Was once my favorite Apple Product. Now sadly this is what happens when you have a super restrictive and small developer market. Barrier to entry is too much. Couple that with an embarrassingly high price, and you get 2%, and falling fast marketshare. Sad.
When Steve Jobs announced Apple TV it was revolutionary, a game changer, the future of TV. Nowadays with lame full version updates which look more like an excuse than a full update, gens ago hardware and no up-to-date features, poor piece of hardware is not getting the treatment it deserves
Steve Jobs called it a “hobby” and there’s little revolutionary or game changing about the original Apple TV. It was a giant iPod with the Mac’s Front Row interface that you could connect to your TV. It didn’t even have access to the iTunes Store. You literally had to pair it to your computer to get it to work. Sling was well ahead at that point. Eventually Apple dumped it and went for a mulligan and at some point Tim upgraded it from a hobby.
iPhone was just an iPod with a phone, iPad was just a giant iPod touch remember?
It was revolutionary as hell and paved the way for the interfaces and boxes of today.
When Steve Jobs announced Apple TV it was revolutionary, a game changer, the future of TV. Nowadays with lame full version updates which look more like an excuse than a full update, gens ago hardware and no up-to-date features, poor piece of hardware is not getting the treatment it deserves
You're full of shit. He never called it revolutionary. He called it a hobby until his death. But nice revisionist history there, you needed to dig SJ out of his grave to make up lies. Also, what Apple TV is now, is infinitely better than what Jobs announced, with massively more capability. The Apple TV appstore didn't even exist.
I never said he called it "Revolutionary" dumb ass. Read slowly.
"you needed to dig SJ out of his grave"
Ok Tim Cook announced it. Happy?
"Also, what Apple TV is now, is infinitely better than what Jobs announced,"
Same with iPhone, iPad, Mac, software. No shit. How stupid can a single human be to not know upgrades make things better?
Flawed survey or not.. better than the ‘hobby’ stage or not.. Apple TV is yet another bumbled mess that utilizes only a tiny fraction of its potential, and completely squanders its incredibly privileged role of being in the Apple ecosystem (like virtually every service Apple tries to offer). Like nearly every service, the rollout was completely bumbled (I still have an Apple TV specific controller collecting dust bc the game options have been crappy). I’m a daily, very regular user of the Apple TV, but unfortunately the only thing it’s reliable for is basic streaming and media consumption. Even there, it’s often frustrating to try and search for anything using siri with the Apple TV (one consonant or punctuation mark off and it’s hopeless). It looks like we’re about to be blessed with another catch up version that I’m sure will be entirely ‘passable.’ Can’t wait. /s
I wish Apple would have enough integrity, and respect for its users to create services and service platforms commensurate with the quality of their hardware, core software, and overall ethos of the company.
Flawed survey or not.. better than the ‘hobby’ stage or not.. Apple TV is yet another bumbled mess that utilizes only a tiny fraction of its potential, and completely squanders its incredibly privileged role of being in the Apple ecosystem (like virtually every service Apple tries to offer). Like nearly every service, the rollout was completely bumbled (I still have an Apple TV specific controller collecting dust bc the game options have been crappy). I’m a daily, very regular user of the Apple TV, but unfortunately the only thing it’s reliable for is basic streaming and media consumption. Even there, it’s often frustrating to try and search for anything using siri with the Apple TV (one consonant or punctuation mark off and it’s hopeless). It looks like we’re about to be blessed with another catch up version that I’m sure will be entirely ‘passable.’ Can’t wait. /s
I wish Apple would have enough integrity, and respect for its users to create services and service platforms commensurate with the quality of their hardware, core software, and overall ethos of the company.
It's still a hobby. Not sure where people got the idea it wasn't. It always gets years ago tech and tiny excuses for software updates.
Here's some features that would make me believe it was out of the "hobby" category:
Latest A-series chip or the new Apple Silicon Mac chip for gaming/AR features.
