But the kicker here is that the Fire TV actually works. My Apple TV has been plagued by poor performance and repeated crashes—sometimes right in the middle of a show. Every time that’s happened, it’s been faster to switch inputs to my Fire TV and resume the video there than it has been to wait for the Apple TV to finish its glacial restarting process.
I found this really interesting. It’s certainly not a good sign that the Apple TV has such poor performance when watching a program. If it was caused by Dan’s Internet, then the Fire TV wouldn’t work either, but it does. I don’t have many problems with my Apple TV, except when watching the NHL station—that usually sucks really bad.
The 720p edition of Apple TV that we own is barely functional:
I won’t be purchasing another Apple TV unless the next revision is radically different from my current device, and the model which followed it. The Amazon Fire devices look more attractive every day.
Anecdote does not equal data, but I honestly do not have any reboot issues or any of the other issues listed in the comments or this article. I have a 3rd Gen AppleTV. The worst I have is a black screen, but that is a common HDMI problem — not AppleTV’s fault.
My wife and I use it for streaming from her iPod and Windows laptop, my iPhone and iPad and Mac, both via iTunes and various apps (such as Amazon Prime). My biggest gripe is having to sign in to see over-the-air TV shows (at least when aired or view more than 3 or 4) — again, not the fault of AppleTV.
There are other reasons to look at Amazon Fire and Google ChromeCast, but I don’t see reliability as one in my household.
We use ours for streaming from our iMac and sometimes Airplay from an iPhone. Lots of problems with Airplay and inexplicable errors when streaming from the iMac. It’s inconsistent, we can go a couple weeks without a problem and it won’t work reliably for days.
The interface is also maddening. I doubt we will bother purchasing another without some radical improvement.
ESPN started dying midstream fairly frequently in the fall (after the World Cup). I can’t say whether that was an update or Comcast f***ery, but it has been a problem. My biggest complaint would be the lack of Amazon Instant Watch, since I use that (Prime) and Netflix far more than iTunes. It needs some great features to make up for that and it hasn’t even maintained the status quo. AirPlay is so hit and miss that I finally just ran an HDMI cable to my Mac.
And seriously, how are they still running this on iPad 2 hardware? My iPad 2 isn’t useable on iOS 8, so they must be hitting some of those limitations by now. I wonder how many problems would be solved by just using a processor developed in the last four years.
This is becoming like Aperture, the Xserve, and all the other Apple abandonware. Either ship or kill it. At this point you’re selling a sup-par product.
As an Apple fan, at this point I cannot honestly recommend Apple TV over Fire TV.
I also had gotten to a “maddening” level of performance issues with my 3rd gen Apple TV. Most – if not all – of my problems went away when I reset it to factory settings. But I couldn’t even do this from the TV. So I plugged it into the computer just like an iPhone and let iTunes reset it. Apple would say do the same thing if you had same level of performance issues with your other iOS devices. Also agree with everyone else that it’s way past time for a hardware refresh and updated interface. Getting Amazon Prime and now Sling TV content would be a huge improvement also.
TV works for me. The Fire TV UX stinks so bad I put it on the kids’ TV…they don’t know any better. I suppose if the TV was as buggy as some others report I would have a different opinion, but the TV is a much better UX…and that is saying something as the TV UX could use some help.
My Apple TV has been running perfectly for about 3-4 years. I guess I have a good one.
It seems a lot of the complaints about AppleTVs revolve around devices people have had in their homes for a long time. How can anyone talk about spontaneous reboots as major annoyance without admitting that their device is broken and needs to be repaired or replaced? Who cares if the AppleTV has not been redesigned or ‘updated’ recently. Would you stick with old treadless tires just because you’re only offered tires with the same specs as your old tires? If you believe the usable lifespan of the AppleTV you bought was too short, make that complaint. Tossing around ‘reboots’ insinuates that every device out there behaves that way. Your AppleTV is out-of-order. Fix it or replace it. If you decide to replace it with a FireTV, fine. But don’t claim FireTV is superior to an AppleTV when you really just compared FireTV to an out-of-order AppleTV. You might as well claim inline skates are obviously superior to a bicycle because you have to pump air into the bike’s tires multiple times every trip.
