“It has been my fifth day with the all-new Apple TV, and while the interface is certainly fast, (by the way 1080p is a welcome upgrade from my previous 720p Apple TV) there are a few areas that are in need of help,” Mark Reschke writes for T-GAAP. “There are a few omitted nuggets which could really make the system a lot more powerful, and frankly, amazingly better.”
“The entire App Store seems void of any organizational structure whatsoever,” Reschke writes. “I can only hope this is due to an initial lack of content, and as more App are added this will change. However, if Apple finds this acceptable, hundreds of developers will have wasted tens of thousands of hours building Apps which will never be discovered or found… the App Store seems completely unfinished.”
“I’ve downloaded several games and channels, but as with my previous Apple TV, the main menu is rapidly becoming a massive scroll page of choices,” Reschke writes. “Like iOS, why Apple has not made it easy to create folders for Apps is puzzling.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Add not being able to use Siri to search Apple Music to a growing list of things Apple needs to do, somehow didn’t get around to doing, or inexplicably forgot to do.
This little box will need all the reviews and critics for Apple to polish its hobby.
They have pushed this product out for christmas with the intention of shining it periodically. They have room, time and resources. It will get there.
Bare in mind a new OS. Remember iOS in its younger age…
Apple used to take pride in not shipping “betas” like their competition. Missing functionality is one thing, but basic problems with the UI are inexcusable for Apple product.
That’s pretty much how I feel. By the standards of most electronics companies, the AppleTV 4 would be a perfectly acceptable first release. But not Apple. It’s not the Apple way, or at least it didn’t use to be.
——RM
When the hell are you people going to realize Tim Cook “He’s not a product guy” (Steve Jobs) is responsible and shouldn’t be leading Apple…
How many botched products and product launches is it going to take. This is not Apple anymore. This is not magical. This is not industry disrupting.
You guys are right, this Apple is not the one Steve Jobs intended. Thank god. Apple would be history by now with a 4″ inch iPhone.
If you know your Apple history, you would know that Apple isn’t at its first time messing up with product lunch and product misses… Even under the master S.P.Jobs.
Apple is now the biggest company in the world and it is because of Cook and cie. Now, with that in mind, and knowing that the Apple fanboy are the most demanding in regards of technologies, let the big boat use what is his and lets those (not unfinished) unpolished product out. Don’t worry, Apple listen to the outside… I guess you know that. Perhaps not…
Apple is what it is today BECAUSE OF STEVE JOBS.
Apple was nearly bankrupt in 1996, Steve came back, and turned everything around.
63% OF APPLE’S ENTIRE REVENUE TODAY IS FROM THE IPHONE. Jobs created the iPhone. There is nothing at Apple since Jobs died that is fueling Apple’s top and bottom line other than the iPhone. Tim Cook has created nothing. He has botched several products and product launches.
Tim Cook inherited a company from Steve Jobs. Apple has had many many years of R&D under it belt and is at this point spending way more on R&D than under Jobs with little to show for it.
This is EXACTLY what happened the first time when Jobs was ousted and Sculley took over. Massive R&D spending with little output. Go read and research this to understand what’s going on.
Tim Cook:
-Apple Music (comedy of horrors UI/UX);
-Purchase of Beats (garbage products, confused branding under Apple, etc.);
-12″ MacBook (power of a 2011 MacBook Air);
-Botched iMac Retina launch;
-Maps;
-Apple Watch isn’t selling great and has its own set of problems;
-Stagnent iPods;
-New iOS UI too minimalistic/thin fonts, etc.; and
-Apple TV unfinished, rough, and not revolutionary
Inter alia.
What you’re seeing is a person, Tim Cook, who inherited a company that had a several year product pipeline ALREADY IN place from Jobs… where the products in that pipeline were unfinished and still needed lots of work… this is where Cook is failing to execute on a product pipeline that was already established before him.
I haven’t even started yet… there is a very key question about “What’s next”. What unique, creative vision does Cook have after the Jobs product pipeline and his stated vision runs out?
In other words, when Cook is really on his own after the product pipeline dries up, what’s next?
