Apple's refreshed TV streaming device has received rave reviews in the U.S., but having given the new Apple TV a shot, I can safely say that on this side of the border it still needs some work.
The three big additions to Apple TV are universal search, voice control with Siri integration and the ability to play apps on your TV, but it also has a much improved remote.
A real remote
Let's start with that last one, as it might be a good metaphor for the whole product. The original Apple TV had a small, three button and clickwheel remote that only truly excelled at being lost. It was a Chiclet compared to other remotes but worked well enough to navigate the original box.
The new Apple TV remote is bigger, has a bit more heft, six buttons and a top half that works as a trackpad, which is very responsive and makes inputting text less painful than before, though it’s still not that enjoyable.
Hit the remote’s microphone button and you can ask Apple’s Siri to find anything. Siri works well: at one point, my controller froze up, but I was able to open apps with voice commands.
Voice control over rewind and fast forward work well, so you can simply tell it to “Skip ahead 10 minutes.”
The search continues
Being a TV and tech nerd, I am one of the few people in Canada who already has access to the Canadian streaming services Shomi and CraveTV.
This is part of my big problem with Apple TV.
Apple is touting the device’s universal search, which means that it should search for content in all of the apps you have access to.
Unfortunately, right now, in Canada, that only means Netflix and iTunes, and while they both have excellent libraries and are the most popular, there are other options too. You can add apps such as Shomi, CraveTV and Crackle, Sony's free video streaming service, to the Apple TV display, but the device can’t search the content of those apps.
There is likely an update coming to fix this, but for now, if you don't separately check each of those apps, you might be driven to pay for something you already have access to.
I searched Spider-Man. The Apple TV results showed five movies that I could buy on iTunes and a cartoon series. However, those five Spider-Man movies are all available on Shomi, but the search didn’t show those. I'd be angry if I bought them on another service.
Gaming the system
As for games, there are many I had previously bought on iOS that I could download for free on Apple TV.
But even here there are a few problems. Some apps still charge for their upsized TV version. Does Not Commute is a fun — and at least on mobile — free (with in-app purchases) driving game, which I loved on iOS/Android. On Apple TV, Does Not Commute TV costs $3.49. This is clearly being decided by each app developer on a case-by-case basis.
More of an issue is that most phone games just don't really benefit from the big screen. I do think that there is potential Wii-like casual gamer audience that might find some family fun — and the sole exclusive at launch, Harmonix's Beats Sports is a poor Wii Sports clone — but right now, this is another device that has some games, as opposed to a gaming device.
Supersizing the apps
The biggest thing is that apps can now run on your TV, which basically turns it into a giant iPhone or iPad. This could be an excellent thing. If this is a success, and broadcasters and content creators make apps, it could be the stealth à la carte menu of channels and networks that let us pick and choose what we want.
But while Apple is boasting of more than 1,000 apps for the TV, it is an extremely curated experience, showing only a select number of featured apps. Many developers are upset, as there are many apps you will only find by specifically searching for them by name.
Many of the rest of the apps suffer a bit from the smartwatch problem: the apps work but to do anything worthwhile, you'll likely still have to use a phone or computer. The Airbnb app is gorgeous and will have you daydreaming about staying in awesome rentals in other lands, right until you want to book. Then, dig out your phone or a computer.
Now, Apple knows how to build and run app stores, and it is likely only a matter of time before developers come up with some fantastic experiences on this.
The bottom line
There are a number of things that Apple TV does well, and some signs of the intuitiveness the company is known for. It saves passwords so you don’t have to keep inputting, it runs very fast, returning searches within seconds.
I don't really care that the Apple TV doesn't support 4K TV, because there isn't enough content. I'd be more interested in it having some kind of cable pass-through, so I could use it to really control all aspects of my TV.
I am more concerned about the cost — $199 for 32 GB or $269 for 64 GB. That puts it in the more expensive tier of set-top boxes — the previous third generation Apple TV is still available for $90 and the Roku 3, a very good competing streaming box is $100.
While Apple TV will likely get better with upgrades, with its current level of functionality, it isn’t really worth the premium compared to its competitors.
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