When Apple released the AppleTV4, I was excited and snapped one right up. It was $150, which was MUCH more than comparable products from Google and Amazon and Roku, but there must have been a reason, right?
- It must support 4k, right?
- Well, um, nope.
- But its from Apple, so I bet it integrates well with their other services like Homekit.
- Um, nope, we had to wait 10 months for that, and its still not great.
- What about iPhone?
- Well the Remote app wasnt compatible for 6 months. Airplay works… usually.
- Can I stream Netflix, Hulu and amazon?
- Two our of three aint bad?
- Well, I sync my keychain to the cloud, so at least I can auto-signin to all my channels.
- Actually, that doesnt work yet. Still waiting for it. Youre going to have to sign into EVERY app one by one. And many of them will make you sign in again and again and again. Oh, also? Xfinity doesnt allow you to sign into many of them. Forget Comedy Central or AMC, for instance. Even though youre paying for them.
- But it can play games!
- Yeah, but game developers are required to support the tiny remote, so most of the games are simple and not very good.
- The remote looks cool.
- It looks cool. In actuality, its the worst thing Apple has ever designed. Its tiny and falls between the couch cushions. its not lit so you lose it int he dark. And its a touch screen, so you pause your show every time you pick it up… and half the time you’ll pick it up backwards.
So yeah. Was that harsh? I don’t HATE the AppleTV. but I don’t love it. And for $150 I should love it. But I cant get rid of it yet, because I have iTunes media to stream, and I can Airplay from my phone and laptop to it. Thats cool. But if they don’t get their act together soon, I’m getting a Roku. I’ll buy a used AppleTv3 on Ebay for short money and that’ll be that.