I’ve now been using my Apple TV for four months. And so far it has been an absolute pleasure. I have previously used the “smart” feature of my Samsung Bluray player. This was okay, but not great and clunky and probably coded using Java or something else clunky.

Apple know how to do UI really well, and at the end of the day, you just want a nice and smooth and easy to use interface when watching TV. I get really grumpy when I see bad UI and for something you use to access and view catch-up TV and other video on demand such as YouTube, it’s all about the apps, number and availability of apps and quality of the apps and since tvOS has been released the Apple TV  now has access to that too.

I’m a big Apple fan (if you hadn’t noticed), and to quote their UK site – https://www.apple.com/uk/tvos/ – “Apple TV keeps getting better and better“. And in my opinion it really does. It’s just great, really great.

Yes you can buy cheaper, but like  all things, sometimes cheaper isn’t always better.

So far I have found a nice app called SlimLibrary which integrates nicely with Logitech Media Server (see HiFi) but I need to do a little bit more work to get that working.

The only negative I can think of at the top of my head is the fact it doesn’t have a dedicated audio out, an optical out, or co-ax  so I can connect it and have a separate input for playing audio on my amp (me getting finicky).  (Edit: in the time I wrote this I did a Google and found the following courtesy of iMore: http://www.imore.com/how-hook-fourth-generation-apple-tv-optical-audio-speakers)

This isn’t an extensive review, but you can find those elsewhere… this is more along the lines of I like it, I think it’s really cool, the remote lasts for 3 months on a single charge and uses the Lightning connector to recharge, and you should get one if you are considering a set top box!

Talking about the remote, the Siri function works really well for selecting what you want and is a really good substitute when typing passwords if you don’t mind saying them out loud. You can also use your iPhone or iPad as a remote which is neat.

Dedications:

Thanks to my girlfriend for this great gift 🙂