Somehow ship with a TrueDepth camera system for AR, fitness, video games, yoga etc. Could be a tiny magnetic unit that snaps on top of your TV like the Wii sensor bad. The base of the magnet stays on the TV while the camera is removable for charging. Lasts days. Nearly invisible.
Updated Siri remote with Taptic Engine and M-processor for motion detection.
Find My feature.
Full Apple Watch support. (Use your imagination).
Some new AirPods feature. The new AirPods surround feature will help but I'm thinking gaming and interactive experiences like Binaural Audio and tutorials. Imagine a game that uses 3D audio and head tracking with AirPods for example.
AR. This one's big and would most likely require a Truedepth Camera system. Animoji is obvious but could be used for shopping, gaming, health and other revolutionary possibilities.
It suffers the same problems, albeit a little less worse, than the HomePod. (disclaimer, I own both devices).
What does the AppleTV do that is specific to the AppleTV, outside the US?
- In many countries the "Siri" remote button doesn't do anything because Siri is not available - Photos is just a visualization system, and a crappy one at that. Map view, faces view, and the like are cumbersome to find and not easy to navigate. - Integration of channels besides AppleTV+ in the same interface is really limited and poorly implemented compared to the US (I have bot an account in my country as well as a US account, so I can directly compare the two) - Games are there, but there is no actual "focus on casual gaming" to speak of - Considering the limited amount of devices, many TV broadcasters snub it or if they create an app it is poorly maintained (national broadcaster paid for with public funding) - No maps - No "Home" app where I can turn the lights on and off or fiddle with devices - No FindMy where I can locate my other devices
All in all to subscribe to Netflix, Disney+ and AppleTV+ you don't need an AppleTV, just a relatively new smart TV. Why should I buy the AppleTV if my main purpose is subscribing to these services? What is the unique sales proposal of the AppleTV?
As said, I own 2 AppleTVs and I do pretty much ALL of my viewing on them, even live TV (national broadcast in my country launched their AppleTV app so I can watch them in the AppleTV). I got used to the interface, I like to have everything in one place (device). I am wary of SmartTVs snooping around my viewing habits and all sorts of information. I like a system with OS updates that make it constantly more secure than the SmartTV many of which don't get updates.
But the sales proposal, to the average person, considering the price of the device, is really hard to justify.
Also: Siri sucks. Not because of "whatever" but try to be a person who speaks a language different than english. Set Siri in, I don't know, italian, french, german. And then try to play a song by pronouncing artist and song in english. Siri doesn't get it. Try to have a contact in english on your phone and pronounce it in english, Siri will randomly look something up on the internet (I found this on the internet) or call whatever contact it feels fit.
It all starts with a real focus on international markets and languages. From the content, to the ability of Siri to understand more than one language simultaneously, to a better integration of things like "stocks", "clocks", "home", and other standard apps that one could access from the AppleTV.
When Steve Jobs announced Apple TV it was revolutionary, a game changer, the future of TV. Nowadays with lame full version updates which look more like an excuse than a full update, gens ago hardware and no up-to-date features, poor piece of hardware is not getting the treatment it deserves
They screwed up massively. No ifs or buts. They fucked up.
How is it that they left the Apple TV for years without an App Store. It was the most obvious ‘oh my goodness why have these idiots not implemented this yet’ features out there.
To this day I will never ever understand why they did not put the App Store out when they released the Apple TV 2.
And this isn’t some kind of ‘well it’s always easier to look back and realise these things now’ kind of situation. Even back then most of the major networks in the U.K. had their own iOS apps.
And before anyone comes back with answers like storage capacity or hardware power the point of the App Store back in 2010 for the Apple TV would not have been for games, it would have been for network on demand content, you know, the sort of thing people buy an actual tv for!
AppleTV is a lost cause, starting with the shitty (sorry!) little remote. It then does downhill from there. Apple's biggest underachievement, so far.
