storage. Hell, I'd even settle for a 2x increase.
I am guessing you mean a 20th or even half the cost? There's plenty of storage available if you pay. Personally I am not unhappy at $9.99 for 1TB although obviously I'd love it to be less.
This change doesn't come without a cost. In addition to a "more complete and rich experience", it also encourages code bloat and reduces the number of installable applications.
I'm amazed with how badly Apple has bungled the release of apps on the Apple TV. They could be eating Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony's lunch if they put in a bit of effort. (Or if they just bought Nintendo.
I agree. No need to buy Nintendo though. Apple has all the tech bits available including a good CPU to build the AppleTV into a good gaming console. I don't know what Apple managers are thinking, or if they are thinking at all. Its a totally missed opportunity. The AppleTV app store is pathetic. 200mb limit was a brainless decision. Have a gaming bundle with the controller supplied as well. Have a USB socket so you can plug any webcam in there so you can facetime. The AppleTV is a quarter of the box it could be. Its doesn't make any sense that Apple has nothing about it. There is no vision and the managers should be replaced.
Or, their vision is different than yours. USB cameras?
I'm amazed with how badly Apple has bungled the release of apps on the Apple TV. They could be eating Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony's lunch if they put in a bit of effort. (Or if they just bought Nintendo.
I agree. No need to buy Nintendo though. Apple has all the tech bits available including a good CPU to build the AppleTV into a good gaming console. I don't know what Apple managers are thinking, or if they are thinking at all. Its a totally missed opportunity. The AppleTV app store is pathetic. 200mb limit was a brainless decision. Have a gaming bundle with the controller supplied as well. Have a USB socket so you can plug any webcam in there so you can facetime. The AppleTV is a quarter of the box it could be. Its doesn't make any sense that Apple has nothing about it. There is no vision and the managers should be replaced.
Couldn't have said it better. Apple absolutely dropped the ball here. The ATV4 had so much promise when it came out. I bought into it all - two 64GB units with the Nimbus controllers when they first came out. To date, it's all been an underwhelming experience. Whether it's due to severe inexperience or ineptness and you have only Apple's product managers to blame for that. Harsh words have to be said.
Sorry to hear that. I was not overwhelmed by the product, and had decided to wait it out. It looked to me like work in progress (just as the MacBook was, Apple Music was), which runs counter to the narrative of "Apple never releases something until it's fully ready."
The ATV is fully ready -- it's just not the gaming console some were hoping for. It's a fantastic content player and we use ours daily.
That's weird. And non-trivial. How often do you see something like that?
1) That's very atypical so I wonder if something else is up that we might be able to predict—perhaps with an upcoming Spring event.
2) Too bad we can't get a 20x increase in iCloud storage. Hell, I'd even settle for a 2x increase.
I am guessing you mean a 20th or even half the cost? There's plenty of storage available if you pay. Personally I am not unhappy at $9.99 for 1TB although obviously I'd love it to be less.
I mean the default storage at 5 GiB being far too low to support everyone with a single iDevice with one iCloud backup.
I'm amazed with how badly Apple has bungled the release of apps on the Apple TV. They could be eating Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony's lunch if they put in a bit of effort. (Or if they just bought Nintendo.
I agree. No need to buy Nintendo though. Apple has all the tech bits available including a good CPU to build the AppleTV into a good gaming console. I don't know what Apple managers are thinking, or if they are thinking at all. Its a totally missed opportunity. The AppleTV app store is pathetic. 200mb limit was a brainless decision. Have a gaming bundle with the controller supplied as well. Have a USB socket so you can plug any webcam in there so you can facetime. The AppleTV is a quarter of the box it could be. Its doesn't make any sense that Apple has nothing about it. There is no vision and the managers should be replaced.
Couldn't have said it better. Apple absolutely dropped the ball here. The ATV4 had so much promise when it came out. I bought into it all - two 64GB units with the Nimbus controllers when they first came out. To date, it's all been an underwhelming experience. Whether it's due to severe inexperience or ineptness and you have only Apple's product managers to blame for that. Harsh words have to be said.
Sorry to hear that. I was not overwhelmed by the product, and had decided to wait it out. It looked to me like work in progress (just as the MacBook was, Apple Music was), which runs counter to the narrative of "Apple never releases something until it's fully ready."
The ATV is fully ready -- it's just not the gaming console some were hoping for. It's a fantastic content player and we use ours daily.
Of course it's a fantastic content player. So is @TV3. (I just bought another one.)
