“Ahead of the consumer launch, I spent one long night with the fourth-generation Apple TV provided by the company for review — simulating the many nights I’ve spent staying up late and bingeing on videos until my eyelids slam shut on their own accord. It was, in some ways, the ultimate stress test: I learned how to use Apple TV when I was at my fuzziest and least forgiving,” Hayley Tsukayama reports for The Washington Post. “Apple TV passed with flying colors. Apple is hawking the device with the tagline ‘the future of television is apps.'”
“In some ways, in fact, video apps such as Netflix and Hulu were the least-exciting part of the device. I was far more intrigued by the other apps in the new Apple TV store,” Tsukayama reports. “One way it stands out is in the consistency of design across apps. That sounds like a boring perk, but it’s so much simpler for users to know that the way the remote works for iTunes is the way it works across every other app. Video playback was crisp, solid and very fast — basically everything you would want from a playback device. And while the lack of an app for Amazon Video left a noticeable hole in the content lineup, there’s still plenty to choose from.”
MacDailyNews Take: The lack of Amazon Video is the fault of Jeff Bezos’ Amazon, not Apple.
Tsukayama reports “The latest version of the Apple TV does show that this product has officially graduated from the “hobby” designation it held within Apple for many years — and lays out an exciting vision for the largest screen in your home.”
Full review here.
MacDailyNews Take: No wonder Bozos is so scared. Good for him, on Halloween, he can scare himself even more simply by reading his own newspaper.
SEE ALSO:
The ‘everything store’ that doesn’t offer everything: Amazon removes all Apple TV listings – October 30, 2015
Amazon makes a stupid mistake by banning sales of new Apple TV – October 14, 2015
Amazon pulled Apple TV from their store, so Apple should pull Amazon apps from their App Store – October 3, 2015
By banning Apple TV and Chromecast, Amazon shows what it means to be a monopolist – October 2, 2015
Amazon to ban sale of Apple TV, other streaming devices – October 1, 2015
Apple TV and voice control: What Siri does that the others don’t – September 18, 2015
With the all-new Apple TV, Apple changes the game, yet again – September 14, 2015
What Apple got right in Apple TV’s user interface – and what needs work – September 11, 2015
New Apple TV has the potential to do for television what iPhone did for mobile phones – September 11, 2015
Apple preps to conquer living room with all-new Apple TV – September 11, 2015
Hands-on with the all-new Apple TV – September 10, 2015
Gruber: Apple TV will define how all TVs will work in a few years – September 10, 2015
It’s good to read an article that at least appears not to have been corrupted by a journal’s parasitic management. I could never say that about anything News Corp. (Fox News…), ad nauseam. Even The Guardian is making it clear they’re politically biased with their Princess Hillary coverage. I hope Bezos leaves the Washington Post alone.
You mean like this?
http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-tv-review-a-giant-iphone-for-your-living-room-1446080460
The Guardian has become progressively worse in recent years. It now propagandise mostly neocon talking points (that Hillary loves so much).
It appears to me like The Guardian is in the process of fragmenting into some sort of civil war. That’s all I’ll say for the moment. There isn’t enough data in my head regarding their biases to say much else.
It’s ok for Apple to be competitive, and even remove Apps and products from its App Store and online store that compete with things like its Apple Watch and other products, but it’s not ok when any other company does this.
You people are delusional fanboys far removed from reality. Amazon can do whatever it wants in terms of removing products from its store.
It’s a for profit, competitive company, like Apple. So get over it and just get on with your life.
What you said in the first sentence is a bit disingenuous. There are piles of things that compete with Apple at the App Store. BUT, there have been events where your point is well taken. I remember tremendous BS from Apple regarding Amazon’s Kindle app. That went on for months. I advocated for Apple to cut the crap and offer the Kindle app with no more BS.
Then you blew it entirely with the oh-so-boring-trollism of “You delusional fanboys.” Either you haven’t hung around MDN long enough to comprehend who you’re talking to, or you don’t care who you’re talking to. Many of us around here are profound critics of Apple when they ACTUALLY screw things up. You’ll figure that out if you actually do care and do hang around here. I’m certainly a PITA regarding Apple security, my current little niche.