Take it to the next level, or shut it down.
What do you recommend using instead of this "lost cause"? Personally, I've used other devices and platforms, yet the Apple TV's UI, performance, and reliability still outshines the others.
AppleTV is a lost cause, starting with the shitty (sorry!) little remote. It then does downhill from there. Apple's biggest underachievement, so far.
Take it to the next level, or shut it down.
It’s mainly a TV box, not gaming console.. for thus, Apple TV Remote is brilliant! Even my 2 years old son can controll it with his lil hand, connecting dots. 2% in between all these cheap android sticks? It looks quite successful indeed!
When Steve Jobs announced Apple TV it was revolutionary, a game changer, the future of TV. Nowadays with lame full version updates which look more like an excuse than a full update, gens ago hardware and no up-to-date features, poor piece of hardware is not getting the treatment it deserves
You're full of shit. He never called it revolutionary. He called it a hobby until his death. But nice revisionist history there, you needed to dig SJ out of his grave to make up lies. Also, what Apple TV is now, is infinitely better than what Jobs announced, with massively more capability. The Apple TV appstore didn't even exist.
I never said he called it "Revolutionary" dumb ass. Read slowly.
"you needed to dig SJ out of his grave"
Ok Tim Cook announced it. Happy?
"Also, what Apple TV is now, is infinitely better than what Jobs announced,"
Same with iPhone, iPad, Mac, software. No shit. How stupid can a single human be to not know upgrades make things better?
It is always fun reading 2 hard core Apple fans throwing tantrums at each other (without even knowing that the other person is EQUALLY hard core apple fan with a "Defend Apple at ANY cost attitude").
AppleTV needs to be able to run iOS games with a controller. If I have PUBG on my iPad and a DualShock 4 Controller I should be able to download it to an AppleTV and play it from there on my TV. I assume that’s not a current option.
It's called AirPlay Mirroring, you've been able to do this for years.
and there’s something called Lag that has plagued gamers for years
Running a game on a wifi device (iphone/ipad) then using wifi to stream it to an appletv device would be needlessly slow imho.
Not that I’ve tried it, think I will, though I do more gaming on the PS.
For example you can’t release a game that only works with an A13 or above for example.
You have to support all iOS 13 devices, so that includes iPhone6S generation devices, hence no cutting edge games.
WTF? I didn't know this. No wonder all the latest games look like crap for what the hardware is capable of. THIS needs to be lifted. Even if a game says "Requires iPhone XS and above" it may piss off a gamer temporarily but it will encourage him/her to upgrade which means another sale for Apple.
Yep, as a developer it’s annoyed me for many years.
I remember building a game prototype for 3GS iPhone in 2009, it worked great on 3GS iPhone but was far too slow on iPhone3.
IPhone 3 supported iOS4 so was common - so the game would have to have been delayed until iOS5 as a minimum target in 2012.
There was some hope for a while as it was possible to restrict an app to devices with ARKit support (6S and beyond), but that was short lived as now we have some ARKit2 features that require an A12 processor but we can’t restrict a game release to an A12 device.
Developers need the ability to restrict a game to more specific devices, ideally on a RAM or Processor level, or for Apple to not support as many old devices in new iOS releases. All we have to work with is iOS target and UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities which is very limited. This keeps all games as small casual affairs really.
Each year I wait to see which devices drop from support for latest IOS in the hope we can push the boundaries further. Unfortunately iOS14 works on iPhone6S so we are stuck for yet another year with that as a minimum target.
I guess some will say we should adapt the app accordingly but this does add a lot of extra developer time and is limited. E.g. use low res models and maps on older devices (often based upon device pixel resolution), or lower frame rate on older devices. Some of us would rather target premium devices only.
AppleTV is a lost cause, starting with the shitty (sorry!) little remote. It then does downhill from there. Apple's biggest underachievement, so far.
Take it to the next level, or shut it down.
