6 ms·

Yep plus when you start to stretch the Fire Stick and a few other products you find a number of issues. For example I've spend probably in the region of 40 hour

Yep plus when you start to stretch the Fire Stick and a few other products you find a number of issues. For example I've spend probably in the region of 40 hours trying to fix issues with Firestick and Echo Studio. When they work well they are excellent value for money products. But then you get a glitch (like audio dropping because of a lack of sync) and it becomes a morass. Hours upon hours and no solution (eventually getting to, we need to send this to our Devs). Apple stuff just works. Not as cheap and maybe not as hackable in some ways but it just works.

jimmaswell 6y ago
I never had a single issue with my roommates' Samsung smart TV (casting or otherwise) besides some buggy apps. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on "just works."
- throw0101a 6y ago
  Great except for the fact that smart TVs connected to the Internet have all sorts of privacy concerns: * https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/01/fbi-smart-tv-security/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/01/fbi-smart-tv-security/ Samsung actually released a TV app to tell you what it's doing: * https://fortune.com/2020/01/18/samsung-smart-tv-data-privacy-hacker/ https://fortune.com/2020/01/18/samsung-smart-tv-data-privacy... Which is nice, in a way, but it'd be better if they just didn't. I'd be much more trusting of Apple TV being connected to the Internet than with a smart TV.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    As a bad alternative. By the smart TVs, add a Pihole to the network. Block port 53 if it isn’t from the Pihole and add an as list like the one below. It seems to work well. https://github.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/blob/master/SmartTV.txt https://github.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/blob/master/Smar...
    - throw0101a 6y ago
      1. I'm not going to tell my parents to get a Pihole. 2. Wait until your smart TV starts using DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) to by-pass it. (Paul Vixie will be proved right eventually IMHO.)
    - bitwize 6y ago
      That is a bad alternative, as in no alternative at all really. I don't want a device that requires me to do network engineering to prevent it from doing things I didn't ask for or want.
- koolba 6y ago
  Just works vs. just works and also uploads screenshots of what you’re watching for ad targeting analysis isn’t much of a contest.
- jeremy_wiebe 6y ago
  Bought a Samsung TV that purports to support Airplay. It works... except for some apps can’t stream to it. Turns out that some apps can only Airplay to official Apple devices and not the Samsung TVs despite marketing. I was planning to neuter the network from my TV and go with an Apple TV anyways, but that sealed the deal.
  - PurpleFoxy 6y ago
    I’m fairly sure that’s DRM getting in the way. I use an open source tool to emulate an airplay target but it won’t work on copyright content.
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  My parents have a Samsung TV and it’s incredibly slow to the point it’s difficult to change the volume. I think they pushed out OS updates that made it slower.

jimmaswell 6y ago

I never had a single issue with my roommates' Samsung smart TV (casting or otherwise) besides some buggy apps. Apple doesn't have a monopoly on "just works."

throw0101a 6y ago
Great except for the fact that smart TVs connected to the Internet have all sorts of privacy concerns: * https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/01/fbi-smart-tv-security/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/12/01/fbi-smart-tv-security/ Samsung actually released a TV app to tell you what it's doing: * https://fortune.com/2020/01/18/samsung-smart-tv-data-privacy-hacker/ https://fortune.com/2020/01/18/samsung-smart-tv-data-privacy... Which is nice, in a way, but it'd be better if they just didn't. I'd be much more trusting of Apple TV being connected to the Internet than with a smart TV.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  As a bad alternative. By the smart TVs, add a Pihole to the network. Block port 53 if it isn’t from the Pihole and add an as list like the one below. It seems to work well. https://github.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/blob/master/SmartTV.txt https://github.com/Perflyst/PiHoleBlocklist/blob/master/Smar...
  - throw0101a 6y ago
    1. I'm not going to tell my parents to get a Pihole. 2. Wait until your smart TV starts using DNS-over-HTTPS (DoH) to by-pass it. (Paul Vixie will be proved right eventually IMHO.)
  - bitwize 6y ago
    That is a bad alternative, as in no alternative at all really. I don't want a device that requires me to do network engineering to prevent it from doing things I didn't ask for or want.
koolba 6y ago
Just works vs. just works and also uploads screenshots of what you’re watching for ad targeting analysis isn’t much of a contest.
jeremy_wiebe 6y ago
Bought a Samsung TV that purports to support Airplay. It works... except for some apps can’t stream to it. Turns out that some apps can only Airplay to official Apple devices and not the Samsung TVs despite marketing. I was planning to neuter the network from my TV and go with an Apple TV anyways, but that sealed the deal.
- PurpleFoxy 6y ago
  I’m fairly sure that’s DRM getting in the way. I use an open source tool to emulate an airplay target but it won’t work on copyright content.
PurpleFoxy 6y ago
My parents have a Samsung TV and it’s incredibly slow to the point it’s difficult to change the volume. I think they pushed out OS updates that made it slower.