So yeah, the guy who practically -never- watches TV, finally broke down and bought a newer AppleTV 4k to replace my gen3 AppleTV.
I held off buying new, since I don’t really watch TV, I don’t really use it “that much”, however with winter kicking in I’ve been finding myself watching more Youtube vids, and with a new Pluralsight subscription thanks to a black friday deal, wanting to watch some courses.
While the 3rd gen AppleTV can do all this, it wasn’t the best experience, and Pluralsight required using airplay from my phone, which also kills my battery and ties up my phone.
So why did I upgrade? Number one reason was really that on the newer 4th gen and 4k Apple TVs, you can now install apps, similar to same apps you get for your iPhone or iPad. Pluralsight had it’s own app, amongst a few others that means I can access the few things I actually watch a little easier than fiddling with my phone, airplaying to the AppleTV, then hoping someone doesn’t call me.
Another big reason I held off, was that on the 3rd gen AppleTV, accessing content stored on my PC outside of the Apple ecosystem was painful. While it can certainly be done, it wasn’t great, and required fiddling with iTunes to share that content. One KILLER upgrade on the newer ATVs, is the fact that you can install VLC for AppleTV on them, and VLC allows you to browse your network via a variety of means, such as standard SMB files shares, DLNA, network streaming and more. This makes the AppleTV less of a “walled garden” and finally opens it up to really be a one-size-fits-all living room media player.
So far, with the minimal amount of time I’ve had to set it up and work with it, its been awesome and a million times better than the third generation. Unconverted GoPro videos play smoothly, it can find and access anything I throw at it thanks to VLC, I got apps for Udemy and Pluralsight so I can take courses in the comfort of the living room, and streaming home movies in all sorts of formats seems to work fine.
One gotcha I did run into, is it seems to be stuck on IOS 12.x. I tried a variety of things to get it to update, and doing a little research tells me this is a fairly common problem. That’s not very Apple-like! (I did buy this to be relatively hassle-free after all). Anyway after a few reboots it still wouldn’t update, but I will try again tonight and see if I can get it up to IOS 13, which should introduce newer/better ways to be able to switch user accounts.
The other thing I haven’t messed with it yet, is the ability for the ATV to control devices via HDMI and/or infrared. I’m really hoping I can use my iphone to fire up the living room stereo and able to listen to music without actually having to go into the room and turn it all on. Stay tuned on a further update!
If you’re still rocking a Gen3 AppleTV or older, I definitely recommend considering an update to the AppleTV 4k, even if you don’t have a 4k TV. I wish I did it sooner!