IMHO, if you are not anticipating use as a gaming console, the Apple TV is great. In my home it commands over 90% of the screen time as a cord cutter and non-sports fanatic. It brings AppleTV+, hulu, HBOmax, CBS all access, amazon prime, you tube on my big screen.
Yes some apps are buggy (Hulu for me especially). But it saves me from the spyware of my Sony TV. The other less than 10% is my bluRay player and it drives me crazy to bring out all my remotes to use it.
That shitty little remote starts my Apple TV, turns my TV on as a consequence and because it is programmable the volume control of my ancient Yamaha home theater system. I am not offended by it.
When Steve Jobs announced Apple TV it was revolutionary, a game changer, the future of TV. Nowadays with lame full version updates which look more like an excuse than a full update, gens ago hardware and no up-to-date features, poor piece of hardware is not getting the treatment it deserves
Steve Jobs called it a “hobby” and there’s little revolutionary or game changing about the original Apple TV. It was a giant iPod with the Mac’s Front Row interface that you could connect to your TV. It didn’t even have access to the iTunes Store. You literally had to pair it to your computer to get it to work. Sling was well ahead at that point. Eventually Apple dumped it and went for a mulligan and at some point Tim upgraded it from a hobby.
iPhone was just an iPod with a phone, iPad was just a giant iPod touch remember?
It was revolutionary as hell and paved the way for the interfaces and boxes of today.
Do you remember when Apple abandoned the iPhone and iPad software and hardware three years after releasing it and starting over? Right, because that didn’t happen with those products but it did with the Apple TV and it wasn’t because of how revolutionary and groundbreaking it was. It literally didn’t do anything that existing Apple products (the Mac) didn’t do.
What exactly was “revolutionary” about the original Apple TV that didn’t exist in the market? Sling box, for example, predated the Apple TV and did more,
AppleTV is a lost cause, starting with the shitty (sorry!) little remote. It then does downhill from there. Apple's biggest underachievement, so far.
Take it to the next level, or shut it down.
Then DON'T buy any. I happen to love my ATVs. It offers, by far, the best picture quality of any streaming device available today. The scaling from HD to 4K is impeccable.
For those complaining about gaming capabilities, just go and buy a PS of XBox, for crying out loud. There's a reason they call the game app Arcade. It's meant for the casual games that people often play on their phones, not serious gaming apps.
This “study” seems to be obvious nonsense to me. A sizable portion of the public consumes streaming and downloaded TV content on their iPads. TV is no longer just for the TV and this is a dishonest assessment without that inclusion.
IMO the AppleTV UI is generally better than smart TV UIs, but that says more about how bad smart TV UIs are; because by no means is the ATV UI great. Nor is it even good.
I think it boils down to Apple's habit of removing as many physical features to reduce the number of buttons on a device, resulting in buttons that are overloaded with functions. They used to do it with iPhones with a home button. The lack of buttons means the buttons that do exist perform context-aware and thus horribly inconsistent actions. Sometimes while video is playing swiping on the remote will move the playhead, sometimes it will only work while paused. Sometimes swiping and holding rewinds or fast forwards. Sometimes clicking plays/stops. Sometimes it shows the playing progress bar.
The menu button is the same. There are so many times when I get really pissed off that the menu button does so many different things. Sometimes it shows the top menu, sometimes it goes back a level in the hierarchy, sometimes it takes you to the home screen. The UI works much better with a PS4 remote that has enough buttons to be useful, except Apple has decided the "home" button should show the never used control centre rather than taking you home, which requires a long press instead. Idiotic.
The games on the AppleTV are graphically somewhere between the PS2 and PS3, and are just blown-up casual mobile games, there is nothing graphically impressive on the AppleTV. Of course graphics aren't everything, the Wii was an absolute hit when it came out because it had all sorts of fun accessories and great games, but was much less powerful than the PS3. But the AppleTV has no great games and nor great graphics. Some games are ok, but I've never specifically made time to play an AppleTV game.
