My spouse and I enjoy the wealth of video content available through various streaming services. We’ve used TiVo since the early 2000s, and are on our second RoKu box.
I just couldn’t get excited about Apple TV. We don’t purchase music or video from Apple, and even Apple TV+ looks sparse and mundane.
But, this week in our isolated household we are both attending a professional conference that was supposed to take place in Atlanta. We have done that in various cities for the past 8 years, and had a blast every time.
We were not looking forward to watching on our screens, even the Retina screen on my MBPro. We have a 50-inch plasma display and a 7.2 channel sound system, but they’d be dark because there was no way to stream the closed video to them.
Then I remembered: AirPlay.
Apple was very helpful in getting me the Apple TV HD box, and I went through the setup. It seemed to take longer than on RoKu, because passwords still had to be “typed” using the touchpad on the remote. Once it was set up, the remote went in a drawer, and I added Apple TV to the activities on a Logitech Harmony remote.
The little black box has been dark until today. With the hurdle to admission being a 4-digit code typed on my MBPro, we were able to see the video content in all its glory on the big screen, and full sound on our large system. It was relatively great! (Greater would have been seeing it live in Atlanta, but that’s not possible or responsible.)
As a content delivery device, I suppose Apple TV works for those who enjoy it. I see no compelling reason to replace our RoKu, and AFAIK it can’t replace TiVo for all the content it’s pulling down and time-shifting for us.
But for this one purpose, it’s a tad expensive but works in that legendary “don’t need an instruction manual” manner for which Apple is famous. I can live with that.