“The Apple TV was first announced as iTV back in 2006. Steve said the goal of it was to enjoy your iTunes media on your flat screen TV. While Apple TV has undoubtedly evolved over the last 12 years regarding scope, hardware, and features, the original goal is still pretty close,” Bradley Chambers writes for 9to5Mac. “It aims to let you enjoy your digital content (not just iTunes) on your TV.”
“Overall, the Apple TV hardware is fantastic. I’d love to see it evolve in the future. While Roku and Amazon are putting out multiple models (boxes and sticks), I’d like to see Apple develop its hardware as well. I think there is room for an ‘Apple TV Stick’ in the lineup at a lower cost,” Chambers writes. “The remote is passable but could be a lot better.”
“The TV app from Apple is marketed as a way to quickly find new content to watch,” Chambers writes. “I’ve tried it a few times, but it’s just never stuck for me. It doesn’t include all of the apps we subscribe to, so it ends up being another place to check. It’s clear that this app will become more critical in the future, though.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s original content will soon change everything about Apple TV for the better. Apple’s TV app will become the first place we check, not the fourth or fifth (currently, our top three most-used Apple TV apps are, in order: PlayStation Vue, Netflix, and Amazon Prime.
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Apple poaches Sony TV executives to lead major push into original content – June 16, 2017
Still whatever Steve Jobs had said about “cracking it” with Apple TV doesn’t seemed to have reached fruition since nothing they’ve done in this area since has truly outpaced the competition.
Whatever happened with Charter/Spectrum and single sign on? Seems forgotten now that everything has been updated and the hype has died down- I still do the activation code for all apps you download on Apple TV – even if you are a Charter/Spectrum customer. A cool idea that seems to be flapping in the wind.
Apple TV may yet improve but the remote is pretty terrible.. so simple it doesn’t work (ha).. The problem really is one of fractured audience. The first movers have a huge advantage that Apple basically dilly dallied on and lost. They had Apple TV but didn’t know what to do with it. Amazon did.. YouTube (Google) did, Netflix did.. Hell even CBS did.. Original, superior quality content. Apple can pull some audience attention in the future.. but frankly the installed base of Amazon Prime, Netflix and others have fractured the audience in such a way that asking people to pay $120 and THEN pay an additional $20 a month for a bundled Music and Video service (pure guess on the prices but typical of Apple’s approach).. is a stretch at best. Imagine that the next blockbuster comes up and you can ONLY see it on Apple TV.. for what how long? 3 months? If there’s that premium price and hassle of yet another device..most people will probably wait.
I have only Apple TV (5) in the house, no CATV boxes. Still using cable for local/sports through Silicon Dust HD Home Run. So I am for anything that moves the platform forward.
I agree with the comments on the TV App. I want this to work to simplify and make sense out of the myriad of apps out there. However, it will never work well until Apple enforces some standards.
Today every app works different–both in its interaction with the TV App and in its own operation. I get that each app developer is looking for a way to differentiate, but, c’mon, can’t we have consistency in something as simple as how play/pause works?
In practice, searching for content across apps has gotten worse since the TV App has debuted, not better. Amazon Prime is one of the worst offenders. Its frustration to find a show that shows that I can watch in Amazon only to open it and be told if I had an HBO subscription linked to Amazon then I could watch it. Thats the whole point of the TV App is so I don’t have to hunt for content.
And don’t get me started on all of the crap that shows up in the TV App search which are not even legit movies from Amazon. For example, search for “Avengers Infinity” and in addition to the movie, I get 2 “documentaries” (still listed as “movies”) that belong on YouTube at best.
Apple TV is still a hobby for Apple. Not a whole going on there. It’s decent, I have had all the generations but it is a product that has seen very very limited innovation by Apple standards. Sometimes I think the entire design goal at Apple is thin with either zero or almost zero buttons. No more than that. Amazon has somehow designed released and improved Prime Video in just a few years and Apple has done nothing to challenge that. Stunning lack of ambition in the TV space.
“Apple’s original content will soon change everything about Apple TV for the better”
Original content won’t change the fact:
1. …that the content has to actually be good, or at least provoke a large devoted fan-base.
2. …that the remote still sucks.
3. …that the AppleTV App Store has gone nowhere.
4. …that AppleTV games still suck cause Apple never bothered to make a serious game-controller. And why not produce or buy some serious gaming exclusives for the AppleTV?
5.…that Apple has let the AppleTV completely fall off the radar. When was the last time someone talked about it at an Apple event?
6. …that every HDTV Blu-Ray player, and toaster oven now has ChromeCast, Netflix, Roku, Hulu, Amazon, or some such built into it, so the vast majority of people won’t even think about buying an AppleTV unless it has unbelievably compelling content. AppleTV has missed a huge opportunity in the last 5 years.
And why not consider the option of allowing your AppleTV to be a DVR for OTA broadcasts, recording to iCloud or to attached storage?
You expect Pipeline to innovate?
You expect Pipeline to care about customers?
Fat chance on that.
Pipeline would rather just mail it in.
Sometimes I think Apple has ADD. Apple TV is another example of them giving birth to a great idea, but then seeming to forget about nurturing it. 3D Touch is another one and unless they release a keyboard for the Macs with the new Touch Bar, that, too, can be added to this list. They continue to fail at even making an attempt to coach the user in using these new things. It is really very silly of them and a waste of good R&D dollars, not to mention a bit frustrating!
The only complaint I have with Apple TV is the remote. Really needs to be redone.
I have an AppleTV. It’s right near my desk, in a ziploc bag, not connected to anything.
I have three Amazon FireTV Sticks, and I’m getting a new 4K Stick during Amazon’s Black Friday sale.
The FireTV Sticks work even better than the built-in smart functions in my TV’s that have them.
Mo only real issue with Apple TV is how they decided to Brick the 1st Gen. The hardware is still good enough to send content from iTunes to my TV but Apple did an update and now it does absolutely nothing. To me this is like theft, they could have left it alone doing what it did well.
I have 2 Apple TV 1st Gen, 1 Apple TV 2nd Gen and 1 Apple TV 3rd Gen. Just waiting for them to brick the other in order to force me to upgrade to the 4K.