And don't get me started on the awful remote itself. Too slippery, too symmetrical, too sensitive, too fragile. Apple needs to learn to abandon things that it introduced as the next best thing, which turn out to be not. They eventually abandoned the butterfly keybard and the trashcan Mac Pro, but only after pushing each for way longer than they should have. It worries me that Apple's size has made it another inflexible behemoth rather than the agile Apple that "skated to where the puck is going". With the first gen AppleTV Apple skated to where the puck was going - but it clipped the stick, and Apple is now sat waiting for it to come back.
This study is severely flawed. Market share doesn’t mean anything; I have four TCL TVs with Roku built-in but only use Apple TVs to stream content. Considering every TV sold now is ‘smart’, this study is more representative of the TV market, not actual streaming devices.
Usage share is the proper metric, in which case the TV is (sadly) still low, but not 2%.
Comments
It was revolutionary as hell and paved the way for the interfaces and boxes of today.
I never said he called it "Revolutionary" dumb ass. Read slowly.
"you needed to dig SJ out of his grave"
Ok Tim Cook announced it. Happy?
"Also, what Apple TV is now, is infinitely better than what Jobs announced,"
Same with iPhone, iPad, Mac, software. No shit. How stupid can a single human be to not know upgrades make things better?
"The Apple TV appstore didn't even exist. "
Neither did the App Store you idiot.
@Slurpy
It's still a hobby. Not sure where people got the idea it wasn't. It always gets years ago tech and tiny excuses for software updates.
Here's some features that would make me believe it was out of the "hobby" category:
Latest A-series chip or the new Apple Silicon Mac chip for gaming/AR features.
Somehow ship with a TrueDepth camera system for AR, fitness, video games, yoga etc. Could be a tiny magnetic unit that snaps on top of your TV like the Wii sensor bad. The base of the magnet stays on the TV while the camera is removable for charging. Lasts days. Nearly invisible.
Updated Siri remote with Taptic Engine and M-processor for motion detection.
Find My feature.
Full Apple Watch support. (Use your imagination).
Some new AirPods feature. The new AirPods surround feature will help but I'm thinking gaming and interactive experiences like Binaural Audio and tutorials. Imagine a game that uses 3D audio and head tracking with AirPods for example.
AR. This one's big and would most likely require a Truedepth Camera system. Animoji is obvious but could be used for shopping, gaming, health and other revolutionary possibilities.
It suffers the same problems, albeit a little less worse, than the HomePod.
(disclaimer, I own both devices).
What does the AppleTV do that is specific to the AppleTV, outside the US?
- In many countries the "Siri" remote button doesn't do anything because Siri is not available
- Photos is just a visualization system, and a crappy one at that. Map view, faces view, and the like are cumbersome to find and not easy to navigate.
- Integration of channels besides AppleTV+ in the same interface is really limited and poorly implemented compared to the US (I have bot an account in my country as well as a US account, so I can directly compare the two)
- Games are there, but there is no actual "focus on casual gaming" to speak of
- Considering the limited amount of devices, many TV broadcasters snub it or if they create an app it is poorly maintained (national broadcaster paid for with public funding)
- No maps
- No "Home" app where I can turn the lights on and off or fiddle with devices
- No FindMy where I can locate my other devices
All in all to subscribe to Netflix, Disney+ and AppleTV+ you don't need an AppleTV, just a relatively new smart TV. Why should I buy the AppleTV if my main purpose is subscribing to these services? What is the unique sales proposal of the AppleTV?
As said, I own 2 AppleTVs and I do pretty much ALL of my viewing on them, even live TV (national broadcast in my country launched their AppleTV app so I can watch them in the AppleTV). I got used to the interface, I like to have everything in one place (device). I am wary of SmartTVs snooping around my viewing habits and all sorts of information. I like a system with OS updates that make it constantly more secure than the SmartTV many of which don't get updates.