I'll wait for a better iteration. I am not in a hurry.
Should've gotten myself a 64GB AppleTV instead of 32GB. Oh well.
In all seriousness, do you really use the app component of AppleTV? We were so excited when it came out - bought controllers, 64GB version, etc. But the games were few (and those few were weak). And the non-game apps were even less useful. So our ATV just does no more than our old 3rd generation ATVs do - stream netflix, show movies, and display the occasional slide show. I got a little hopeful when they pulled the restriction on making all games remote compatible (instead of being limited to standalone remotes) but nothing seems to have happened.
This change doesn't come without a cost. In addition to a "more complete and rich experience", it also encourages code bloat and reduces the number of installable applications.
Dude. That would have to be some pretty bloaty code to take up 4GB.
This is about assets, not code.
The 200MB limit was stupid. This is long overdue.
Apple could make the AppleTV a decent gaming console if they lifted half a finger. This change is lifting maybe 1/10th of a finger.
I don't understand why Apple isn't even trying to compete with the NVIDIA Shield. What's stopping them? Apple has the most powerful ARM processors around. AppleTV is using the older dual-core A8 processor to save money. One would think Apple's economies of scale with iPhones and iPads would allow them to keep only one generation of A-Series processor behind for AppleTV use. It's not even an A8X. The NVIDIA Shield at least uses a current Tegra X1 octa-core processor. The base NVIDIA Shield costs the same amount as Apple's most expensive AppleTV. Is Apple really being a piker when it comes to using the lowest common denominator in terms of hardware? I honestly don't know. I realize Apple isn't into comparing specs but I would like to see some benchmark or real-world comparisons between AppleTV and the NVIDIA Shield for gaming and streaming use. AppleTV isn't even currently supporting 4K res for reasons unknown. Even the cheapest Android streaming boxes can do that much. Apple is becoming more puzzling as time goes by. They don't seem to have any pride in terms of processing power. NVIDIA is currently grabbing all the glory, all the growth and making a wealthy company like Apple look absolutely pathetic by providing NVIDIA users with powerful hardware.
This change doesn't come without a cost. In addition to a "more complete and rich experience", it also encourages code bloat and reduces the number of installable applications.
Your other problem though is far bigger in my mind. Apple TV simply doesn't have enough onboard storage to support such massive apps.
That tells me that the next generation will likely have more capacity and is likely in the pipeline for release in the not too distant future.
I'm still not sure what to make of ATV. I like mine, use it regularly, but it always seems to be missing something. Maybe it is because I am an OTA TV user, so much of my content simply doesn't come via the ATV. I considered the silicondust HomeRunHD thingy, but it is a tad pricey for what it offers, and it isn't clear that it buys me more content - merely a more convenient single source box in ATV. Maybe the guide is worth it at some point.
I did see a CES release of Mohu's new antenna/tuner/wifi box. Looks like SIlicondust now has some competition, so maybe prices will drop.
Gotta say I've come to really dislike the ATV remote. Yuck.
edit: one other thing: I might be inclined to leave ATV and the TV on continuously if the screen saver had a user configurable data panel. Maybe there's an app for this: put up some nice graphics of time, weather, maybe news, rss feeds...just let it run.
I'm amazed with how badly Apple has bungled the release of apps on the Apple TV. They could be eating Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony's lunch if they put in a bit of effort. (Or if they just bought Nintendo.
I agree. No need to buy Nintendo though. Apple has all the tech bits available including a good CPU to build the AppleTV into a good gaming console. I don't know what Apple managers are thinking, or if they are thinking at all. Its a totally missed opportunity. The AppleTV app store is pathetic. 200mb limit was a brainless decision. Have a gaming bundle with the controller supplied as well. Have a USB socket so you can plug any webcam in there so you can facetime. The AppleTV is a quarter of the box it could be. Its doesn't make any sense that Apple has nothing about it. There is no vision and the managers should be replaced.
Couldn't have said it better. Apple absolutely dropped the ball here. The ATV4 had so much promise when it came out. I bought into it all - two 64GB units with the Nimbus controllers when they first came out. To date, it's all been an underwhelming experience. Whether it's due to severe inexperience or ineptness and you have only Apple's product managers to blame for that. Harsh words have to be said.
Sorry to hear that. I was not overwhelmed by the product, and had decided to wait it out. It looked to me like work in progress (just as the MacBook was, Apple Music was), which runs counter to the narrative of "Apple never releases something until it's fully ready."
