“Let me preface this by saying that I like the Apple TV. It’s a solid device. And actually, it’s annoying to be in a room without one for the times you really, really want to use AirPlay. Which is brilliantly conceived and executed. And, as you might expect, Apple TV has by far the best interface of the streaming boxes,” M.G. Siegler writes for 500ish Words. “That’s where the niceties stop. Because as nice as Apple TV is, Apple is totally blowing it with the device. And it’s beyond frustrating to me as a consumer.”
“We’re now so far removed from Steve Jobs’ famous (infamous?) ‘I’ve finally cracked it…’ line relayed in his biography that it’s not even worth joking about anymore. It’s just depressing. Obviously Apple hasn’t cracked television,” Siegler writes. “Call me crazy, but it seems so goddamn obvious what Apple should do here.”
“Many years ago, I wrote about Apple’s potential foray into gaming in the living room with a forthcoming Apple TV. That never happened. I mean, it did — there are games on the Apple TV. But it’s still not a market Apple chooses to focus on, as they note themselves. Anyone can clearly see this by simply looking down at the remote they ship with the Apple TV,” Siegler writes. “As a remote control, it sucks. As a gaming pad, it’s infuriating. Rather than fix both things in the most recent iteration of the Apple TV, the company put a ring around the Menu button. Seriously, that’s what they did. Apple: no one gives a shit how svelte your remote control is. In fact, it’s one of the few instances in life where it would actually be better to create a bigger, bulkier piece of hardware.”
“Three devices,” Siegler writes. “A connected television device. A living room gaming device. An always-on home assistant. Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices.⁵ This is one device. And we are calling it Apple TV.”
Eddy CueMacDailyNews Take: Apple TV won’t be everything it already should be until it’s put under competent management.
Steve Jobs’ former gopher isn’t cutting it.
The Apple TV 4K is exactly that: The Apple TV with the 4K/HDR video it should have had two years ago and, beside some new screensavers and the app syncing it always should have had, that’s about it – oh, yeah, with a white ring added around a button on the shiteous Siri Remote*. Starting at $179.
Eddy Cue. Can’t get the deals done. Can’t recognize blatantly bad TV from the pilot, much less at the pitch stage. Puts TV content into “Apple Music.” Needs Tim Cook to hire people who can actually do his job (first Jimmy Iovine, now Erlicht and Van Amburg). Inexplicably continues to get paid tens of millions per year. Boy, the photos Cue possesses must be doozies!
Apple’s so-called TV ‘strategy’ continues to be an embarrassing joke because it’s run by an embarrassing joke. — MacDailyNews, June 30, 2017
Yup, you guessed it: We’re not fans of Eddy Cue’s so-called “work.”
*With the Siri Remote, users can’t tell which end is up in a darkened room due to uniform rectangular shape. The remote is still too small, so it gets lost easily. All buttons are the same size and similarly smooth (the raised white ring around the menu button helps, but so barely it’s astounding that Apple even bothered; it’s a bandaid on a turd). The tactile difference between the bottom of the remote vs. the upper Glass Touch surface is too subtle as well; this also leads to not being able to tell which end is up. A larger remote, designed for hands larger than a 2-year-old’s with a simple wedge shape (slightly thicker in depth at the bottom vs. the top), as opposed to a uniform slab, would have instantly communicated the proper orientation to the user.
If Jony Ive “designed” the Siri Remote, he should forfeit his knighthood**.
**But we all know Jony has been obsessed with Apple Park for many years now and likely never even saw the piece of shit remote before they threw it in the box.
