Is there anyone out there still using an Apple TV 3rd gen?

[moshmike]

I bought my Apple TV 3rd gen around 2012 and, to this day, I use it everyday on my smaller HD tv. Wi-fi died 2 years ago but I started using Ethernet since then. By the way: can the wi-fi module be fixed?

I use it for Netflix, Amazon Prime, CBS Live, iTunes Music and Apple TV+ more or less in that order of importance.

YouTube is sorely missed and I have abandoned all hope that Disney+, Star+ or HBO Max (and Apple Music for that matter) arrive someday. To watch this content I have to airplay from my 2nd iPhone or from my iPad Pro.

And even though it lacks all of the aforementioned channels and it will never have an App Store, I love it to this day. It’s amazing that Apple, after all these years, has pushed some updates every now and then. One of them actually brought Apple TV+ to this device.

I am on the fence of replacing it with the 2022 Apple TV 4K (or a discounted 2021 one) but, honestly, this trusty old machine covers my basic needs because I’m not a gamer and the particular tv it is used on is, as I said, HD.

Will I use it until it finally dies? Will my tv die first? Time will tell!

Share your Apple TV 3 stories! Or am I the only one these days?

 

[Juicy Box]

Apple is still sending the ATV3 the occasional update, IIRC. I think the last one might’ve been last year.

I have owned at least one of every generation of Apple TV.

I still have three or four ATV3s, pretty sure four of them.

Pretty sure that all of them still work, although some of the remotes no longer do.

I was excited about the ATV4 right before it’s launch, bought one launch day, and between the extreme bugginess of tvOS at launch and missing the old UI of the Netflix and YouTube app, my wife and I continued to use one of my ATV3s on my main TV for another 6months, maybe up to a year.

Eventually tvOS started to get more stable, and some pretty good games were added, so we made the swap permanent.

My ATV3s went on my secondary TVs, or let my friends use them. My daughters wanted something more modern so they can use Disney+ and some other apps, but the Apple TV 4K is so expensive that I replaced the ATV3s with Fire TVs.

Eventually, the Fire TVs were replaced with newer ATV4Ks.

I still have the ATV3s in a box somewhere. Not sure if I’m going to use them again.

The thing is, the UI on a lot of the apps still has some features that the modern apps on tvOS and other platforms do not have. Browsing for stuff to watch was so much easier on the Apple TV. The ATV3’s Netflix UI actually had real genres to browse stuff.

As for bugs bite I had occasionally had to do a restart or something, but the ATV3 seem to be relatively bug free for me.

I think if they added Plex and Disney+ too the Apple TV 3, I might consider using it again.

 

[ndouglas]

I think our Apple TV is 1st gen. Not 100% sure. Has the good simple remote before it got all weird with the touchpad area. But it works fine and we enjoy it, for most of the stuff you listed above. Seems like they last a long time.

 

[Boyd01]

I had two and always liked them, but replaced them a few years ago with 4th generation (Apple TV HD) models when I subscribed to Sling because it isn't supported. I actually prefer the simpler, consistently dark interface on the 3rd generation. And I am still using the old remotes instead of the terrible original Siri remote for the AppleTV HD.

 

[AZhappyjack]

I think our Apple TV is 1st gen. Not 100% sure. Has the good simple remote before it got all weird with the touchpad area. But it works fine and we enjoy it, for most of the stuff you listed above. Seems like they last a long time.

The first gen was unique in several ways... it was:

• the only one with a larger footprint (7.7" x 7.7", like the Mac mini)
• the only one with an internal hard drive (options were 40GB and 160GB)
• the only one with component output, in addition to HDMI
• the only one that was not black... it had a brushed aluminum finish and a semi-opaque glass top

Mine still works, and I fire it up occasionally just to see if it still works. Back in the day, I used the component out to capture purchased movies via an Elgato capture device.

I also had a gen 2 and a couple of gen 3 ATVs that I no longer use - haven't checked for updates in years ... have several 4K ATVs now throughout the house.