I have a hard time imagining anyone will care, but maybe there's someone out there about to buy an Apple TV who wouldn't mind another review from a possibly unusual perspective. Here's mine over the first weekend.
I have been deeply entrenched in the Apple ecosystem as long as I've been using technology. Today we have iPhones SE and 12 mini, MBAs and MBPs, airpods, watches, airtag, even some airport equipment doing light duty behind the firewall. TLDR - we love Apple products. For whatever reason we've never had an Apple TV. Years ago someone gave me an early Roku streaming stick and I never had any complaints about it, it's just worked. Last week I purchased a launch day ATV 4K, and the experience was rather.. disappointing, even compared to the ancient Roku.
We were really excited for this launch and getting on an ATV with that slick new remote. When it finally arrived and was unboxed, the first thing I noticed was how uncomfortable the remote is in your hand compared the the Roku or anything else. (oh, and the buttons are crooked.) Sharp metal edges and narrow fat design are really the opposite of ergonomic and started to make my hand sore after playing with it too long.. Maybe a case at some point will fix this. I also found the "you're losing it wrong" to be terribly bad optics - adding Find My really was a no brainer. In the same category as removing the accelerometer from the remote. Seeing "Please pair a 1st Generation Siri remote" every other time I try to download an app is almost embarrassing. Speedtest.net wouldn't even install.. What gives? An A12x minimum processor was also really needed for future-proofing, gaming, and... beating the benchmarks of the last model.
At any rate, I installed it with wired ethernet and turned it on. Brought my iPhone near for that signature no-fuss set up and it spun.. and spun, for a minute or two and failed. Tried again - failed with an error code. Rebooted devices and failed again. Lovely. The only way to set it up is log in to my apple ID using the remote. Very unpleasant... why are all the characters in a row??
Either way we're finally rocking and rolling. The touch surface that I was so looking forward to is really unintuitive to say the least. Why can't you go diagonally through a screen of apps? Why can't you scroll quickly with the iPod-esque clickwheel gesture everywhere? The swiping over and over to get anywhere ultimately seems worse than just clicking and tires the hand. And it isn't nearly sensitive enough even on fast. A quick swipe only takes you 2-3 "clicks" worth.
Fun. But let's get to the content. I proceeded to ATV+ to get that free year and it tried to charge me. I've never had a trial before. So now 30 minutes on Apple support to get a code I have to redeem on the iphone finally fixes that. They can't figure out what went wrong.
Almost every app's pairing process takes two attempts. Probably not Apple's fault, but really unpleasant and never something I dealt with on Roku. In fact, all the apps seem a little less baked and have features missing.
Oh I almost forgot! Time to color calibrate! That's a fun unique feature, can't wait to.. oh, nevermind.. your TV does not need to be calibrated. Speaking of the TV, it took several attempts to get the ATV to turn it on and off over HDMI. Once again, never an issue before. Why the heck can't Siri figure out what I mean when I ask to turn off the TV??
The next thing I was really looking forward to was Airplay. While my Roku supposedly supported it I wasn't able to get it to work. I started up a video on my iPhone 12 and airplayed it to the screen. Now, remember the ATV 4K is wired, I have a Ubiquiti WiFi 6 network with the iphone connected at full signal 802.11ax. Speed test on either device maxes out my ISP circuit at 250mbps. The video looked terrible and stuttered discernibly about twice a second. Anything I played did the same. Eventually after some reboots it became more stable, but yikes.. Really disappointed there.
I know that seems like a laundry list, but from a weekend's worth of light usage that's not even all my complaints. I've never had such an infuriating experience with an Apple device, which I feel is impressive after owning scores of them and being heavily biased. Maybe it's broken, who knows. Jury's still out but I'm strongly considering sending this thing back. I really don't see the advantage of a $180 box over the other streaming sticks that are a fraction of the cost. This has not been the Apple experience I know and love. Thanks for reading my rant
I have been deeply entrenched in the Apple ecosystem as long as I've been using technology. Today we have iPhones SE and 12 mini, MBAs and MBPs, airpods, watches, airtag, even some airport equipment doing light duty behind the firewall. TLDR - we love Apple products. For whatever reason we've never had an Apple TV. Years ago someone gave me an early Roku streaming stick and I never had any complaints about it, it's just worked. Last week I purchased a launch day ATV 4K, and the experience was rather.. disappointing, even compared to the ancient Roku.
We were really excited for this launch and getting on an ATV with that slick new remote. When it finally arrived and was unboxed, the first thing I noticed was how uncomfortable the remote is in your hand compared the the Roku or anything else. (oh, and the buttons are crooked.) Sharp metal edges and narrow fat design are really the opposite of ergonomic and started to make my hand sore after playing with it too long.. Maybe a case at some point will fix this. I also found the "you're losing it wrong" to be terribly bad optics - adding Find My really was a no brainer. In the same category as removing the accelerometer from the remote. Seeing "Please pair a 1st Generation Siri remote" every other time I try to download an app is almost embarrassing. Speedtest.net wouldn't even install.. What gives? An A12x minimum processor was also really needed for future-proofing, gaming, and... beating the benchmarks of the last model.
At any rate, I installed it with wired ethernet and turned it on. Brought my iPhone near for that signature no-fuss set up and it spun.. and spun, for a minute or two and failed. Tried again - failed with an error code. Rebooted devices and failed again. Lovely. The only way to set it up is log in to my apple ID using the remote. Very unpleasant... why are all the characters in a row??
Either way we're finally rocking and rolling. The touch surface that I was so looking forward to is really unintuitive to say the least. Why can't you go diagonally through a screen of apps? Why can't you scroll quickly with the iPod-esque clickwheel gesture everywhere? The swiping over and over to get anywhere ultimately seems worse than just clicking and tires the hand. And it isn't nearly sensitive enough even on fast. A quick swipe only takes you 2-3 "clicks" worth.
Fun. But let's get to the content. I proceeded to ATV+ to get that free year and it tried to charge me. I've never had a trial before. So now 30 minutes on Apple support to get a code I have to redeem on the iphone finally fixes that. They can't figure out what went wrong.
Almost every app's pairing process takes two attempts. Probably not Apple's fault, but really unpleasant and never something I dealt with on Roku. In fact, all the apps seem a little less baked and have features missing.
Oh I almost forgot! Time to color calibrate! That's a fun unique feature, can't wait to.. oh, nevermind.. your TV does not need to be calibrated. Speaking of the TV, it took several attempts to get the ATV to turn it on and off over HDMI. Once again, never an issue before. Why the heck can't Siri figure out what I mean when I ask to turn off the TV??
The next thing I was really looking forward to was Airplay. While my Roku supposedly supported it I wasn't able to get it to work. I started up a video on my iPhone 12 and airplayed it to the screen. Now, remember the ATV 4K is wired, I have a Ubiquiti WiFi 6 network with the iphone connected at full signal 802.11ax. Speed test on either device maxes out my ISP circuit at 250mbps. The video looked terrible and stuttered discernibly about twice a second. Anything I played did the same. Eventually after some reboots it became more stable, but yikes.. Really disappointed there.
I know that seems like a laundry list, but from a weekend's worth of light usage that's not even all my complaints. I've never had such an infuriating experience with an Apple device, which I feel is impressive after owning scores of them and being heavily biased. Maybe it's broken, who knows. Jury's still out but I'm strongly considering sending this thing back. I really don't see the advantage of a $180 box over the other streaming sticks that are a fraction of the cost. This has not been the Apple experience I know and love. Thanks for reading my rant