But the sales proposal, to the average person, considering the price of the device, is really hard to justify.
Also: Siri sucks. Not because of "whatever" but try to be a person who speaks a language different than english. Set Siri in, I don't know, italian, french, german. And then try to play a song by pronouncing artist and song in english. Siri doesn't get it. Try to have a contact in english on your phone and pronounce it in english, Siri will randomly look something up on the internet (I found this on the internet) or call whatever contact it feels fit.
It all starts with a real focus on international markets and languages. From the content, to the ability of Siri to understand more than one language simultaneously, to a better integration of things like "stocks", "clocks", "home", and other standard apps that one could access from the AppleTV.
How is it that they left the Apple TV for years without an App Store. It was the most obvious ‘oh my goodness why have these idiots not implemented this yet’ features out there.
To this day I will never ever understand why they did not put the App Store out when they released the Apple TV 2.
2% in between all these cheap android sticks? It looks quite successful indeed!
It is always fun reading 2 hard core Apple fans throwing tantrums at each other (without even knowing that the other person is EQUALLY hard core apple fan with a "Defend Apple at ANY cost attitude").
There was some hope for a while as it was possible to restrict an app to devices with ARKit support (6S and beyond), but that was short lived as now we have some ARKit2 features that require an A12 processor but we can’t restrict a game release to an A12 device.
I guess some will say we should adapt the app accordingly but this does add a lot of extra developer time and is limited. E.g. use low res models and maps on older devices (often based upon device pixel resolution), or lower frame rate on older devices. Some of us would rather target premium devices only.
Yes some apps are buggy (Hulu for me especially). But it saves me from the spyware of my Sony TV. The other less than 10% is my bluRay player and it drives me crazy to bring out all my remotes to use it.
That shitty little remote starts my Apple TV, turns my TV on as a consequence and because it is programmable the volume control of my ancient Yamaha home theater system. I am not offended by it.
Best $165 I have ever spent.
What exactly was “revolutionary” about the original Apple TV that didn’t exist in the market? Sling box, for example, predated the Apple TV and did more,
I think it boils down to Apple's habit of removing as many physical features to reduce the number of buttons on a device, resulting in buttons that are overloaded with functions. They used to do it with iPhones with a home button. The lack of buttons means the buttons that do exist perform context-aware and thus horribly inconsistent actions. Sometimes while video is playing swiping on the remote will move the playhead, sometimes it will only work while paused. Sometimes swiping and holding rewinds or fast forwards. Sometimes clicking plays/stops. Sometimes it shows the playing progress bar.
The menu button is the same. There are so many times when I get really pissed off that the menu button does so many different things. Sometimes it shows the top menu, sometimes it goes back a level in the hierarchy, sometimes it takes you to the home screen. The UI works much better with a PS4 remote that has enough buttons to be useful, except Apple has decided the "home" button should show the never used control centre rather than taking you home, which requires a long press instead. Idiotic.
The games on the AppleTV are graphically somewhere between the PS2 and PS3, and are just blown-up casual mobile games, there is nothing graphically impressive on the AppleTV. Of course graphics aren't everything, the Wii was an absolute hit when it came out because it had all sorts of fun accessories and great games, but was much less powerful than the PS3. But the AppleTV has no great games and nor great graphics. Some games are ok, but I've never specifically made time to play an AppleTV game.
And don't get me started on the awful remote itself. Too slippery, too symmetrical, too sensitive, too fragile. Apple needs to learn to abandon things that it introduced as the next best thing, which turn out to be not. They eventually abandoned the butterfly keybard and the trashcan Mac Pro, but only after pushing each for way longer than they should have. It worries me that Apple's size has made it another inflexible behemoth rather than the agile Apple that "skated to where the puck is going". With the first gen AppleTV Apple skated to where the puck was going - but it clipped the stick, and Apple is now sat waiting for it to come back.