{"id":14350,"date":"2016-05-04T13:52:55","date_gmt":"2016-05-04T17:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=14350"},"modified":"2016-05-05T11:00:28","modified_gmt":"2016-05-05T15:00:28","slug":"apple-tv-4-after-six-months","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/04\/apple-tv-4-after-six-months\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple TV 4 After Six Months"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ole Begemann<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The remote looks really nice, and I imagine it works great in Jony Ive’s perfectly-lit, tidy, pure white living room. In real life, it often is a usability disaster[…]<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Navigating the UI via touch works mostly fine, although it does feel imprecise at times. I imagine that a simple four-directional pad would actually work better for most things I frequently do. However, I can see why Apple went with touch because it allows interactions that would be impossible with buttons, like scrubbing.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The default UI animations are slooooooow and block user input while they’re running.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Despite all the problems I mentioned, I really like the new Apple TV and use it almost daily.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Josh Centers<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The problem isn’t a complete lack of apps (there were over 2600 back in December, and likely many more than that now), but a dearth of those that make the Apple TV compelling (see “Apple TV App Store Growing Quickly… In the Wrong Direction?<\/a>,” 11 December 2015). Just about every cable channel that offers a provider-activated streaming app has an entry in the tvOS App Store. But highly anticipated apps such as Amazon Video, Sling TV, and Spotify are nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Apple TV gaming seems to be struggling. Disney recently announced that it’s already dropping support for its Apple TV version of Disney Infinity, saying in a forum post<\/a> […] That’s disturbing news for anyone who shelled out $99.95 for the Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition Starter Pack<\/a> from \nthe Apple Store, which is still on sale! Given that Apple also sells many of the accompanying Disney Infinity action figures, Disney’s abandonment of this app has to be a big blow to the Apple TV team.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

A common lament these days is that Apple promotes big developers while ignoring the little guys. […] That’s if you’re a small fish. If you’re a big developer, you have to worry about Apple competing with your core business! Why should Spotify help boost the new Apple TV with an app when Apple is hoping to drive them out of business with Apple Music? If you’re a content provider, why support the Apple TV, when Apple is likely going to compete against you soon?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Marco Arment<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The new Apple TV is decent, but not great — exactly what I’d say about the Apple Watch, the other new Apple platform launched last year.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

I’d say Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Apple Music all suffer from the same issues facing many Apple products today: […] To summarize it in one word: hubris.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2016-05-04): Lee Bennett<\/a>:<\/p>\n

When writing about TV4, why do people always forget the fact that tapping the four trackpad edges is like the cursor pad they want?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Update (2016-05-05): Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I wasn’t aware of Siri’s language limitations, but so far, the Apple TV has been the best voice control and dictation experience for me. It seems more consistent and reliable than iOS or watchOS, and many of the baffling early-day omissions — lack of App Store or Music search, for instance — have been remedied.<\/p><\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ole Begemann: The remote looks really nice, and I imagine it works great in Jony Ive’s perfectly-lit, tidy, pure white living room. In real life, it often is a usability disaster[…] […] Navigating the UI via touch works mostly fine, although it does feel imprecise at times. I imagine that a simple four-directional pad would […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[661,615,77,418,247,1257,158],"class_list":["post-14350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-amazon-instant-video","tag-apple-tv","tag-design","tag-game","tag-siri","tag-spotify","tag-strategytax"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14350"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14358,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14350\/revisions\/14358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}