The ATV is fully ready -- it's just not the gaming console some were hoping for. It's a fantastic content player and we use ours daily.
Of course it's a fantastic content player. So is @TV3. (I just bought another one.)
I'll wait for a better iteration. I am not in a hurry.
The functionality of the ATV3 pales in comparison to the 4, due to the lack of apps, SSO, TV app, etc.
This change doesn't come without a cost. In addition to a "more complete and rich experience", it also encourages code bloat and reduces the number of installable applications.
Your other problem though is far bigger in my mind. Apple TV simply doesn't have enough onboard storage to support such massive apps.
That tells me that the next generation will likely have more capacity and is likely in the pipeline for release in the not too distant future.
I'm still not sure what to make of ATV. I like mine, use it regularly, but it always seems to be missing something. Maybe it is because I am an OTA TV user, so much of my content simply doesn't come via the ATV. I considered the silicondust HomeRunHD thingy, but it is a tad pricey for what it offers, and it isn't clear that it buys me more content - merely a more convenient single source box in ATV. Maybe the guide is worth it at some point.
I did see a CES release of Mohu's new antenna/tuner/wifi box. Looks like SIlicondust now has some competition, so maybe prices will drop.
Gotta say I've come to really dislike the ATV remote. Yuck.
edit: one other thing: I might be inclined to leave ATV and the TV on continuously if the screen saver had a user configurable data panel. Maybe there's an app for this: put up some nice graphics of time, weather, maybe news, rss feeds...just let it run.
1) I use my Samsung TV remote for my Apple TV because I can tell which way is up without looking at it with a reasonable amount of light on it. I also use my TV's Netflix (and Amazon) apps for most video watching as they allow for UHDTV+HDR content to be played, while the Apple TV is only 1080p.
2) I'm amazed at how fast the Apple TV can reboot, but I'm annoyed that I have to do it at all. Both the IR and BT remotes stop being received by the Apple TV periodically. I can still grab my iPhone to use as remote or to restart the system—I'm guessing that works on WiFi via Home Sharing.
3) Lots of potential, the best UI they've had yet, but something is definitely missing. Some of it's not their fault. Even the Golden Globes didn't have rights for streaming TV services that already show live TV (e.g.: DirecTV subscribers could watch the Golden Globes via the DirecTV website, but DirecTV Now subscribers couldn't). It's a mess, and that's before we get into regions and country licensing. I think this is going to take a decades before this is great experience.
4) I agree that the lack of data available, even if just a scrolling banner with weather, news, maybe some Twitter or Mal subject if you want that enabled would be nice. Or an overlay. Something! That said, those new screensavers are brilliant to look at.
4) I agree that the lack of data available, even if just a scrolling banner with weather, news, maybe some Twitter or Mal subject if you want that enabled would be nice. Or an overlay. Something! That said, those new screensavers are brilliant to look at.
Maybe there's an app out there, but if not maybe a dev opportunity? Customize a display with "widgets" from an iOS or macOS device, then throw it to the ATV4 for display.If reasonably robust and usable I'd buy for maybe $5 or so.
Comments
The ATV is fully ready -- it's just not the gaming console some were hoping for. It's a fantastic content player and we use ours daily.
I'll wait for a better iteration. I am not in a hurry.
I did see a CES release of Mohu's new antenna/tuner/wifi box. Looks like SIlicondust now has some competition, so maybe prices will drop.
Gotta say I've come to really dislike the ATV remote. Yuck.
edit: one other thing: I might be inclined to leave ATV and the TV on continuously if the screen saver had a user configurable data panel. Maybe there's an app for this: put up some nice graphics of time, weather, maybe news, rss feeds...just let it run.
2) I'm amazed at how fast the Apple TV can reboot, but I'm annoyed that I have to do it at all. Both the IR and BT remotes stop being received by the Apple TV periodically. I can still grab my iPhone to use as remote or to restart the system—I'm guessing that works on WiFi via Home Sharing.
3) Lots of potential, the best UI they've had yet, but something is definitely missing. Some of it's not their fault. Even the Golden Globes didn't have rights for streaming TV services that already show live TV (e.g.: DirecTV subscribers could watch the Golden Globes via the DirecTV website, but DirecTV Now subscribers couldn't). It's a mess, and that's before we get into regions and country licensing. I think this is going to take a decades before this is great experience.
4) I agree that the lack of data available, even if just a scrolling banner with weather, news, maybe some Twitter or Mal subject if you want that enabled would be nice. Or an overlay. Something! That said, those new screensavers are brilliant to look at.