Does anyone know if it can integrate with video doorbells?
I have a Ring integrated with HomeKit. When the video doorbell detects motion, I see an alert on all my current apple devices and can click in to see live video (except my watch. I only see a snapshot): would I see a notification, or better, have a video pause and immediately display the live video?
Even if you can’t install apps on it, you should still be able to stream your iTunes library from it. Any previous movie, tv show, and music purchases should show up in the built in movies and music apps. And you can share an iTunes library from another computer in your house using home sharing.
I believe you can also share photos to it still, for a slideshow or screen saver.
Oh no I can install apps, spotify/netflix work fine and I saw plenty of options. I just noticed facetime wasn’t supported and from scrolling through the most downloaded apps it felt like stuff was missing but I could easily be wrong.
Got this yesterday so I’m still figuring everything out
@morgin Facetime you need to have an iPad or iPhone to connect to, then you can see them on your screen and use the AppleTV to see everyone else on screen.
Speed. The processor is far beyond anything else on the market. It makes everything feel so responsive that it’s hard to go back to anything else after using it.
No ads or bullshit in the operating system. You can opt out if data tracking. The Home Screen is just a grid of apps. Individual apps may have ads in them but the OS itself feels like it respects you.
Reliable frame rate matching. 24fps video content outputs as 24hz signal to remove stutter and frame skips etc. Other devices offer this but are less reliable.
Infuse. Great app for playing back your own files. Connects to Plex, Jellyfin etc and works extremely well. Makes Kodi feel ugly and clunky in comparison.
Good integration with other Apple stuff. Like using your phone as a remote. Turning it on and off using Siri. Etc
The screensavers. They’re seriously great.
Disadvantages:
Price.
Lack of customisation. There’s not much to tinker with under the hood.
Not easy to side load apps
No audio passthrough for playing Bluray atmos rips. Best you’ll get is lossless 7.1 audio.
I have the first gen AppleTV 4K from something like 2017, and it’s still fast. Like, fast fast. Opening apps are still instantaneous or take just a second. It still runs the newest OS. No ads on home screen (or anywhere on the os, really). Also the touchpad remote everyone hates is actually my fave.
Compared to a Chromecast with Google TV that Google gave me for free a couple years ago for some reason (I think because I had a YouTube red sub for so long), it’s so much nicer. The Chromecast is SLOW as dogshit while it tries to load up all the ads and garbage on the main screen. I don’t HATE it, and it gets the job done, but I use it in my bed room and am never like “wow this is great.” As soon as Apple drops a new revision of the AppleTV I’ll probably buy it and move this older one I have in the living room to the bedroom.
I don’t know why I’m surprised to learn that there are ads on the chromecast, but I guess that’s my AppleTV privilege talking. I too have the OG 4K and it just continues to work and never slow down.
Yeah, it tries to load up some ads and then also some suggestions of what you should watch, and that for some reason takes forever. I have a 1gbps connection, and though it’s over WiFi since there’s no out of the box option to hardwire, it still takes too long. I presume because it’s I guess taxing the chip on that little thing too hard?
Thank you for both of your thoughts, looking at the ChromeCast that I have sitting around (fairly new), it doesn't have many problems compared to my 'SmartTV' especially with Ads, Loading and things but yeah it seems to always be selling you the latest TV Show or Movie, or just show me something I've never been interested in watching like Sports.
Technically, yes. Yattee is an app that lets you load piped and invidious instances which allow you to watch YouTube videos privately and allow for accounts for subscriptions.
Yeah, I’ve gotten frustrated by increased ads recently, on my tv, Firestick, and Chromecast: they’re just not usable anymore.
I’ve seen enough descriptions like the above, that I plan on switching for the responsiveness and fewer ads. Currently I’m just waiting a bit longer to see if there will be new hardware this year
I’m hoping to get another AppleTV soon, too, and I’m kind of in the same boat on the waiting part. I feel like the moment I go and get a - now couple year old model - they’ll release a brand new one.
