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.
ATV is the only box I recommend. I’m anti-Google, don’t trust Amazon (and now their service is going to do ads on a paid Prime membership), and Roku has major privacy issues at least in the past. Curious why you’re seeking an alternative to Apple.
I’m curious why you would trust Apple and not the others you have listed. All of them will do literally anything to just earn more money and exploit you as much as possible.
I mean, neither of you is wrong. On user privacy, Apple is probably the least worst of the big providers. At the same time their business model is to lock in users to their platform and hardware. “Once you’ve gone Mac you’re not going back” is the result of a deliberate design choice on Apple’s part.
Sounds to me like OP is aiming to bypass the entire corporate cloud service mess by going self-sufficient via FLOSS?
Apple is a hardware company first, not an advertising and services company like Google and Roku, and not a literal massive online retailer like Amazon.
Apple TV is the only one that doesn’t have ads on its home screen. I use an Apple TV to play all my physical media that has been ripped to mov and re-encoded with handbrake
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.
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.)
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?
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)
Thank you for the comment. I should’ve provided more context in the original post. Without getting too deep, I’m starting to reconsider my personal views on privacy, content ownership (vs. streaming), where / how I spend my money, etc.
I’m in the Apple ecosystem but wondering if going back to open source, purchased media (music, movies, etc.), donating to projects, etc. is “better”. Which is highly subjective and personal, of course.
The reason for the question was to see what other folks may be doing.
If privacy is the concern, you should really read the breakdown from Mozilla someone shared. Can’t miss it, large wall of text in this thread. Apple ecosystem is much better than others in the privacy department. The other players are much worse when it comes to personal data collection and selling.
Yup, I did go down the rabbit hole and read the links and stuff. Interesting reading and something to consider. I guess it’s back to a non-networked DVD/Blu-Ray player and get stuff from the local library or Craigslist :)
I ran an Apple TV in the living room for a long time to access my Plex server and whatever subscription my wife has this month. As time went on it got more and more glitchy until it came to the point where I had to power cycle the thing every few days. Replaced it with a cheap fire stick, annoyed the crap out of me. Replaced that with a cheap Roku, it was only slightly better than the shitty firestick.
My wife got me the NVIDIA shield pro for Christmas this year, and I picked up the p2920 controller for it. My god this thing is awesome - not only is it the best tv box I’ve ever used, I can use moonlight to play games on my rig or GeForce now to stream games. I highly recommend this thing
Roku really should not sell most of their cheapest options, they’re very bad, while the top of the line Rokus are very solid.
Roku, Playstation, Xbox, streaming device from ISP (like the device from comcast), Fire stick, and I’m sure there are many more. They all do what you’re looking for.
Nvidia Shield Pro with the default launcher disabled & replaced, Plex server. I’m pulling the unused apple TV out of the media setup this week.
I’ve never used an Apple TV, but my smart TV is a Roku and it does most of the things you’ve described. I use Crunchyroll and Tubi and a few other streaming apps including Apple’s. I use Prime Music and it has like 99% of the albums I want to listen to. Obviously it doesn’t have Apple Arcade, but I mostly just play games on my phone anyway. I even put a Roku box on an old CRT TV that I use sometimes for watching older shows in SD format lol! I don’t know if this is the type of answer you were looking for but I hope it’s helpful.
As does my fire stick, and even my Vizio smart TV … all except the Apple Arcade
I’ve bent thinking about moving in the other direction. I try to avoid privacy abuse of the SmartTV and Fire Stick is being enshittified, so what should I use? AppleTV seems interesting to try plus games may be fun
