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this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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I know a lot of people here reeeeeaaaaalllly hate apple, but, having used many different streaming boxes over the years, I’ve never had a better experience than with my Apple TVs. I have a Gen 4 (Apple TV HD) and a Gen 5 (Apple TV 4K first generation), and they both have worked flawlessly and trouble-free since they day I bought them many years ago. I primarily use them for the Plex app (there are very nice Jellyfin, Kodi, and Emby apps too, chill), and sometimes for some other stuff, all of which they do very well, even the older one, and even still after all these years. tvOS updates have, historically, been pretty essentialist— that being, slim and performant. Old Apple TVs still run great.
YES, for those who don’t like Apple and/or who aren’t totally into the who Apple ecosystem, one won’t get all of the benefits (yet will still get about 90% of them) and one might see friction with some of Apple’s “way of doing things” — especially that fucking annoying remote of theirs - but, all things considered, it does what it does extremely well, and it’s far better and more powerful than its competition IMO (for which you do pay a premium I feel is well worth it). and it is especially good at both protecting your privacy (compared to its competitors) and keeping ads far, far away (except when individual apps insert them, i.e. Hulu or Netflix with ads).
I have had Rokus in several TVs I’ve owned, and… yeah, they were, technically, the closest to the great functionality I came to expect rom my ATVs, but, still, nowhere close. On top of that, my Rokus all wanted all my data and sleazily blasted me ads while making it nearly impossible to disable the ability to disconnect my wifi, disable ads or tracking, etc. The whole device/os seemed designed for data mining first, and showing me media second. ew. the only upside was that the Roku Plex app has one or two interesting UX and UI features the tvOS app didn’t due to some weird programming quirks in SwiftUI and tvOS limitations that didn’t exist in whatever development framework that Roku uses.
I came here to say something similar. I love my AppleTV. Works like a charm and has a no-nonsense interface if you enable the grid Home Screen. No ads. Runs great. It’s perfect.
Even for Apple haters, it’s a pretty decent device. Even for people who hate Apple stuff, you don’t have to have other Apple devices to make great use of an Apple TV. You do have to create an iCloud account in order to sign into it, but you can always use an iTunes account for that purpose.it’s just for the purpose of downloading apps and so forth. No other Apple device or service is required. It really does work great on its own and isolated from any other service or device. However, it does work excellently in concert with other Apple devices, if that is your thing.
AppleTV would be my recommendation for people that want a clean interface with no ads and they don't want to or can't modify an android TV box to a custom launcher. It's just about a perfect experience right out of the box. It's a shame about the shitty remote though.
For people willing to get their hands dirty, androidtv having SmartTubeNext is a killer tool for YouTube and for me gives it the edge.
Just buy one of the 4K’s and it comes with the power button and better remote. Also, the remote isn’t bad if you turn off the swiping and just use the 4-way as a D-pad. You still get its great circular scrolling too.
That has been fixed on the last two models. It now uses a circular d-pad instead of just swiping.
Do you need any other Apple devices to make good use of an Apple TV?
No! Shockingly, this is the one Apple device, even aside from the iPhone, that you really don’t need another Apple device for it to be at nearly it’s maximum usefulness. Yes, more Apple devices do make it more useful, but on its own, it’s at nearly 100% of its usefulness. It does want you to have an iCloud account and register for that, but it doesn’t need to go further than that. All of the regular apps like Hulu or prime video or Netflix or whatever work normally on Apple TV, but they work in an Apple TV sort of way. For the most part, it’s actually much better than another platforms, but it is in Apple TV sort of way. It does take a little getting used to.you can always go into an Apple Store and try it out if that is convenient for you.
Thanks!
sure! I’m happy to answer any of your questions about it.