Is Apple Tv Worth It?

With Apple TV you’ll get the most capable most polished streaming box ever made, but it might not be worth it for some people especially if you are not on the Apple Ecosystem. The potential is there and hopefully Apple will realize its potential in the near future, but for now, it remains one of Apple’s “hobby”.

I’ve own a Sharp Android TV, Sony Smart TV (with Sony own system) and an Apple TV. My dad own a Samsung Smart TV (which I help setup and troubleshoot).

The Apple TV does not give me any problems, it smoothly scrolls. The UI could use a little work as ‘Menu’ and ‘TV’ icon is not really as intuitive as ‘Back’ and ‘Home’ on Android TV. I still got confused with Apple TV buttons despite of using it for over a year. I also feel Apple is trying too hard to push for Apple TV+ since every time you press ‘Menu’ to get out of the App, it goes to Apple TV+ instead of Home screen. Other than that, Apple TV scrolls better than Android.

You can expect on the Android TV that one of the apps will crash and restart and the Android TV itself will rebooted when waking up from sleep. I’ve been using tvOS for years and never once I feel I need to reboot the Apple TV.

The better thing about Apple TV is the integration with Apple ecosystem. If you have Music subscription or Arcade subscription, there’s more content that you can use on Apple TV. Unfortunately, we don’t get Apple apps on android due to their own platform strategy. Apple TV+ is a decent addition although it won’t replace or competitive enough against Netflix or Disney+. Other than that, in terms of apps or content, there is not much difference between this or Android TV. Most major apps are available on Android and Apple TV.

apple tv remote — Apple TV remote. The worst thing Apple had ever made.

The main thing that I would change on the Apple TV is that small, stupid remote. I can’t tell you how many times I pick that thing up and it is pointing at the wrong direction. Furthermore, it does not feel right holding it because it is so thin. And because it is so thin, you will slip it on the cracks of the sofa that you are sitting. The good thing is you can control Apple TV using your iPhone instead of that stupid remote. The good thing about Apple TV that it can wake up your TV using HDMI so you don’t have to look for the TV remote just to turn the TV on.

apple tv input screen — Text input screen. The most annoying thing is to swing left and right to get the letters you want.

android tv input screen — Andriod TV has better text input screen, but somehow Apple can’t copy this?

Another thing i would change is the input screen for the apple tv. it will line up alphabets from A to Z and if your name is Andria, have fun scrolling all the way to the left and right to type your name. I believe the Android input screen is a far superior alternative. Luckily, you can connect your iPhone to the Apple TV and key in your input.

As for Android, sometimes the app will crash (like YouTube) and the TV itself will need to be rebooted. This is the future: rebooting your TV. The problem I see is that the quality can be varied depending on manufacturer. In order to cut cost, the TV manufacturer would just get the cheapest chip to run Android so in the long run when the Android TV gets update, it can barely run the App. Apple TV does not have this problem because it uses quite powerful iPhone chips because it needs to run Apple Arcade. But later, I discovered that people just kept up with good enough than perfection.

The only disadvantage for me is that Apple TV does not support external hard drive although it has the capabilities to do so. Although yes you can setup a shared drive on your mac / windows and get an app to play using streams, but it’s not some normal people would do. Android can support external drive but it will format that drive on first use to fingerprint it and only supports FAT32 format. I suspect Apple TV can support NTFS file system like their iOS cousin but just flat out refuse to do so.

In my opinion, Apple TV is worth it if :-

Your TV is not a smart TV. Although right now, most if not all higher end tv are smart TV. It is the best streaming box out in the market although it is at premium price.
You are in the Apple ecosystem and you love to listen to music on your Apple Music subscription and Apple Arcade
Your built-in Android TV Smart TV os is very buggy.

Apple TV is the best streaming box and smart TV OS in the world, but Android is just good enough for everybody.

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