Meanwhile, defending Amazon booting the TV out of their web store is entirely insupportable. Go read the press going on over Amazon’s dirty move. You won’t find a single positive comment. Not one. That should tell you something. Don’t get stuck being called an Amazon fanboi.
Looks like by the rating of your post you don’t have too many friends here.
Aw. Darn. *Ding*-bats hate me and so do you. So you’re what? 12?
I disagree. I find it journalistically distasteful that they even mention Amazon Video at all, let alone calling it’s absence “a noticeable hole in the content lineup” since, I don’t think Amazon Video is all that popular an from what I’ve seen has a very limited selection. Apple TV has an abundance of content.
I’ve watched a fair bit on Amazon Video but only because I get it as part of Amazon Prime – which currently is worth me paying for. Because of various stuff I’ve needed to purchase the last few years the cost of Prime has been offset by what I got out of it, but that may change when it renews. I certainly wouldn’t pay for the video service in isolation pretty much regardless of the cost.
tv4 rocks.
I’m imagining the new Apple tv and botvinnik:
“Siri, play all scenes from Amadeus where Mozart makes a fool of Salieri.”
“botvinnik, that would comprise the entire movie.”
“Never mind, Siri. Play the Moonlight Sonata scene from Immortal Beloved.”
“I’m sorry, botvinnik, but that scene is too sad for me to bear.”
“Goddamit, Siri, play Listzomania!”
“That film is not in my catalogue. Would A Hard Day’s Night be a satisfactory replacement?”
lol
You make it sound like Bezos himself made that statement while it was a review by the Washington Post. Then you stoop back to the lowest of low by calling him a clown. Some integrity and objectivity may serve you MDN boys well.
Back to the topic at hand, yes, Apple TV is grown up and ready to become a significant and stable source of revenue for Apple as the iPad business loses some steam. Still, it’s missing some key features for my taste such as 4K. Doesn’t mean I’ll be buying Amazon’s product (whatever that’s called), just that I see some shortcomings that hopefully get addressed in the next version.
Maybe Amazon needs to show some integrity and not work their employees to death?
Sounds like Jeff Bezos is going to be missing out on a lot of revenue by sending his customers elsewhere.
I think I know the reason for no 4K video support. You need about 60 Meg bandwidth just for the video stream, so you need a faster service than that. Broadband was recently rated as a minimum of 25 Meg. Until faster bandwidth is ubiquitous, there is no point in addressing 4K, except that iPhones can capture 4K video.
I have expressed this fact as much as i could, but i still feel the vast majority still don’t get it.
Same here. Too many people that hear 4K and think they gotta have it for their 45 inch TV and it should work over their 1.5 Mbit DSL.
They have no concept of what size the screen needs to be to actually see the difference between 1080 and 4K.
Then they are the same people that can’t grasp why an 8 GB movie won’t download to their phone on 3G in 10 minutes. I try to explain but any tech speak just goes right over their head.
Pfffft. The article makes a clear dig about Amazon Video making no mention of the mirroring workaround to display Amazon from a device.
It basically lays the groundwork for the entry of Amazon. Apps. Plus, Amazon. So it’s not touting Apple TV. Don’t be stupid…
That’s saying something that the CEO of Amazon is praising the competitor to Fire TV. 😉
He’s not, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this article “disappear” 😀
We have just released the worlds first 360º video player on the New Apple TV – tv360 enables the viewer to select the viewpoint of 360º videos via the remote control.
The app is free to download on the new Apple TV – just search for tv360
Got the new unit yesterday. Set up was easy and using the remote not a problem. The unit can connect to your iPhone to set up wifi etc. once the other passwords were added everything worked well.
Search by Siri is good although I noticed it did not include my iTunes library. Being able to set up the remote for volume control is excellent.
Can you speak, like “a” “b” “4”, the login and password items? That would have been a logical extension of all this Siri stuff.
From time to time, A[p[ple has ewmoved products from its stores. Something about Beats Headphones and other things that looked like the Apple Watch.
No big deal.
I bought the unit on Saturday morning. The interface is cool and having apps really is amazing. It’s like the iPhone all over again. Video playback is incredibly fast compared to my third gen unit.
You get the feeling that up until now, the Apple TV really was just a hobby. This new unit is entirely something different.