If you ever decide to switch away from Apple products, you won’t be able to watch the media you purchased through itunes. I regret purchasing media through itunes as I now can’t watch any of it on my android phone or tablet or on my Linux computers.
@bingbong From my research Apple has the best quality for Shows and Movies especially for price. The Apple TV app can be accessed on my Chromecast and I am seemly getting to the point Apple is my go to platform for work, so will most likely not be moving away from Apple anytime soon.
Wow didn’t know that, that was pretty much the only gripe I had with itunes vs its competitors.
I’d recommend looking into CheapCharts, you can save shows and movies to a watchlist and it will notify you when they go on sale. I’ve saved a lot of money through that app.
It's actually an app I already found and am using, I agree, it's a really helpful app to be able to have for deals on latest Movies and Shows (as well as other Apple software stuff).
I just have a hard time trusting that purchasing digital versions of TV and movies will actually stay mine for as long as I want; that the company won’t someday say, “sorry, we’re making an upgrade,” or “our contract ended and we don’t have rights for that anymore.” Just look at what happened to people who “bought” titles with Funimation and were told this month the service will be shut down and merged into Crunchyroll, but they’ll lose their library of redeemed titles because Crunchyroll doesn’t support them. Of course, Apple will probably be a more stable business than Funimation, but do you want to pay close to the same price as a DVD/Blu-ray and never know if you’ll really be able to keep them?
If you’re concerned about scratching physical discs, you can always rip them and use something like Plex or Jellyfin to play them to a smart TV or streaming device. Once they’re digitized the physical discs can be stored out of the way, where you only need to access them if you want the special features (assuming you didn’t digitize those also) or need to fix a bad rip. There’s certainly an upfront cost in hard drives and you need to learn how to rip and transcode the discs, but if you still have the physical discs it’s much harder for a studio to prevent you from enjoying the content you’ve purchased.
Hey so I tried using Plex for a server, and sure it's amazing and works but running a PC 24/7 is very costly and like you mentioned the Hard Drives do cost quite a bit. I also don't have much space to store hundreds of TV Shows and Movies sadly. The reason I want to go Digital is due to space as well as giving myself the possibility of travelling with all my Tech without having to leave servers and stuff online at home.
Sure paying the same price as a TV Show or Movie in Physical is annoying but from what I have seen through Apple is there Movies that are 4k are actually still in the normal bluray price, if that. I can see what you mean about the Funimation & Crunchyroll stuff TBH knowing they are merging and they aren't supporting peoples purchase is a dick move TBH. The only other option I have is probably piracy or streaming services (I don't like streaming services), I like to get money to the creators of the film / show as much as possible and I feel this might be one of the only ways than buying random merch that I won't like / use.
Thanks for the thoughts though as I will have to make a plan for if companies pull there content from Apple, hopefully Apple has made a plan to support those purchases in some sort of way or something, Maybe there's a place to look at that information.
@SamXavia I’m currently in the same headspace. Purchasing media through iTunes/AppleTV is so convenient for our 100% Apple ecosystem household. Zero physical clutter and broad accessibility in and out of home. However, the idea of more fully owning media (physical discs stowed away after ripping into Plex) continues to grow as the better way to prepare for future. Just so darn cumbersome.
Due to sales and distribution rights, you’ll find that there are shows and movies that you can get on DVD but not buy digitally. This isn’t an Apple TV problem - they’re simply not available for digital purchase.
As you might suspect, this mostly affects older media. For example, the first few seasons of Project Runway are only available on DVD.
At this point, though, I have to jump through so many hoops to watch physical media (hook up a computer, find and attach a drive for it, update the drivers or find a third party app for playback, etc) that it’s just not worth it.
So, for me, my answer if “yes.” I stopped using any physical media because it’s easier to just go digital. I decided that ease of use outweighed the tradeoffs, although there are some.
