Years ago, I cut our TV aerial lead. Not because I was angry at the BBC. But because it was redundant. (The lead, that is – not the BBC. Come at me, BBC haters!) Even in the UK, we were long past the days when broadcasts had to be blasted through the air, captured by an aerial, and squirted along an unnecessarily long cable that weaved its way across the room. Instead, they could be pumped directly into your telly via the magic of the internet. Only our TV was a Samsung, with software designed by a sadist. Hence using an Apple TV instead. I’ve loved every Apple TV I’ve owned – before Lead Snip Day and since – but Apple doesn’t seem to feel the same way.
To be fair, it’s not like that’s changed. During the Apple TV’s early days, Apple executives would offhandedly refer to it as a “hobby”. Some years, entire WWDC keynotes would go by with Apple seemingly forgetting the Apple TV existed. And when Apple TV+ – the subscription service – arrived, that ‘+’ made all the difference. TV shows! Movies! Broadcast across a range of platforms! Making enough money to buy Tim Cook a volcano lair while he laughs maniacally! All the while, the hardware may as well have been rebranded Apple TV minus one billion.
Kill your television
You might argue: so what? The Apple TV is far from unique! It’s overpriced! It never really fulfilled its potential! At which point… yeah, I’d agree. Software within at least some TVs has improved to the point you no longer want to force whoever approved it to watch every single Peppa Pig on repeat for an entire year as punishment. And if you do still want a streaming box, Amazon, Roku and others make ones that are less wallet-punchy than Apple’s.
Then there’s the gaming thing. Long before the Nintendo Switch arrived, I reasoned Apple had the components for a play-anywhere gaming ecosystem. iPhone. AirPlay. Apple TV. Job done. Only, it took forever for Apple itself to connect the dots. And by the time it did, no-one cared anymore. Today, it’s relatively trivial to get an iPhone game working on Apple TV, but beyond Apple Arcade hardly anyone bothers. Apple TV could have been a great third-way console – an affordable, consumer-friendly alternative to industry giants. Instead, it’s just kind of nothing in games.
So why do I persevere? Why do I love my Apple TV? Why even now do I await the next upgrade to join the succession of little black boxes that I’ve plugged into our TV?
Stay glued to your TV set
Because, despite the shortcomings, it’s just really nice. Which I’m aware is such a lame word. I’m not arguing Apple TV is amazing, groundbreaking, or fnarklephlometic. That is, so mind-bogglingly great it defies ordinary language, meaning your brain temporarily forgets vocabulary and makes up an entirely new superlative. It’s just really… nice.
My Apple TV screensaver is an iCloud Photo album and so when the device is idle, photos of family drift lazily up the screen. It’s silent. It’s easy to use. It integrates flawlessly with Apple Music. There are superb apps like Infuse. Sometimes, it even works properly as a Home hub.
But all too often, Apple and others pay it scant regard. Gaming. tvOS updates. Heck, even BBC iPlayer lacks subtitles on Apple TV. (OK, that aspect of the BBC I do hate.) All of which prompts a sobering thought: sales numbers must be minuscule for all these things to be true, and I must be in a tiny minority.
So I have to wonder: with Apple’s increasing emphasis on services, will its black box one day wink out of existence, leaving its TV ambitions about shows and subscriptions alone? After all, as noted, Apple doesn’t appear to love Apple TV. It long called it a hobby. And the modern hard-nosed Apple feels like a company with no time for such trivialities when there’s money to be made and little time to waste.