After all those comments over the years on the Apple TV I probably should chime in on it. First in terms of software it’s everything I’ve wanted. Yes a few features aren’t there yet (Siri for Music, universal search that really works) but it’s what I’ve wanted for years. It’s hard to find a lot of faults in the software honestly.
Here’s the problem. The hardware.
Usually Apple’s pretty solid on hardware. Arguably of late far better on hardware than software. Yet the remote is horrible. Seriously I don’t know a single person who likes it. Every time I pick it up off the couch I accidentally hit the trackpad and do something I don’t want to. In the dark I can’t tell what end is up.
Apple’s fantastic at making attractive hardware. It’s honestly becoming very bad at making good decisions about functionality tradeoffs. Most of the issues you could always debate, such as their underwhelming mouse or the thickness and upgradability of the iMac. Yet this year it seems like things went just a tad too far. The new keyboard is disliked by many for having too slight a throw on the keys.1 The Apple TV remote and the device’s lack of fiber audio out are two big misses.
The fiber audio out2 really affected me. I have a ten year old amp that still works fantastic. I’m not going to spend $400 to get a new one. I spent $50 for a switcher from J-Tech to break out the audio. Unfortunately when I had time to hook it up over Thanksgiving I found that it didn’t work. As of right now all my sound is coming through the crappy speakers in my TV. Which sucks. (I’m a big audio guy for movies – especially the big budget action movies)
While technically not part of the hardware, the inexplicable lack of bluetooth support for keyboards or an iOS Remote app for typing make doing searches painful. To the point I don’t even bother frankly. Which is sad as I did a lot of searching in Netflix and YouTube on the old Apple TV using my phone. People who had used the Apple Watch with the old Apple TV said it was fantastic as well.
I’m hoping that a future update will bring us a revised iOS Remote app though. I just can’t believe Apple forgot that. It seems likely to be part of Apple’s continuing problem of late of taking coders off one project to work on an other. Rumor is the Apple Remote was the pet project of a single developer at Apple. If it was I sure hope someone tells him to start working on it again. Whatever else he is working on won’t have as big an effect IMO.
A somewhat related omission is no good integration between iTunes and the Apple TV. In the early years of the iPhone you used to use iTunes for ordering your apps. There’s no way to do this with the Apple TV. The problem with this is that there’s no way to write reviews or post links either. Hopefully they address this soon as well.3
I got the joystick from Apple.com even though it’s not technically made by Apple. This is the Nimbus Steel Series. Oddly it isn’t available at Amazon which also won’t sell the Apple TV.4
The other disappointment is that Siri search seems to work great with the iTunes Store but doesn’t seem to find my movies that I have in iTunes on my iMac. That’s pretty disappointing. Honestly Siri seemed a great idea for the Apple TV but in practice I never use it simply because of its limitations. As I said I expect that to come with a future update.
I know those criticisms make it seem like I don’t like the device. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I really love it. I wish they’d put more work into it as it does feel a little unfinished. But if I think back at all my wish lists for Apple improving it this is what I wished they’d have done years ago.
There are a few apps I wish were available like the Amazon Video app.5 I’m a bit surprised a lot of popular games aren’t available. I’d love Tiny Wings to be available. Part of me really wants controller-centric games like the Midway Arcade or Atari’s Greatest Hits to be available. I sideloaded Provenance, the SNES emulator, although it doesn’t let you map keys which makes playing some games a real pain. I tried to sideload a Mame emulator but I could never get it to work right.
My overall review is a “Get It.” On the other hand if you only watch Netflix and iTunes stuff, honestly it doesn’t do much the old Apple TV didn’t already do. So you’ll have to decide.
- The old pre-chiclet keyboard by Apple remains one of my favorite keyboards. I wish they’d go back to something like that rather than making us use a laptop keyboard on the desktop with all of the tradeoffs that make sense for laptops but not my iMac. ↩
- The technical term is I think SPDIF. Edit: Dan Frakes corrected me on this. SPDIF is the spec that applies to both electrical and fiber. The fiber optic connection is called Toslink. Obviously this isn’t something I paid too much attention to. I just wish my splitter box had worked. ↩
- I should give my speculation that I think iTunes is not long for this world. That may explain the poor UI for Music and the lack of Apple TV integration. I’d not be shocked to find out at WWDC that it’s finally been split. ↩
- As an aside this seems like a stupid mistake by Amazon. What make the Kindle successful was being available for all platforms. If they keep anything dealing with the Apple TV out they’re only hurting themselves. While Amazon Video is rumored there are also signs they’re intentionally withholding it to boost their own Fire streaming device. They also aren’t selling Guitar Hero or Disney Infinity for the Apple TV. ↩
- Rumored to be coming in a few months although as I mentioned above there are signs going the other direction as well. ↩
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