I have been saying this for year… that eventually, over time, people will realize Cook is wrong for Apple. Because we’ll see botched products and eventually people will realize it. Jobs’s worry about Cook not being a “product guy” are ringing truer and truer everyday.
You place all the woes described at Cook’s door but truth is there are far more employees and executive vice predsidents than you can shake a stick at.
Apple is at its best when in pushes the boundary of tech and delivering it at a great price – expensive, yes but expensive because it has cutting edge tech inside.
iMac ‘s with 5400rpm HDs should not exist. How long has SSD and Fusion been – the salesmen and value engineers are telling everyone to make more money by including the cheapest they can source.
Watches with $1,000 straps – WTF
Apple TV at 3x the price and 1.3x the functionality.
Macbooks that are slower than iPhones and have near zero connectivity.
—someone is losing the plot.
Max:
You’re right, someone is losing the plot. The precise reason why Apple became so successful was because of Steve Jobs. He was a maniac perfectionist who controlled everything. Apple represented his unified vision.
That person is now gone. Apple is a headless horse.
Their reason for being must be ‘insanely great tech’
As SJ said when a company is run by salesmen in pursuit of only money it is lost. ( Ballmer please take a bow).
Get back to filling expensive tech with bleeding edge (and hence expensive components) and not focus on the +40% – 60% profit margin on every product or wrapping it in ‘fashion’ and adding 000’s to the ticket price for no added functionality. There may be loads of people that are prepared to pay for a Hermes watch strap but the product is only going to fly when the sales volume is measured in millions.
And what the HELL is up with CBS? Unlike ABC, NBC AND FOX who provide their content free, I have to pay for CBS shows? Ok, that’s one less app on the device. A LOT of those 64 GB are wasted. http://Www.apple.com/feedback I hope you guys will use that link.
All in all, with Apple’s resources, this is embarrassing. Apple’s recent tendency has been to decrease functionality with new products and software, only to (maybe) gradually re-implement it in later versions or updates.
The only thing that would make this acceptable is if they can upgrade to 4K with a software of firmware update, and if there is a central set-top box/console/server coming with the new content deals for which the 4th Gen AppleTV will become a satellite for TV outside of the living room.
My guess (and hope, at this point), is that the REAL AppleTV will come out by next year’s holiday season.
Apple really Really REALLY could use a GUI maestro to come in an overhaul all the bad and insufficient ideas of the last few years. The juvenile focus of Yosemite and now El Capitan. The eternally oblique and difficult interface of the TV. Providing some Mac-ification of iOS for the more techno geek inclined. Etc. This has clearly become an Apple blind spot, which is extremely UN-Apple.
This is not an apology, but an attempt to understand.
Sometimes it’s difficult to separate the junk code from what is needed. When you start over, start with a blank slate. What gets the most heat, put back in. But if you start by asking, what would you like to see in the next version? The answer is most invariably, “everything.” So for a time being we all feel like we are being shorted. But the truth is, we are getting a streamline relevant application. If only this were applied to bloated iTunes. Not every product team is the same.
I’ll add another area that needs work / polishing … that “keyboard”! Linear?? All 26 letters laid out side by side, with the CAPs / symbols 3 rows down?? Everyone tells you “a mix of caps and lowercase, add a number or two and some symbols” – entering my 17 character password was a joy! Then, since Siri doesn’t search everything (or anything in the App Store) that means hunting and pecking your way through searchs too! Really wish I’d wait until the polished this turd a little more!
The Play button toggles upper/lower case. Works great for those of us with ‘real’ passwords. 🙂
Hey is ok with you guys if I’m happy to have my new apple TV? I don’t have anything to piss and moan about.
I’m happy and disappointed!
Happy because it beats the living crap out of my old 2nd-gen model, and the newly-written content apps (like Netflix and WatchESPN) are great. My gamer wife is excited about buying a controller and using it as a gaming console.
But I’m disappointed by the unfinished/unpolished feel of the OS: the crappy keyboard, the horrible app store organization. It’s un-Apple-like, makes them look bad, and will probably hurt sales in the short run.
——RM
It’s incredibly easy to create folders in iOS. I don’t know what this person is on.