Yeah I feel pretty much the same way, the hurdles I have to go through to watch Physical media, but the price of streaming services are going up and I rather just watch the Shows and Movies that I want to watch, even if it's the 17th time this month.
My main issue is all the Marvel TV Shows aren't released on Apple TV or anything other than Disney+, I hope that changes in the future as I would love to purchase them instead of Disney trying to force me into purchasing Disney+, It's just easier and cheaper to find it online even know I like to pay the creators of a show / movie.
This is a 1 step forward, 2 steps back thing for me.
I like the update to the main app, however, they changed it so your Up Next list of items doesn’t show up any more on the main AppleTV dashboard when you hover over the app. now it just shows a big Apple logo where before it’d show a selectable list of episodes. They now want you to go into the app to find this list.
I jump among youtube and my main shows a lot, so I’m never going to spend all of my time in the main app. I’m jumping around the dashboard a lot. Just dumb they took already existing features out to force you to open the app up.
I personally never have had a positive experience with using a smart tv. I connect a Roku or apple tv box to them and never setup the smart tv stuff.
Lately we have been having an issue where the most recent episode we watched is played instead of the new episode, i thought that it was just my wife because she does that on other streaming services too.
I suspect the problem comes from running the Apple TV+ service on your Samsung TV’s built-in OS.
I say this because I use the Apple TV+ service on the Apple TV device (on a 2019 TCL TV), and I have none of the issues you described. It remembers exactly where I left off with multiple shows/movies. The AV is always perfectly synced. Subtitles appear when I want them, and not when I don’t.
Actually, I think they only do that to you. They just don’t like you, specifically, and want you to go fuck yourself. It’s fine for everyone else and they send us free stuff too.
It’s not you. The experience on computer also sucks. I haven’t had those video playback & CC issues, but the interface is awful:
There are so many ads for other shows it’s infuriating. I don’t care they’re on the same service. They’re ads on a premium product and should be optional.
On one of the shows I was watching the time code for automatically skipping the credits were out of sync, causing the episodes to cut out while there was still more than a minute left if I didn’t intervene in time. If I did intervene in time, it was unreasonably hard to get to the next episode, having to go back to the front page, select the show again and scroll along the episode list. There’s no prev/next episode buttons, no way to return directly to the episode list.
Entering the site from the wrong language URL puts you in a broken login state where you can get to a show but it will error before playing. This happens all the time if I enter the US site recommended by Google instead of the German site (I’m in Germany but my browser is in English). I lost about an hour of my life trying to figure it out.
The vignette effect when you pause/move the mouse is so strong it’s hard to see the content/subtitles behind it. Annoying if you like to gawk at background detail.
On PC it also forgets where you are all the time. The URL doesn’t change for the show you’re watching, so if you close and reopen a browser with a paused video it boots you back to the front page.
Also, the desktop app on macOS is unusable for me without playback speed controls. At least I can hack them in with userscripts on browser.
It hurts me, but I gave up and went back to piracy. I really like Foundation and want to financially support it, but I was taking psychic damage every time I tried to watch it through Apple TV. If I kept paying Apple TV without watching it there, they wouldn’t know I was subscribing for Foundation so my money wouldn’t be going to the right place.
This seems pretty typical for Apple, IMO. The experience is pretty good if you use their services exactly the way they expect you to. As soon as there’s some little wrinkle, though, the whole thing falls apart.
I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but I remember it took me like an hour to make an account on my Apple TV. It kept asking me to use my macOS or iOS device, but I don’t have either one of those. They also changed the iCloud terms at some point and made it so that you had to use your iOS or macOS device to accept the new terms.
Basically, they assume you’re using only their stuff and only doing exactly what they expected with it.
Also, everyone is saying that the TV is the problem, but AFAIK the services provide the apps for the TVs. Why can Netflix make a decent TV app but Apple can’t? Of those two companies, why the hell would Netflix be the one with the better software people?
