Hi and hope all are well today. First, thanks in advance for any / all responses. Second, apologies if this isn’t the best place to ask this question.
I’m curious if anyone, has moved completely from using an AppleTV to something else. Current use case for the ATV is a few streaming apps (Crunchyroll / HiDive, Tubi, etc.) and Apple Arcade (a few casual games).
If you did completely switch, what did you decide on using? Did you go back to buying movies / using a DVD/Blu-Ray player, setup a mini PC and stream from websites / rip music and movies, use a gaming console instead, etc.?
Exploring options and entertaining thoughts for right now. Again, thanks and have a good day / evening.
Edit - 2024/01/01 - Just wanted to thank everyone for the lively discussion and resources (links, recommendations, etc.) related to my question.
Their box UI is poor, typing sucks and you can’t just close an app or turn off the box. It is a really annoying piece of tech to use.
Who is typing on an Apple TV? The microphone works really well, and is designed to be the primary choice for searching.
I dislike voice search and how would I use the mic for websites, emails, logins and passwords?
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted to hell. The Apple TV ui used to be really nice, but when they launched Apple TV+, it turned into this garbage interface that’s terrible to navigate with an absolute garbage remote that took them years to fix (butterfly keyboard anyone?)
(I say this as an Apple user.)
This is the remote that replaced the hot garbage touch panel remote.
Before tv+, the Apple TV was a platform with apps for the services you wanted to use. It was simple and intuitive. Want to watch Netflix, open the Netflix app.
Then with tv+ they turned the whole thing into this inception bullshit. Sure you still have apps, but you also have tv plus with apps inside the app and obfuscation as to what’s watchable and what isn’t without subscribing to whatever rando service.
I used to love Apple TV. It just worked. For reasons unrelated, around four years ago we switched to Roku. Well, now, on our tcl Roku tv, which is only four years old, the Roku software runs like hot garbage.
We still have an Apple TV, (4K, dunno which one exactly, but around 6 years old). So instead of buying a whole new tv, which other than Roku’s garbage software, is a perfectly functional tv, I decided to hook up the Apple TV.
I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of using that trash touch panel remote that came with it, but was kinda excited to get back to the clean ui that I remembered.
That’s when I discovered all this inception bullshit. And Apple’s new inability to recognize that I’m logged in to my Apple/iCloud account on the Apple TV device. It kept prompting me to log in every five minutes or so, but then when affirming I want to log in, it would tell me I can’t log in, EVEN THOUGH I WAS LOGGED IN ON THE APPLE TV.
After 20 minutes of that bullshit I tossed the Apple TV back in the box it came from and installed Kodi on a raspberry pi. That’s my new smart tv box.
You close apps by double tapping the TV/control button then swipe up, similar to other iOS devices. It’s rarely necessary but super easy.
You turn the Apple TV off by tapping the TV/control button and selecting power off.
Typing sucks on all remotes but having an iPhone nearby allows you to use the phone’s keyboard.
Huh? Use the remote app on your phone. It automatically pops up like a notification when there’s a text box on the screen. So easy. You can turn the box off by holding the power button for a few seconds. To close apps, you double tap the TV button and then it’s an iOS like interface that you scroll over and swipe up on the ones you want to close.
The UI is very minimal and the same across most all apps, so it’s easy to learn and use. It may be missing some power features, but most things are accessed via clicking of just holding.
use the remote app on your phone
Take a second and just let it sink in how fucking stupid that sentence is. Why do I need an application on my phone to use my device efficiently? Why doesn’t the remote have T9-like keys, or voice input? Hell, they invented the click-wheel, come on.
“your new garage door opener uses a pin. since the fob doesn’t have numbers, you just need to unlock your phone and type your pin in that way instead!” would be DOA with the first review. Why is apple getting a pass here?
(I’ve never used the atv, just seen it used by others, and text input wasn’t something they needed)
All remote based typing is awful, T9 included. I can’t speak for everyone, but I can type with swipe gestures on a virtual keyboard via remote faster than I can input T9 text. I’m unaware of any stock remote for a device with a full keyboard. I would argue Apple has text entry perfected at least as well as any other major manufacturer. You have virtual keyboard entry, solid voice-to-text, and it can be configured to push a notification to your iOS device when you enter a search bar which will auto-open to the remote app and pull up the keyboard. Because of this feature passwords can also be autofilled from Keychain to make logins easier.
You may personally prefer T9, but I’ve never seen anyone in the last decade input anything into a TV via T9. And you’re asking why it doesn’t have voice input, when it does. You admit to having never used an Apple TV yourself. I hate the idea of app-only interfaces features, but this isn’t a case like that. Maybe you should understand the features of a product before you call it “fucking stupid”.
I’ve never used the atv
We can tell, because…
Why doesn’t the remote have T9-like keys, or voice input?
It absolutely has voice input.
For passwords, copying and pasting my long, unique, complex passwords from my phone is way easier than any T9 input would ever be.
I have used numerous smart TVs native systems, Google TV boxes, and the NVIDIA Shield. I could not tolerate the UI paradigms or THE FUCKING ADVERTISEMENTS on literally every other system. It is repulsive.
Bonus points to the NVIDIA Shield for being alone it it’s ability to do Atmos from my own media files, though…