Odd. I’ve seen no issues on my 3rd Gen ATV. I only really airplay to it, watch Hulu and Netflix…
I wonder if some of the issues are a fubared update or something. Or of course, it’s channels I don’t use.
Roku works much better than either.
Zero problems with my 3rd gen Apple TV since I bought it when they first came out. No crashes, no freezes, no reboots and perfectly solid streaming from Mac to TV.
Sounds more like all the usual Mac pundits are just looking for an excuse to crap on Apple TV because it isn’t new and shiny any longer.
I think I made the correct choice – MacMini nV320m & 1068, FTW!!!
Maybe the ATV is Apple’s lost hobby? It seems they have lost so much over the years.
While Apple is notoriously focused in its product management, such a wealthy company has no excuse for not at least making sure AppleTV functions flawlessly at its rather basic functions. Eddy Cue is clearly stretched too thin.
Anecdotes are in fact data of some kind. They are just not the best data.
FWIW I’ve owned a 2nd Gen, which I gave to my Sister, and am currently running a 3rd Gen. No problems to report with either unit thus far, the older unit gets daily use, the one here, movie playback from my library on the big screen.
I have satellite internet and it just doesn’t like anything Apple. I can’t get Apple support pages, Mail send issues, iOS downloads take 10 times longer… Luckily I have another internet provider I can switch to but I wonder if a problem similar to mine is affecting some Apple TV users.
Just like all other products that have been massively reworked and revised (ie. Mac Pro) the Apple TV is clearly in that stagnant phase, when Apple is focused on their efforts on what will replace it and will not bother to update it anymore.
That being said, my Apple TV does what I need it to do, almost flawlessly.
For those of us who have had every generation of Apple TV, watching the neglect for several years while leaking market share to the likes of Chromecast, Fire TV, Roku, etc. has been frustrating.
It seems like they adopted this all-or-nothing” strategy and when they didn’t get all of the content providers on board for Steve’s dream to “revolutionize the way we do TV” they just set it aside.
So much could be done with this thing, not the least of which is turning it into a gaming console for those thousands of HD iOS games people are already playing at high res on their iPhones and iPads. Apple is leaving billions just lying on the table and this is the kind of product that will be very difficult to win buyers back once they’ve paid half as much (or less) for a potentially better (in some ways) product whose interface they’ve grown used to using. Hoping they’ve got some amazing iteration in the works because if not, they are basically handing this market to Google and Amazon.
I’m not saying the AppleTV is a perfect product, but we’ve watched dozens of movies and hundreds of episodes of TV without any crashing. I have the occasional quality problem, but it’s usually solved by just exiting and re-opening the stream. And I have more quality problems on the other devices I own.
or maybe Apple broken it? I mean those iOS updates are not always the best and in theory Apple is actually paying attention to iOS, unlike the rest of its ecosystem… and I would guess that many potential buyer will go elsewhere, since Apple has failed to roll out significant updates (for stability, features and hardware) in years… its almost as bad as their Mac Pro and higher end stuff.
..while leaking market share to the likes of Chromecast, Fire TV, Roku, etc”
Honestly, I doubt Apple gives a shit that “marketshare” is being leaked to these dirt cheap devices with very little profit. Google and sell all the chromecasts it wants. Apple will revamp the Apple TV when it has all the puzzle pieces of make something truly worth it. They can only focus on so many things at once. The Apple TV, currently, is mainly meant to extend Apple’s ecosystem to your TV.
I’ve tried all the devices you mentioned (and own a chromecast) and none of them are great. They all have their pros and cons, and at the end of the day I still prefer my Apple TV to anything else.
Mine too…same internet connection. We hardly use out Apple TV anymore….”your miovie will be available for viewing in 17 hours.”
Not had any issues with ours but we do have the Apple router, I wonder if that helps?
Ours works fine. Much of our media is tied to iTunes. Other than that the only thing we use it for is Hulu and Netflix.
And we have have no cable box, so it’s pretty much all that feeds our TV.
Could it be better? Certainly. Looking forward to advancements. For now, it just works.
I have frequent issues with the Watch ABC app crashing. Other channels seem to work fine but the overall speed and smoothness of the FireTV have me using that more than the Apple TV anymore, about the only time it gets used it for ABC or if two people in the house want to watch something different.
My AppleTV just works. Period.
I also have a Roku. It just works.
Let’s drop the “maybe.” Have they or not?