I’ve had those “some little wrinkle and the whole thing falls apart” moments. The worst thing is googling them and finding huge threads of complaints from years ago. Apple is a powerhouse at building high quality new software, but they never listen to user feedback and fix the old stuff. Sometimes things even gets worse! e.g. the AirPods Gen 1 let you change the double-tap action between Next Track, Previous Track, Play/Pause and Siri. Obviously people have asked for more customization options like Rewind 5s. Of course, AirPods Pro Gen 2 removed options and now you can only choose between Noise Cancellation and Siri. At this rate the next gen will remove touch controls completely and force me to talk Siri 😱.
The TV might be the problem if Samsung cheaped out on the CPU, or has too much bloatware running in the background. It’s infeasible for app makers to test on every TV model and every OS update. It’s easy to see how an update could cause a new type of system lag that hadn’t appeared during testing… That said, I remember Apple TV also didn’t have good options for selecting quality. It’s also pretty plausible that Apple didn’t code it to fall back to a lower quality if the CPU couldn’t keep up.
I’d normally agree and blame the TV. I didn’t pick this TV, but compared to the ShitBox we had before it’s been surprisingly good.
I’m no fan of smart TVs in general, and I expect their life is limited. My TV is as new as the latest game consoles, but admittedly without the same level of update support. Regardless, every other streaming app we use doesn’t have anywhere near the fundamental issues that we’re having with the AppleTV app.
Ok. But it’s not an issue with the app itself. It’s an issue with the app on your TV. It doesn’t have that issue on other Android based smart TVs or tv boxes.
This sounds to me like an issue with the TV. I suspect that the CPU on there just can’t handle the app, for some reason. We’ve got it running on an actual AppleTV box, a Sony TV with Android, and an LG TV running webOS with no issues at all, much less the issues you’ve described. The type of things you’re describing sound similar to what we experienced with an old Roku TV after a few of the apps on it were updated. We’d have random freezes, audio lag, and the loss of timestamp constantly - the whole nine yards. I’d try a TV stick or an actual AppleTV. You’ll probably have a much better experience and the content is well worth it.
TV Apps are so stupid. Two of our TVs can’t watch some Netflix movies either (Bandersnatch or whatever being on of them) because they’re “too old” despite only being a year or two old and despite being released and purchased after these movies/episodes were released. No one in their right mind wants to buy an entirely new TV because some dumb app stops working. What an inane and idiotic idea.
What’s up Blue Steel (Zoolander reference for anyone who doesn’t get it)! Thanks for replying. I expected that something was really off with my experience.
I’d normally agree that the TV is probably the issue, but the thing is every other service we use on it works fine, or at least at an acceptable or minimum expected level. This includes Netflix (Bandersnatch included), Hulu, Amazon Prime Video (some dumb CC language setting issues though), Tubi, Pluto, Twitch, Plex, Sling, Peacock, Vudu, Disney+, Crackle, freevee, YouTube (too many ads yuk), Fubo, RokuTV.
I don’t want to rag on AppleTV so much, but it’s grossly incompetent amongst its “competition” on my relatively new TV. Maybe the content is worth it, but the app sure doesn’t make engagement happen in my house.
Sorry. I realize I’m mostly venting my frustrations and there isn’t a real answer for my issues. FWIW I’ve been struggling my way through an Apple show (Invasion) the last few days and I’m more excited to be done with using AppleTV than what happens in the show and that saddens me.
Yes, I’m running Apple TV app on a pretty new Samsung TV. I don’t know if that is AppleTV+, and I know there is hardware called Apple TV, but we’ve just got an app that shows the apple logo with TV after it. Its confusing.
Thanks for responding. It seems like something is really wrong but there is no way to fix it.
God I wish Apple would’ve named the box and the streaming service significantly different. A lot of people call AppleTV+ “AppleTV”… which is a very different product.
appletv
Hot
This magazine is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.