The new Apple TV (4th Generation): A good upgrade that will likely become a great one
A few years ago we decided to try an experiment. We disconnected our cable subscription but kept our internet. We bought an Apple TV (3rd generation) and then subscribed to both Hulu and Netflix for a combined total of $16 per month compared to the $80 per month or so we were paying for just the TV portion of our cable bill. My wife and I agreed to try it for 6 to 9 months and then decide how we felt about it. At first, my wife was unsure this was such a good move. She was used to just turning on the TV and channel surfing until she found something she liked. With Apple TV and Hulu, she needed to actually think about what she wanted to watch and go find it. After a few months we both agreed that being able to watch what we want on demand was better. Occasionally we find a show we can't watch because it's not offered but that's rare. The 3rd generation Apple TV made it pretty easy to find TV shows and movies to watch. Yesterday I received the new 4th Generation Apple TV. It's about the same width and depth as the old one but a bit taller and heavier. Setting it up was quite easy. Plug in the HDMI cable for the TV, plug in the power cable and in our case, an ethernet cable since we already have it in room where our TV is anyway. As soon as you plug in the power cord, the Apple TV starts up. There's no on/off button. The software setup was quite easy and in fact made even easier because I have an iPhone. It asked me if I wanted to set it up manually or use my iPhone. I chose the latter and it then asked me to move my iPhone closer to the Apple TV. It was then able to get most of the information it needed from my iPhone to set up my Apple TV. After that, I just answered a few questions and I was ready to go.
The overall user interface of the new Apple TV is similar to the previous one. Anyone who had the old one will have no trouble with the new one. The first important difference is that all possible channels are no longer listed on the main menu screen. Instead there's an app store where channels are treated like apps. You find one, select it and if you want to install it, select the Install button with the included Apple TV remote. I actually like this because there are several channels I never watch so having only the channels I care about on the main menu is a plus. The new Apple TV can run apps made for it. They are basically iOS apps that have been slightly altered to target the Apple TV. I didn't think this would be all that useful but after downloading a few games (which is about all there is at the moment), I discovered that it is actually kind of fun to play them on our big 50" TV. The new Apple TV comes in two versions, one with 32GB of storage ($149USD) and the other with 64GB ($199USD). It cannot be upgraded and I don't like to run out of storage so I bought the bigger one. The storage appears to be primary used for apps. However, I wonder if it's also used to store video from the show you are streaming (from Netflix for example). More on this later.
The new Apple TV remote is completely different from the old one. It's got a touch-enabled area at the top that makes skimming through items on the screen a lot easier. This is also used for those times when you need to input text. On the old Apple TV, it was a slow process of clicking buttons to move the cursor from character to character. With this new remote, the characters are listed horizontally and you just slide your finger across the touch pad on the remote to find a character then tap it to select and enter it. It's much faster than the old Apple TV. However, I found myself wondering why I can't use the keyboard on my iPhone for text entry. Something tells me that a new version of the Apple Remote app is likely in the works to do just that.
The new remote also has Siri integration. There's a microphone button you press and hold to activate Siri. You can then give it commands like "Show me films with Tom Cruise" or "Show me the last episode of The Simpsons". If you missed what someone just said, you can even asked Siri, "What did he just say?" and it will rewind the video a few seconds and turn on closed captions. That's pretty slick. Unfortunately, the Siri searching is not quite complete. As of today, it only works with iTunes, Netflix and Hulu. In the case of Hulu, it's not complete. It couldn't find the Korean drama my wife and I were watching. Apple has said that more channels will support Siri as time goes on. My guess is that Hulu will provide better support in the future as well. I have a friend that works at Hulu so I will be getting on him about that. :) The old remote used infrared and I was reminded of this every time I went to use it just as someone was passing in between me and the Apple TV. The new remote is bluetooth so you no longer have that problem. The old remote didn't need to be charged nor do I ever remember replacing its battery. The new remote apparently does need to be charged occasionally. Apple includes a cable for charging it. I'm told that when the battery is low, the Apple TV interface will let me know. We will see how long it lasts between charges. I don't see this as a big deal if it's not more than once every few weeks. There is an included Search app that does seem to search a lot more content including Hulu's Korean dramas so that really makes me wonder why Siri can't find them. It could just be a bug. I'm sure there will be an update to the Apple TV software soon. No, you can't use Siri for text input either which is a bummer. Skimming with the new the new remote is a lot nicer than with the old one. We were watching last night when we wanted to go back a few seconds to review a particular scene. With the old Apple TV this was difficult. I often found that I would think I had gone back far enough only find out that I didn't. Almost every time I did this I got frustrated to the point of giving up. The touch pad on the new remote makes it easy to skim by sliding your finger and the live preview lets you know exactly where you are. This is a huge improvement over the old Apple TV. Volume Control - The remote has volume controls as well and can learn to control the volume through your TV or stereo receiver. I have had plenty of learning remotes over the years. They tend to learn in one of two ways:
Hold the remotes end to end and push the same button on each at the same time. This is the most common way.
The Harmony Remote is much better at this. You create an account on their website then tell them what hardware you have and how you have it configured. It then downloads a file to your computer which you upload into the remote. This is easier than holding remotes end to end and pushing buttons one by one. Still, I can see a person not entirely comfortable with technology being overwhelmed by this.
As you can imagine I was genuinely curious as to how Apple would accomplish this. Well, in true Apple style, they figured out how it really should be done. In the Settings app, you choose Devices and Remotes and then choose Add Device. The screen then asks you to hold the volume up button on the other remote until the progress bar on the screen fills completely. This takes about 1 second. Then it asks you to do the same for the volume down button. That's it. You're done. This was by far the easiest remote programming I've ever seen. Streaming appears to work better on the new Apple TV. I say this from what is certainly quite limited experience since we have only had it for a single day. However, often when watching Netflix, even with our lightning fast internet connection (900Mbps down), it still sometimes stalls while loading up more of the show. Last night, this didn't happen once. I wonder if some of that storage is used for the portion of the video you haven't yet watched. In conclusion, this new Apple TV is a very nice upgrade from the 3rd generation model. It was very easy to set up, the interface is more well though out, text input is easier though iPhone integration would make it so much better, and it's nice to be able to play games. The Siri integration is OK at this point but I'm betting that once it's more thoroughly integrated into the channels it will be the primary way people get to the content they are looking for. Siri is really the game changer for the new Apple TV or at least it will be soon.